Ghostbusters Help

How can I upgrade pulseaudio to 7.0 ? I tried adding ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/pulse-testing but its gets me only to 5.0rebootstrapped. Booman I have that option set but I still can't rotate any more. It's really annoying, I would stop playing If I wasn't so hardcore

The problem with the mouse not being properly captured in the game is something I have experienced several times. In all the games where I experienced this issue, running the game in windowed mode always solved the problem. So check the game settings if windowed mode is available, or just try ALT+Enter which is a very common shortcut to switch to windowed mode.

I don't think you'll see PulseAudio 7.0 in Ubuntu anytime soon, maybe the next release or even later. But if your sound was working properly when you edited daemon.conf then you can keep using pulseuaudio. You can also have PA (PulseAudio) installed, and configure applications to use ALSA/dmix, while still being able to control system volume through pulseaudio and it will affect game volume.

If you often switch between headphones and speakers, or other audio devices, then PA is the easiest choice since you can change output device in the fly through pavucontrol (you may need to install it).

If you are interested in keeping PA, but also want to know how to easily make a game use ALSA when needed, I can give a simple explanation on how to do it. It is actually quite simple. You can even modify PlayOnLinux games (and any other game/program) to effectively toggle your system to switch to ALSA/dmix, and then back to PA when exiting the game.

Please do. Thank you.

The game does have windowed mode but the mouse is not locked to the window.

When you have PA installed, it is normally configured so ALSA outputs to PA. This should already be configured in the file /etc/asound.conf and you should not edit this file. However, you can make a config file for your user that will override this behaviour. Personally, I suggest you stick to the default behaviour and only override it when needed.

To override this behaviour and enable the use of ALSA/dmix, create a file in your home folder with the name ".asoundrc"

Every file that start with a . (dot) is hidden, which means you normally don't see it in your file manager. To make hidden files visible, just press CTRL+h and all those files will become visible in your file manager. If you press CTRL+h again it will hide those files again. If there already is a file named .asoundrc in your home folder, please post the contents of that file. Normally there should not be any, but there is always the chance that some distros have things set up in an unusual manner.

When you have created the file .asoundrc, open it with a text editor and type in the following:

Code:

pcm.custom {
    type plug
    slave {
        pcm "dmix:DEVICE_NAME"
    }
}

pcm.!default pcm.custom

You are going to have to make one change to the config. Notice where I have written DEVICE_NAME, you need to change the to the device name that you want to use. To find the available names, just type the following command in your terminal:

Code:

aplay -l

You will see something like this:

Code:

wolf@fang ~ % aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC668 Analog [ALC668 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC668 Digital [ALC668 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

My laptop speakers is card 0, so if I wanted to use my laptop speakers, my device name is PCH, so in my config file I would type:

Code:

pcm "dmix:PCH"

on the fourth line.

If I wanted to use the HDMI for sound, I would instead type:

Code:

pcm "dmix:NVidia"

As soon as this config file is in place, every new program or game you start is going to use ALSA, not PA. But PA should still be able to control the volume of your audio device. However, I would suggest that you only use this config when you need it, so you can rename it to .asoundrc.bak most of the time so it is not in use, and then only rename it back to .asoundrc when you do need it. If you install pavucontrol from the software center, this is a program that will let you change audio output device on the fly, but this only works when you are using PA. I consider this a very useful feature of PA.

You can try this out, and if you are interested, I could help you modify a specific game shortcut for PlayOnLinux that could toggle this config "on" when you start the game, and "off" once you close the game so you would not need to rename the config file manually each time you want to use it.

By creating a file I presume you meant a document (txt file). I did that:
http://i.imgur.com/heQk09V.png
I created it in /home/user (or did I have to make it just in /home ?)
On aplay -l I got:
http://i.imgur.com/ogxxXLB.png?1
I choose Nvidia_1 (I guess thats my sound card and my speakers ?) and so I got:
http://i.imgur.com/DLQAUkD.png
Now when I start any game in wine I should be using ALSA directly ?

Everything looks correct there. Now keep in mind, as long as that file is present, every program you start will use ALSA. So if you want to use PA instead, just rename that file to something else, like ".asoundrc.bak"

Like I said before, you can also customize any program to to "toggle" this you start and exit the program.

Interesting, I still got the staticy/crackling sound. When I removed pulseaudio and played for a bit I saw that the cutscenes had no dialog audio again so I reinstalled it. But now I have the bad sound again. Even though I've set:

Code:

default-fragments = 2
default-fragment-size-msec = 1

Any way to check if the game is using ALSA directly?

Keep in mind then when you edit the file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf you must always remember to restart pulse:

Code:

pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio --start

Can you run a command from terminal just to check that the file is properly named and present? I don't know if Ubuntu's file manager is hiding file extensions, it should not do it but I suppose there is a chance:

Code:

cd ~ && ls -al .asoundrc

You should get a result that looks something like this:

Code:

-rw-r--r-- 1 wolf wolf 94 juni  21 04:54 .asoundrc

Of course, the dates and user ownership will look different, but you should still see something looking like this.

Yeah I have restarted.
From the command I got:

Code:

-rw-r--r-- 1 robot robot 100 Oct  4 11:11 .asoundrc

With that file present, configured like you posted previously, every new program you launch should be using ALSA.

However, regarding the audio stuttering, default-fragments will result in stuttering when set to a low value and the system is under load. But this only affects PulseAudio. I have to admit, I am puzzled why the game seems to run with PA even with the config file in place.

I just did a quick test here on my own system, and once I had the .asoundrc in place then PulseAudio didn't handle new audio streams anymore.

EDIT: One way you can check if the game is using ALSA or PA, make sure you have pavucontrol installed. Start the game, now after you have started the game, launch pavucontrol. It is important that pavucontrol is not running before you launch the game, so make sure it is closed.

Once the game is running, open pavucontrol and select the "Playback" tab. If you see an audio stream there, then PA is handling the audio. If you don't see an audio stream (system sounds will always be present, so you can ignore it) then it means ALSA is handling the audio for the game.

I did that:
http://i.imgur.com/EpAfnmB.png
(with the playonlinux,wine steam and the game open)
What was interesting is that there was another audio stream showing and then quickly dissapearing. I don't know why but it was flickering and it the end it just dissapeared all together. So I place the file in the correct dir - /home/user right?

EDIT:
Managed to get a screenshot with the second one (or third if we include the system sounds one):
http://i.imgur.com/voPVGm7.png

Yes your file is placed correctly, and if the contents are exactly as you posted it earlier then the file is set up correctly, so I am honestly a bit baffled. Yes, /home/user is the correct place. The command I asked you to run earlier would not have given you that output if the file was in the wrong place or incorrectly named. The symbol ~ means the same as /home/user

I'll think a bit about the thing with the config file. However, I got to thinking about the /etc/pulse/daemon.conf file. Are you sure the your lines are not commented? I mean, you didn't just edit the already existing lines that have the ; symbol in front? The ; symbol means the lines are commented out and is not read. I want you to try with only the default-fragment-size-msec = 5 option, just to make sure. Don't forget to restart PA and then give it a try. The other option you edited, default-fragments should, from what I have read, not be set too low as it can cause stuttering, so remove it so the default values are used and give it a try.

The thing is I have great audio for like 10 minutes and then it gets really bad again. I don't know what causes it I do not change anything I just play the game.

Here is a pic of daemon.conf (edited as you said - I think the original value of default-fragments was set to 8 so thats how I left it but I believe with 5 I had better audio:
http://s12.postimg.org/jjhe0u3ot/Screenshot_2015_10_04_15_56_03.png

I will play some more and see if the audio turns bad again.

If it takes 10 minutes, then it definitely makes it more difficult to diagnose it. Last thing I can think of at the moment:

Make sure the config file we talked about is present and configured as it it. Make sure PlayOnLinux is not running, then open a terminal and type:

Code:

pasuspender playonlinux

This will suspend PA until you close PlayOnLinux, which means everything you launch from playonlinux will now be unable to use PA. Don't worry, this does not make any changes to your system, it is a command that just suspends PA as long as the following program is running, in this case PlayOnLinux.

It's not exactly 10 minutes, its just that after some time its getting crackling again and gets worse and worse. Config file is present. I found some really weird fix - when I press escape and go through the menus (objectives,artifacts,upgrades) it fixes itself I go and the audio is fine again. Then after several minutes its bad again. About the command you gave me - so I need to close POL then type in the command and this will suspend PA until I close POL. I don't get it.

EDIT: Also I still can't rotate my character more than a few times before I need to rotate in the other direction so that I can rotate again. Is this from the game or is there a way to fix it?

The command I posted above will launch PlayOnLinux with PA suspended, so naturally enough you can't be running PlayOnLinux before running this command. It will also leave PA suspended for all games you launch from this session of PlayOnLinux. So once you close the PlayOnLinux session that the command opens, PA is no longer suspended. It's just a temporary PA suspend that lasts as long as the program is running. For example, if you were to run "pasuspender vlc" it would suspend PA for that specific vlc window, and any videos you play from it.

About sound getting fixed in game when you go through the menu, this makes it sound more like an issue with this specific game and Wine. This could make it difficult to get it fixed, unless a different wine versions handles it better.

The mouse rotation problem is related to wine. There is one way that might fix it, but it will render your mouse useless in the game for anything else than mouselook. You can give it a try if you'd like, but it might make certain parts of the game impossible if it requires you to move something with the mouse (other than regular mouselook).

Select your game shortcut in PlayOnLinux, and click on "Configure". Now select the "Miscellaneous" tab. On the top you should see the option "Mouse warp override". This can be set to "force". Now keep in mind, this can make the mouse useless for navigating menus and things like that, so I would not call it much of a "fix" but more of a bad workaround. You can try it out and see if it works for this game.

When I do:

Code:

pasuspender playonlinux

I have no audio in the game.

I tried to force the mouse - I couldn't move it in-game.

The fact that you have no audio in game when you use pasuspender proves that ALSA does not seem to work properly on your system. It could be some missing packages or the like, I am not sure.

Hang on, it could simply be missing 32-bit packages if you are running a 64-bit system. It didn't occur to me to think of that until now. Are you running a 64-bit system? And more importantly, what distro are you using and what version.

Linux mint 17.2 64 bit.