What should I do when sound is cracky? I'm using ALSA and I have EPOX 8RDA3x (nForce2). I'm using 2.4.27 kernel and Gentoo.

Are you using the dmix plugin?

No I'm not using dmix.

Alsa driver I'm using is intel8x0

It was just a thought because when I played around with it (using the intel8x0 driver aswell) I got cracky sound when I set the buffer size for the plugin too low.

The sound of Vendetta is always cracky. Read this:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/bugreport

I can hear the crackling noise. But how worse is it. It's not an issue. Could you define "cracky" more?

Sound wss massively cracky for me too.
intel8x0, ALSA.

Solution: Edit your config.ini, change the audiodriver to
AudioDriver=Open Sound System driver
then make sure you have the OSS-emulation-modules loaded
modprobe snd_pcm_oss
and do a
echo "vendetta 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

Sound should be completely non-cracky again :)

One workaround (for now) might be to create an /etc/asound.conf which overrides period_size/periods/buffer_size for the !default device.

We're going to add a buffer size option to try to fix this.

You shouldn't need the "direct" override anymore as we no longer use mmapped sound.

I know that's a massively useless post for u devs, but:
After Windows Ate My Linux (coming soon to a theater near you!), I did a complete reinstall of my Debian (first time since about 5 years), and now the sound is perfectly non-cracky with the ALSA-driver of vendetta.
No idea why. And the old /-partition is completely gone, so I'll guess I'll never find out...

So perhaps you are using a newer alsa-lib? Current version is 1.0.6

http://www.alsa-project.org/

I've now got an nForce 2 motherboard for which intel8x0 was the default audio driver. Just like mikessu, I experienced a huge amount of "crackiness" -- lots of static. I followed Douglas's advice and changed over to OSS, and the static (mostly) went away but the sound quality was comparatively rotten.

I managed to get the nvsound module built and installed, and then VO started sounding good again. So my advice to mikessu is visit the nVidia website, download the platform drivers, and follow their instructions *to the letter*.

Sadly, I don't think there is a decent solution if intel8x0 is the driver you have to use.

> Sound wss massively cracky for me too.
> intel8x0, ALSA.

> Solution: Edit your config.ini, change the audiodriver to
> AudioDriver=Open Sound System driver
> then make sure you have the OSS-emulation-modules loaded
> modprobe snd_pcm_oss
> and do a
> echo "vendetta 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

I had the same problems with the same driver. I was already loading the kernel mod so all that was needed was the configuration file change. Runs real nice now. Gentoo 2.4.26

Many thanks, Douglas!!

"We're going to add a buffer size option to try to fix this."

Is it in latest version? I have a SB Live! 5.1 card, what does support hardware mixing, though it doesn't matter if I use ALSA or OSS - the sound is cracky :(