Linux audio bug?

Brew · Mar 21st 2019

I play on Linux:

Rising World - 0.9.5.4 (Steam)
2019/03/20 11:37 PM

Linux 4.15.0-46-generic Java: 1.8.0_131 amd64 0.9.5.4_39 -H:4096 -D:3072 (Steam)

After the recent update, I no longer get audio. I see the following in the error log:

FMOD - CREATE STUDIOSYSTEM
FMOD - GET LOWLEVELSYSTEM
(0) Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (IEC958), STEREO, 2, 44100
(1) HDA NVidia Digital Stereo (HDMI 2), STEREO, 2, 44100
______________________________________________________________________

FMOD - SET DRIVER 2
de.jiw.fmod.core.FModException: An invalid parameter was passed to this function.
FMOD - DISABLE SOUND

Looks like it does see the audio output devices, but something goes wrong. In-game, in the audio settings, there is only one choice for "Audio output device", which is "0: NoSound Driver".

Anyone else seen this? Any pointers?

red51 · Mar 21st 2019

Hmm... the game isn't able to initialize with the audio devices (or communicate with them). This either happens if there is a driver issue, or if there is a wrong audio device configured. Make sure to disable all unused audio devices and maybe download and install the latest audio driver.

Brew · Mar 22nd 2019

I'm no expert, but I don't think linux has "drivers" in quite the same way as Windows. It has kernel modules, but I think most of those are built-in, are activated as necessary, and you never install nor deinstall them. The only "driver" I've had to install is the nvidia graphics driver. I tried several other Steam games, and audio works just fine in all of them (Borderlands2, Talos Principle, Dying Light, Torchlight2, etc). It worked fine in Rising World too, up until recently.

The obvious interpretation of the error is that an fmod function was called incorrectly (as opposed to a correctly-called function simply being unable to find an audio device or communicate with it). Wish it described what function it was. I see fmod is a separate commercial audio library (https://fmod.com/), so I don't know how much visibility into it or control over it you have.

Sigh... Rising World just isn't the same without sound...

red51 · Mar 22nd 2019

Oh, yes that's true, sorry for the confusion! It looks like it's not intended to update the audio "drivers" or kernel modules on linux manually (so they only get updated when updating the kernel).
The error indicates that the default audio device could not be initialized. In this case, the game tries to select the next audio device - this happens until a proper device was found, or until an exception is thrown, that's where the invalid parameter comes from (the game tries to initialize a device which does not exist). We will change this behaviour with the next update

However, one thing you could try is opening the config.properties file in the game directory and change audio_driver to 1 (if it is already set to 1 or to a higher number, try 0 instead). Then save the file, and run the game again. Does the audio work now?

Brew · Mar 23rd 2019

Aha, that fixed it! audio_driver was set to 2, and as pasted above, it only finds 2 audio devices numbered 0 and 1. So I set it to 0. So perhaps it started the device search at an invalid device index and never tried starting over at index zero. I had a USB headset plugged in awhile ago, maybe that was index 2. I haven't played in awhile and have since unplugged it.

Audio device selection can change over time, so it seems like it should start the search over from 0, if the current audio_driver setting is invalid.

Thanks for the help

red51 · Mar 23rd 2019

I'm glad to hear it works now It's true that the driver index is never set back to a lower value, even if the audio device no longer exists Thanks for bringing this to our attention, this will be fixed with the next update!

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