Audio skipping and crackling in all applications
System info:
5800x3d
7900xtx
ASUS B550-I
using motherboard audio which reports as "Starship/Matisse HD Audio"
running desktop bazzite:stable image
I'm getting some fairly common (5-10 per minute) audio stuttering in all applications. I can resolve this in games by setting "PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60" in launch options, but I have issues system-wide. There is consistently a skip when pw decides to change the output quantum for a new application, but I also get continual skips in a stable scenario. I can watch the ERR counter in pw-top slowly tick up 3-5 at a time. I'm currently playing Spotify which looks like the attached image and exhibits regular skipping.
Doing a force-quantum 1024 lessens the issues but does not fully prevent them. I imagine if I just keep pushing the quantum higher that will eventually solve the skips, but that's not a great solution obviously.
I've seen some mentions that this could be related to fsync kernel when searching around here. Is there any other known info around these issues?
Solution:Jump to solution
I've managed to resolve all of my issues without changing the pulse latency var or messing with pipewire quantums with a change to the system76 scheduler config. I filed https://github.com/pop-os/system76-scheduler/issues/114 as well because it seems like that isn't quite working as intended, but you could try that fix.
GitHub
Audio underrun issues related to pipewire priority · Issue #114 · p...
I've been seeing a lot of underrun/skipping/crackling issues in pipewire since switching to the system76 scheduler. After playing with quantums and buffer sizes for many hours, I noticed the pi...
3 Replies
using a usb audio device instead of motherboard audio seems to get rid of much, but not all of the skipping
leaving pipewire global quantum config alone but setting pulse.min.quantum=1024/48000 in pipewire-pulse.conf seems to be decent, still need the 60ms override in games to avoid skips when lagging
this seems somewhat better with s76 scheduler disabled, which appears to be doing some bespoke stuff to the pipewire process priorities
I see this issue to steam gaming. 50-100ms delay via hdmi audio output. pulse_lantency_msec option tag solve gaming issue. But need trial error the right number delay. Diff game is different. No idea where's the root fault lies in. Could be pulsesaudio. Or Pipewire? Lego + egpu device. Could be scheduler or nice
Solution
I've managed to resolve all of my issues without changing the pulse latency var or messing with pipewire quantums with a change to the system76 scheduler config. I filed https://github.com/pop-os/system76-scheduler/issues/114 as well because it seems like that isn't quite working as intended, but you could try that fix.
GitHub
Audio underrun issues related to pipewire priority · Issue #114 · p...
I've been seeing a lot of underrun/skipping/crackling issues in pipewire since switching to the system76 scheduler. After playing with quantums and buffer sizes for many hours, I noticed the pi...