Valve Reports Steam Linux Usage Fell Further In March

[Kano]

You must be the only one that can figure out a difference of 1 % in multicore usage - without top this is impossible! PA does not introduce delays in the range somebody mentioned, if that happens then it must be completely wrong configured. Most likely with dmix (which is basically also a software emulation in many cases) - alsa double routing or whatever which is not needed. If you use alsa output for mplayer (or mpv) or other media players instead of pulse then it is your fault - this requires an extra wrapper. Some games ship old versions of openal without pulse support, replace those with a symlink and all is fine. It's not the CPU usage that matters, the functionality matters, you can use pavucontrol and switch input/outputs on the fly, (un-)mute app specific like if you run a game in the background it can be muted easyly. My CPUs are usually idling most of the time, if that costs just 1% why not? Do you think a game needs 100% on all cores? That would be 100% * # cores and thats just very unlikely - usually only 1 thread is maxed out - and thats not because of PA. Learn to use PA instead of making stupid remarks about it! That also means: use pulse output with wine-staging!

[anda_skoa]

All them do the same thing, routes audio from the app towards hardware.

They don't do the same thing, they participate in the whole pipeline, each at a different stage.

Cheers,
_

[juno]

As this is already off-topic, can anyone tell in a few words what alsa and pulseaudio are doing? "sound proxy" doesn't tell me much. Is ALSA comparable to DRM in graphics and PA to X?
Is there hardware support (e.g. for sound card DSPs) in ALSA?
And btw: do graphics cards really have dedicated audio hardware or are they just passing through sound from on-board (mainboard) audio? While we talk about passing through - is bitstream passthrough (DTS, AC3, ...) to a A/V-Receiver possible with PA?

[anda_skoa]

As this is already off-topic, can anyone tell in a few words what alsa and pulseaudio are doing?

ALSA is basically the sound driver architecture, it has different drivers for different audio hardware and exposes the hardware's capabilities to the user space software.

PA is such a user space software, its output goes to one or more ALSA devices.
PA's input are the output of one or more programs, which PA can optionally change (e.g. affect the volume), potentially mix (combine more than one input into one output) and route (send specific output to specific ALSA device).

"sound proxy" doesn't tell me much. Is ALSA comparable to DRM in graphics and PA to X?

I would say so, yes.

Is there hardware support (e.g. for sound card DSPs) in ALSA?

That's is main purpose.

And btw: do graphics cards really have dedicated audio hardware or are they just passing through sound from on-board (mainboard) audio?

I don't think graphics card have audio hardware, that is either on-board or in the form of audio cards.

While we talk about passing through - is bitstream passthrough (DTS, AC3, ...) to a A/V-Receiver possible with PA?

No idea.

Cheers,
_

[Kano]

Nvidia cards with GT200 chip have got built in HDMI Audio codecs, Nvidia series 9 cards used a SPDIF connection for this. I am not fully sure when AMD introduced it, but I think around HD 3000 series. ATI/AMD limited it usually to the HDMI ports, Nvidia allowed all DVI/HDMI ports.

[juno]

thanks

[Cyber Killer]

play something and type top to the terminal. Do you see why pa is shit. Last xfce update was over year ago so xfce is more stable than ubuntu beginner desktop. Ubuntu is slow.

Just tried this... pulseaudio takes 1% of cpu (old Athlon 64X2 4200+ 2x2,6GHz) and ~10MB of ram when running a game that is playing audio (running from steam in KDE, tried 2 different games to be sure). So the only thing that's shit here are your arguments.

Seriously... PA is badly integrated in Debian and derivatives, that's why it causes problems. Ever since I switched to OpenSUSE I never ever had a problem with PA. Do a test install on a small partition and see for yourself.

Plus the benefits it gives:
- software mixer - really needed for many integrated soundcards and for all USB soundcards (e.g. in usb headphones)
- per application sound control
- network streaming
- volume control from in-application (like lowering game sound volume when someone talks on mumble)

[dimko]

I haven't used Skype since 2005, when it was the only VOIP software not blocked by my campus.
My social life does not suffer of anything because of it (it'd be FB for me actually...)


Yes I can, and yes it would be true.

Then you don't have friends, just buddies

[geearf]

Then you don't have friends, just buddies

...

(..)

[Ardje]

I have moved all my gaming from my linux desktop to my alienware steam machine which do not get the survey. So i am at least partly responsible for these declining numbers.Sorry

I have never seen this survey. 10 year steam user... And linux steam user since day one. And I have a zotac nen steam machine. With 16GB RAM and 250GB SSD :-).