Audio stuttering in many games in Gamescope w/ 6700XT

[rayrayrayraydog]

Describe the bug

I have been using bazzite since before Fedora 39 with this system, and I'm not sure when, but in the last few months the system has developed frequent audio stutters when running games. A number of users with 6700XT's have described similar issues -- in my case the audio just cuts out without any static for just a moment and does so very frequently in many games. Some games are impacted more than others. The stuttering is much more frequent when running games via Gamescope vs. launching them from the desktop. I also run the Kodi Flatpak through Steam in Gamescope and it doesn't ever have any audio stutter.

A few badly impacted games:

• What the Golf
• Crazy Taxi
• PowerWash Simulator

What did you expect to happen?

Audio stuttering should not be an issue with this hardware in these lightweight games. I am using the HDMI audio output of the GPU.
I have tried some fixes from some threads in Discord with no noticeable change:

• Ensure I'm using a proper 4K 2.1 capable HDMI cable. I'm using this but I've tried a few: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09MQLP33J
• Rule out amplifier as the cause -- stutter occurs via directly connected TV speakers and via TC->optical link to amp
• Force Gen4 PCIe in BIOS
• Add PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=50 in each game's startup args in Steam
• Checked /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller and /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save settings (N and 10 respectively). Setting to N and 0 didn't change anything.

Output of rpm-ostree status

root@gameboi:/home/rayray# rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck:latest
                   Digest: sha256:22d963175ca12c3f19e5b6997f2fb7a273dc3451076d3459f950e6e4b3d54561
                  Version: 39.20240302.0 (2024-03-03T02:14:15Z)
          LayeredPackages: fstrcmp libcec libmicrohttpd libnfs lirc-libs monitor-edid pcre-cpp perl-Switch shairplay-libs strace terminator
                           tinyxml x2goserver
                Initramfs: '-I /etc/crypttab /etc/modprobe.d/amdgpu.conf /etc/modprobe.d/deck-blacklist.conf' 

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck:latest
                   Digest: sha256:22d963175ca12c3f19e5b6997f2fb7a273dc3451076d3459f950e6e4b3d54561
                  Version: 39.20240302.0 (2024-03-03T02:14:15Z)
          LayeredPackages: fstrcmp libmicrohttpd libnfs lirc-libs monitor-edid pcre-cpp perl-Switch shairplay-libs strace terminator tinyxml
                           x2goserver
                Initramfs: '-I /etc/crypttab /etc/modprobe.d/amdgpu.conf /etc/modprobe.d/deck-blacklist.conf'

Hardware

System is a custom HTPC running bazzite-deck:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600
• RAM: F4-3200C16D-32GVK G.Skill Ripjaws 16GBx2
• Motherboard: B550M PG Riptide
• Storage: NVMe Intel 670p Series M.2 2280 2TB
• GPU: Sapphire 11306-05-20G Pulse AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT OC
• PCIe Bluetooth Adapter: AX1800 PCI-E WiFi Card MT7921 (wi-fi not in use, only for BT)
• USB-C Network adapter (0bda:8156 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. USB 10/100/1G/2.5G LAN) to avoid issues with integrated NIC

Extra information or context

No response

[rayrayrayraydog]

Update: I found another source online saying that AMD fTPM could be contributing to audio stutter. Tried disabling this with no change.

[AmazingMrBrock]

Also having audio stuttering in the games I'm playing, Dark souls remastered and death stranding.

Bazzite install is fresh on an 3600x/7600xt system.

[rayrayrayraydog]

I tried using a USB sound card instead of the GPU's HDMI audio, and with that there is no stuttering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9H53KD9 So definitely something going on with the GPU / snd_hda_intel module. A solution that doesn't require additional hardware is ideal so I will keep testing this as the system receives updates.

[Akruidenberg]

I have the same problem. With chimeraos, i dont have this issue.

Ryzen 7600
Rx 7800 xt

[nayrxoc]

I also have this issue under any load (games, compute)
cpu: r5 3600
gpu: rx5700
ram: 32gb 3600mhz

[HikariKnight]

Check if it is a scheduler bug
sudo systemctl disable com.system76.Scheduler.service and reboot to reset everything the scheduler has done.
if you still experience stuttering please re-enable the system76-scheduler again (swap out disable with enable --now)

no matter the result though, please report back here. Thanks

[Akruidenberg]

@HikariKnight did some testing, but the problem still exist. The same with system76 disabled.

[KyleGospo]

If you're using HDMI audio, this is unfortunately a known issue with one of the various HDR patches. I suspect this will be resolved shortly with the launch of Fedora 40 and kernel 6.8 and will update this issue as builds of that come online.

[Akruidenberg]

I do playing over hdmi, but not HDR. I have a hdr tv, but it will flickering when enabled.

[rayrayrayraydog]

If you're using HDMI audio, this is unfortunately a known issue with one of the various HDR patches. I suspect this will be resolved shortly with the launch of Fedora 40 and kernel 6.8 and will update this issue as builds of that come online.

I don't play with HDR enabled. Should that matter?

[HikariKnight]

@HikariKnight did some testing, but the problem still exist. The same with system76 disabled.

thanks for testing, i have had some cases where the scheduler was causing some audio issues on my threadripper under some cpu loads so was worth checking :)
Kyle already mentioned the cause though

[nayrxoc]

hey just to check back in on this, I tried doing the system76 idea to no avail and looked around the internet for this issue in pipewire
what fixed it for me was increasing default.clock.min-quantum in pipewire.conf from 64 to 1024 as described in this https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Config-PipeWire#configuration-file-pipewireconf

don't know if this is the same reason as others, but in my instance this helped :3

[rayrayrayraydog]

default.clock.min-quantum

I've searched through all the pipewire.conf files I can find on my system ... they all seem to set this to 1024 already. Where did you update it exactly?

[nayrxoc]

default.clock.min-quantum

I've searched through all the pipewire.conf files I can find on my system ... they all seem to set this to 1024 already. Where did you update it exactly?

the link I sent has instructions for where it is
"The PipeWire configuration template file is located in /usr/share/pipewire/pipewire.conf. You can copy and edit the file to /etc/pipewire/ or ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf"
That file won't exist so you will have to make it, for me I even had to make /.config/pipewire itself

if its already 1024 for you, it may be a separate issue then though

[Akruidenberg]

Strange enough, i have also stutters when using a bluetooth headphone.