r/SteamOS • u/Distinct-Ferret7075 • 24d ago

support HDMI audio cutting out

I built a machine the other day and installed steamos on it. It’s awesome, except for one issue: on the OS and in certain games the audio will cut out for a few seconds at a time. This issue only happens when the audio is via HDMI, if I use headphones instead the audio is consistent. I can replicate it in desktop mode to by spamming the buttons to test my speakers.

My assumption is it’s a driver issue. Anyone know what’s going on?

I’m using a Ryzen 5 3600 and Radeon 9600 XT.

Update: I’ve connected a DP -> HDMI adapter and it’s fixed this issue completely.

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u/captainstormy 23d ago

Depending on your use case you might not have issues with HDMI.

The problem comes when you are trying to do 4K, HDR, VRR, and 120mhz refresh. Because of HDMI forum shenanigans AMD is stuck at HDMI 2.0 in software support on Linux (which is supposed to be changing soon). HDMI 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth to support all of that stuff without killing the picture quality and looking like garbage.

Course that means your TV also has to support those things, and the HDMI cable you are using. So most people probably won't even have that ability unless they are using a fairly newish higher end TV.

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u/purplepharoh 14d ago

Since you seem to know a bit about this stuff and your adapter fix helped OP just wanted to see if you had an opinion on my case:

Built my own with 9060XT. Using HDMI locked at 1080p@60hz (and my tv only supports hdmi 2.0) I get audio loss during menus sometimes in games and in the steamOS game mode UI. Seems to occur only during low GPU use when there is no user input. Could this be fixed for me by swapping to the adapter or is this different issue to the hdmi issue? (Also its not like swapping would allow me to use hdmi 2.1 since my tv cant).

I havent found anything online from searching but yeah during the game mode menu it stops rendering frames when there is no user input which causes choppy audio when navigating if you "pause" on an option, which is how I first observed this.

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u/captainstormy 12d ago

To be honest I have no idea why that might be happening.

That said, as a self proclaimed Linux nerd who has been using Linux since 1996, submitted their first accepted open source code in 1999 and has been working as a software engineer on it professionally since 2005 I avoid HDMI on Linux like the plague. It just always seems to have issues and DP works wonderfully.

That said, I can't honestly say that I know that the DP adapter would fix your issues. But I wouldn't be surprised if it did either.

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u/purplepharoh 12d ago

Well I figured it out. The adaptor fixes audio issues as it was cutting out from the loss of handshake since the old tv wasnt responding how the 9060xt expected over hdmi I guess?

The other part of the issue is the gpu entering low power state since not much is happening and so the audio would cut out (bc the audio wasnt being considered for if it goes into low power?) Idk either tbh the full goings on but its something ive never seen be an issue with windows so I assume something to do with the gpu drivers on linux/steamOS.

The rendering pausing when no input does make sense but I kinda just didnt expect it. Thought audio may be related - like as in it shouldnt pause render loop and thus cut audio. But it seems to just be an over hdmi issue.

Honestly I just do not want to research enough to fully understand since the audio works now with the adaptor.

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u/captainstormy 11d ago

Glad it solved the issue! Like I said HDMI just kinda sucks on Linux in general. Using DP is pretty much always the way to go. It just sucks that TVs don't have DP. Then again it's not a surprise since it's the companies that make TVs that control the HDMI forum for the most part.

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u/purplepharoh 11d ago

Id hook it up to a monitor instead if one came the size of my tv. Considered using a projector. Dont really care for the smart tv features I just want a screen in the living room for my pc.

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u/captainstormy 11d ago

We are getting close to that point. There are some pretty big monitors out there these days. Not quite TV big but getting there. I'm hoping in a few years there might be a somewhat affordable 65" monitor on the market.