Steam Link version 1.1.36

[slouken]

Steam Link for Raspberry Pi has been updated with the following changes:

• Updated to run on the Raspberry Pi 4
  
• Added the device form factor for an upcoming Steamworks API

[slouken]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

any word on the app supporting 5.1 LPCM? or, as per post #12 in the following thread, is this just not doable without a kernel patch and rebuild? https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/6/1743353164095764346/

Yup, it looks like it requires a kernel patch.

[GunnarRoxen]

I'm not expecting miracles as it's only been out a short while but.... does Steam Link 1.136 support the Raspberry Pi4 / Buster (Debian/Raspbian 10)?

Excuse me asking but I am itching to try out streaming the the Pi4 as it's such a cool little computer :)

[Mozgus]

Slouken, will this ever be looked into?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/6/1743355067135099841/

[GunnarRoxen]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

Originally posted by 82DK-A GunnarRoxen:

I'm not expecting miracles as it's only been out a short while but.... does Steam Link 1.136 support the Raspberry Pi4 / Buster (Debian/Raspbian 10)?

Excuse me asking but I am itching to try out streaming the the Pi4 as it's such a cool little computer :)

I have Buster on the 3B+ with the steam link app working fine. the pi 4's hardware is different from the 3's and will not work with the pi 4 at this time. the app either needs to be updated or a pi 4 specific app would be needed. https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/6/1645418448932293413/

yup, i know that. that's why i was asking

[[Bouncy]-|Henky‼|-[TTC]]

Noticed no difference in the audio dropouts, it can still happen every other word in a quest sentence making Witcher 3 essentially unplayable. It was no difference to the point i had to double check it updated to the latest version.

[slouken]

Originally posted by Bouncy-|Henky‼|-TTC:

Noticed no difference in the audio dropouts, it can still happen every other word in a quest sentence making Witcher 3 essentially unplayable. It was no difference to the point i had to double check it updated to the latest version.

Interesting, I'm not seeing that here at all. It sounds like it's in the audio driver, not the stream.

Are you streaming stereo audio?

What Raspberry Pi OS are you running? Is it up to date?

What is your audio hardware configuration?

[Grim Lokason]

I had the same dropout here before, and i didn't noticed one since i've upgraded the kernel and move on full 5.1 surround...

Can you launch : speaker-test -ddefault -s1

Here is what i get on my output :

speaker-test 1.1.3

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 512 to 65536
Period size range from 512 to 65536
Using max buffer size 65536
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 16384
was set buffer_size = 65536
Plug PCM: Hardware PCM card 0 'bcm2835 ALSA' device 0 subdevice 0
Its setup is:
  stream       : PLAYBACK
  access       : RW_INTERLEAVED
  format       : S16_LE
  subformat    : STD
  channels     : 1
  rate         : 48000
  exact rate   : 48000 (48000/1)
  msbits       : 16
  buffer_size  : 65536
  period_size  : 16384
  period_time  : 341333
  tstamp_mode  : NONE
  tstamp_type  : MONOTONIC
  period_step  : 1
  avail_min    : 16384
  period_event : 0
  start_threshold  : 65536
  stop_threshold   : 65536
  silence_threshold: 0
  silence_size : 0
  boundary     : 1073741824
  appl_ptr     : 0
  hw_ptr       : 0

there must be something different in buffer value.

[[Bouncy]-|Henky‼|-[TTC]]

Originally posted by slouken:

Originally posted by Bouncy-|Henky‼|-TTC:

Noticed no difference in the audio dropouts, it can still happen every other word in a quest sentence making Witcher 3 essentially unplayable. It was no difference to the point i had to double check it updated to the latest version.

Interesting, I'm not seeing that here at all. It sounds like it's in the audio driver, not the stream.

Are you streaming stereo audio?

What Raspberry Pi OS are you running? Is it up to date?

What is your audio hardware configuration?

Image used : RetroPie 4.4 (Based on Raspbian Stretch) updated with apt upgrade to the latest Raspbian kernel
My setup is as follows:
(Living Room, Wireless-N Router) Sony KDL-32EX710 running firmware PKG4.118EUL-0108
Wired Built-In : Signal Fair to Good, Only occational audio issues, no signs on the network graph of any issues or drops
Wired USB: Signal Good, Only occational audio issues, no signs on the network graph of any issues or drops
Wireless 2,4GHz : Signal Poor (Rarely) but usually fair to good, Occational audio issues and sometimes screen pausing, noticable on the network graph
Wireless 5GHz : Signal Poor to Fair, Frequent screen freezes and audio issues, noticable on the network graph

The above setup has no external audio equipment, it is a singular HDMI connection to a sterio TV.

!!ALSA Version
!!------------

Driver / Kernel version: k4.19.42-v7+
Library version: 1.1.3
Utilities version: 1.1.3


speaker-test 1.1.3

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 1 channels
Using 16 octaves of pink noise
Rate set to 48000Hz (requested 48000Hz)
Buffer size range from 512 to 65536
Period size range from 512 to 65536
Using max buffer size 65536
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 16384
was set buffer_size = 65536
Plug PCM: Hardware PCM card 0 'bcm2835 ALSA' device 0 subdevice 1
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : RW_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 1
rate : 48000
exact rate : 48000 (48000/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 65536
period_size : 16384
period_time : 341333
tstamp_mode : NONE
tstamp_type : MONOTONIC
period_step : 1
avail_min : 16384
period_event : 0
start_threshold : 65536
stop_threshold : 65536
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 1073741824
appl_ptr : 0
hw_ptr : 0
- Front Left

Alsa Info Script : https://pastebin.com/C1mDJ9MF

The possibly relevant error message shown in the console is :
ALSA: lib pcm.c:8306:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured.

Old topic with my older troubleshoot info : https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/6/1743356517531059287/

Feel free to add me on Steam if you wish to do one on one testing, i got a spare SD-card standing by for any testing we wish to perform.

[slouken]

We just added a patch to SDL that might fix this:
https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/rev/3c4a4b1077cd

Can you grab this build of SDL and drop it in .local/share/SteamLink/lib and see if that fixes the audio dropouts?
http://www.libsdl.org/tmp/pi/libSDL2-2.0.so.0.10.0

[Mozgus]

Well I see slouken bothers to look into some folks' issues. I guess the fact that SteamLink Pi running at the wrong frame rate for everyone is not a big enough issue.

[[Bouncy]-|Henky‼|-[TTC]]

Originally posted by slouken:

We just added a patch to SDL that might fix this:
https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/rev/3c4a4b1077cd

Can you grab this build of SDL and drop it in .local/share/SteamLink/lib and see if that fixes the audio dropouts?
http://www.libsdl.org/tmp/pi/libSDL2-2.0.so.0.10.0

I have tested the build but noticed no difference.
My first test run it happened almost immediately which is rare, the second test run followed the more usual pattern of it happening after a few minutes of play but well within 15 minutes. There was no difference in frequency or intensity of the dropouts and once they start happening they happen very frequently.

[slouken]

Originally posted by Bouncy-|Henky‼|-TTC:

Originally posted by slouken:

We just added a patch to SDL that might fix this:
https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/rev/3c4a4b1077cd

Can you grab this build of SDL and drop it in .local/share/SteamLink/lib and see if that fixes the audio dropouts?
http://www.libsdl.org/tmp/pi/libSDL2-2.0.so.0.10.0

I have tested the build but noticed no difference.
My first test run it happened almost immediately which is rare, the second test run followed the more usual pattern of it happening after a few minutes of play but well within 15 minutes. There was no difference in frequency or intensity of the dropouts and once they start happening they happen very frequently.

Are you seeing ALSA audio dropout messages corresponding to the dropouts you're hearing if you run it from the command line? If you are, then Steam Link isn't feeding the audio data fast enough (maybe the audio rate isn't quite 48K?). If not, then maybe there's an HDMI driver issue?

[slouken]

Originally posted by Mozgus:

Well I see slouken bothers to look into some folks' issues. I guess the fact that SteamLink Pi running at the wrong frame rate for everyone is not a big enough issue.

This is intentional, to let video frames drain when more than one gets queued because of a network hiccough.

However, if you want to override it and experiment with different framerates, you can add the following line to the file ~/.local/share/Valve Corporation/SteamLink/streaming_args.txt
--framerate 60

[Mozgus]

Originally posted by slouken:

Originally posted by Mozgus:

Well I see slouken bothers to look into some folks' issues. I guess the fact that SteamLink Pi running at the wrong frame rate for everyone is not a big enough issue.

This is intentional, to let video frames drain when more than one gets queued because of a network hiccough.

However, if you want to override it and experiment with different framerates, you can add the following line to the file ~/.local/share/Valve Corporation/SteamLink/streaming_args.txt
--framerate 60

I'll happily try that very soon. I'm using a cat7 cable here. There is no network hiccups to worry about. I still don't know why a real steamlink has extremely smooth 59.94fps while the pi app bounces all over.

[[Bouncy]-|Henky‼|-[TTC]]

Originally posted by slouken:

Originally posted by Bouncy-|Henky‼|-TTC:

I have tested the build but noticed no difference.
My first test run it happened almost immediately which is rare, the second test run followed the more usual pattern of it happening after a few minutes of play but well within 15 minutes. There was no difference in frequency or intensity of the dropouts and once they start happening they happen very frequently.

Are you seeing ALSA audio dropout messages corresponding to the dropouts you're hearing if you run it from the command line? If you are, then Steam Link isn't feeding the audio data fast enough (maybe the audio rate isn't quite 48K?). If not, then maybe there's an HDMI driver issue?

Initially i saw these messages on the console, this time i ran Steamlink trough SSH so i could monitor in real time. The buffer underrun seems to happen when i exit the game and the steam link app has to switch between streaming modes. It is unrelated to the audio cutouts that where happening constantly.

A few other things worth mentioning, this problem is limited to the raspberry pi if i stream it simultaniously to other inhome devices only the Pi has the cut-out issues which should eliminate any issue on my host. The issue also survived multiple reinstallations of Windows and happens on different versions of Windows. When the temperature is measured the Pi is roughly 58 degrees when streaming when these issues happen so i am pretty sure this is not a temperature issue as in Kodi it can sometimes get a lot warmer while no dropouts happen.

The audio issues are not happening in most other things i do in the Pi, the exception being a few emulators who have poor performance in general such as Mupen64 or the Dreamcast emulator. Playing multimedia files in Kodi, playing PS1 games or other retro system all goes smoothly. The issue can also happen in Big Picture and in any game i test.

Update: Did more testing to see if other setups are more stable, i installed Pulseaudio as a test and got a new console message but also significantly better audio. The message happens when drop-outs happen, but the dropouts are far shorter and have been a lot fewer.

The error is as follows : INFO: Flushing audio, 60 ms queued, 50 ms maximum, delivery delay = 0