Re: Sound freezes

=D0=A1=D0=B5=D1=80=D0=B3=D0=B5=D0=B9 posted on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:37:32 =
+0400 as excerpted:

> Hello everybody! When I listen to music using Amarok or Google Chrome
> flash player (didn't try any other players) sometimes sound freezes for
> a second. I have tried changing phonon backend (gstreamer/vlc) and also
> changing kernel parameter CONFIG_SND_HDA_PREALLOC_SIZE from 64 to 2048
> and 4096. Disabling Pulseaudio or using it's older version also didn't
> help.
> Can you please give me a piece of advice about what to do?

On one older system I had, using PCI not the newer PCIE, there was a BIOS=
=20
setting for size of PCI transaction.  I can't remember details such as=20
the exact name of the BIOS setting, but the idea was that this was the=20
largest PCI transaction allowed before it had to give up the bus and let=20
something else have a turn, if there were other things waiting, of=20
course.  The tradeoff was between higher efficiency due to lower overhead=
=20
as more could be done at a time, and higher latency as one task had the=20
bus tied up for longer, keeping others waiting.

After I shortened that, the occasional problems with sound freezes I had=20
on that machine disappeared.  I had tried other things such as increasing=
=20
buffer size, etc, that didn't work, but decreasing the PCI transaction=20
size and thus latency time did.

As for pulseaudio, I'd guess a lot of gentooers don't use it at all,=20
preferring direct alsa, etc.  I know I've never used pulse here.

And for kde's phonon backend, while gstreamer is I believe the current=20
default, I don't have gstreamer installed at all here, but remember that=20
switching from the earlier xine backend to the vlc backend helped quite a=
=20
bit.  However, that's likely to help only for kde apps.  Firefox and=20
chrome of course aren't kde apps, tho amarok is (but tho I switched away=20
from amarok in the early kde4 period, IIRC it can be configured to use=20
either kde's phonon or direct alsa or pulse, so depending on how it's=20
configured it might not be going thru phonon either).

--=20
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman