No sound in Steam (new gaming laptop with GPU)

[ultome]

I know this problem is all over the Internet, but even though I tried my best to find a solution online nothing worked so far…

My new laptop is a MSI, with Intel Core i7 and hybrid Intel/Nvidia GPU. I start Steam on the Nvidia GPU manually.

I’ve had trouble with sound after install, here is the (solved) thread relating that. If you’re about to suggest some diagnostic commands, maybe check this post out (20 comments long), the output may be there already (of course I don’t mind running them again!).

Maybe the only relevant information I know is that:

• Steam was installed with Flatpak, and I had Zypper install steam-devices
• I have no “Sound” item in YaST to check my audio in GUI.

Please be kind, I know very little about hardware, drivers, codecs and this kind of things… Thanks!

[hui]

@ultome

Steam was installed with Flatpak, and I had Zypper install steam-devices

Why did you install it as flatpak? Steam is available out of the box and fully functional in openSUSE Non-OSS repo…

@ultome

I have no “Sound” item in YaST to check my audio in GUI.

The sound module was deprecated long time ago as it is no longer required…

[deano_ferrari]

Does this manifest for 32-bit Steam games only? 64-bit games as well? Speculating here, but based on various discussions I’ve read I wonder if this is an SDL2 issue at play?
Does the SDL_AUDIODRIVER environment needs to be set explicitly perhaps? Check as user with…

echo $SDL_AUDIODRIVER

It can be set as per the following reference:

SDL2/FAQUsingSDL

Sharing similar discussions that turned up from a quick search:

No sound when opened through Steam. :: The Long Dark Linux & SteamOS

Steam/proton issues with some games, related to ALSA

Kdenlive crashing - sdl2_audio ] Failed to initialize SDL: Audio target 'pulse' not available"

For LMMS users. LMMS was not happy, instead of starting as usual, it showed me the sound settings screen of LMMS. (after I changed that file) So it “noticed” I had made a change. No real problem because in LMMS its easy to change under settings, if you want to use sdl, pulse audio or alsa. SDL did not work, but setting it to pulse audio did. Setting it to alsa will probably work too.

[deano_ferrari]

As hui already mentioned, try installing/using the steam package from the non-free repo instead.

[ultome]

@hui

Why did you install it as flatpak? Steam is available out of the box and fully functional in openSUSE Non-OSS repo…

@deano_ferrari

As hui already mentioned, try installing/using the steam package from the non-free repo instead.

Now I’m on Steam installed with zypper (actually maybe it was the one I was using since the beginning, but now I’m sure), and still no sound…

@deano_ferrari

echo $SDL_AUDIODRIVER

It wasn’t set, so I ran:

>  aplay -L

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
speexrate
    Rate Converter Plugin Using Speex Resampler
pulse
    PulseAudio Sound Server
upmix
    Plugin for channel upmix (4,6,8)
default
    Default ALSA Output (currently PulseAudio Sound Server)
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0
    HDA NVidia, HDMI 0
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=1
    HDA NVidia, HDMI 1
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=2
    HDA NVidia, HDMI 2
    HDMI Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=3
    HDA NVidia, HDMI 3
    HDMI Audio Output
sysdefault:CARD=sofhdadsp
    sof-hda-dsp, 
    Default Audio Device

…and so I set it to pulseaudio, and then alsa. No luck for either, still no sound.

@deano_ferrari

Does this manifest for 32-bit Steam games only? 64-bit games as well?

I don’t know how to tell the difference… Both are games installed using Proton in compatibility.

@deano_ferrari

No sound when opened through Steam. :: The Long Dark Linux & SteamOS

From the last post on this thread, I tried adding SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulseaudio %command% to “Properties→Launch Options”. It still doesn’t work.

[ultome]

And, from the second link in link:

Available workarounds are to use “-force-glcore42 -force-clamped” for games that don’t need GL 4.3 features or above, or “-force-vulkan” on games need those features.

…doesn’t work either, at least if I understood correctly (I added the flags at the beginning of my launch options).

And finally, I don’t know if this is relevant, but as you can see I try to gather as much information as I can to help you help me…:

>  sudo speaker-test -c 2 -t wav -D plug:default

speaker-test 1.2.10

Playback device is plug:default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
WAV file(s)
ALSA lib pulse.c:242:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

Playback open error: -111,Connection refused

[malcolmlewis]

@ultome Tumbleweed uses Pipewire, suggest you switch to that.

[ultome]

I set it both in my .zshrc and in a game’s Launch Options (in Properties directly in the steam app), but still no sound.

[ultome]

Sorry for the last post… Everything worked (sound and all) when I installed and ran the Flatpak Steam app. But less than 10 minutes later it didn’t work anymore…

I tried every Proton version, on several games, and I just can’t find a pattern: sometimes the games launch but with no sound, and sometimes (most of the time) when I try to play them the Steam Play button goes from “Play” to “Cancel” to “Stop” and back to Play. The games simply won’t launch at all…

If someone’s still willing to help me I’m completely lost, I just can’t find any pattern in what’s happening to be able to look things up online by myself…

[hui]

@ultome

I tried every Proton version, on several games, and I just can’t find a pattern: sometimes the games launch but with no sound, and sometimes (most of the time) when I try to play them the Steam Play button goes from “Play” to “Cancel” to “Stop” and back to Play. The games simply won’t launch at all…

Did you verify that this games are running at all with Proton or did you apply the needed tweaks? For this you need to check https://www.protondb.com/ Many games don’t even run with Proton because they are completely broken because of MS WIndows Anti-Cheat-Rootkits which does not work under linux (luckily!)

Did you check the compatibility settings in Steam to use Proton for all MS Windows games?

I’m playing several games on Steam (GW2, LOTR, Neverwinter, Rift, Shroud of the Avatar, …) and don’t have any sound issues…

[hui]

@ultome

Everything worked (sound and all) when I installed and ran the Flatpak Steam app

This is confusing. In your first post you stated that you had no sound even with the flatpak version?!

[ultome]

@hui

This is confusing. In your first post you stated that you had no sound even with the flatpak version?!

It is as I said (sorry for the confusion):

@ultome

Sorry for the last post… Everything worked (sound and all) when I installed and ran the Flatpak Steam app. But less than 10 minutes later it didn’t work anymore…

[ultome]

I can’t replicate the issue of my original post anymore. The problem is now broader, I have trouble launching games with Steam in general… So I created a new topic, please check it out and see if maybe you can help? Thanks.