Pulseaudio Issues on Linux

[Puerto-Rico]

As of know we have testet steam a hole lot. but one issue we need to fix is the problem with pulseaudio., we have to get the function to chose our own audio output device just like we can i kodi / skype etc

in steam now we are limted to use pulseaudio server and that is not anything worth, because many of us that want to use a steam machine / client with big picture mode in the living room on linux, here we have av recivers to handle the audio, with steam today we are stucked with bad sound fra the pulseaudio server in max 7.1 pcm upmix.

to explan, When audio is a priority in linux we "use passthrou via the graphic "it could be a nvidia card" to stream the exact bits to a reciver, and then the reciver use this stream to handle the sound, we all know the there are som problems with multiple audio streams when you explicet use alsa, i know there could be problems with the audio chat etc. but please considers this, this is one of the biggest reasons we haven't started using steam in the living room.

i know that you can just use pulse audio, but that is not feasible on a machine that is used to stream video / play blueray. beacuse today many use dts ma / dolby HD / atmos this is a limitation on pulse audio. the correct soultion would be for pulseaudi to get at passthrou setting. but for now please lets us use steam with sound that is not horrible.

i have attached a picture from kodi showing the setting that makes it work to stream video's without pulseaudio.

http://i62.tinypic.com/2hmlu8h.jpg

[ironmikkl]

I also would like to be able to stream audio from my linux host without having to use pulseaudio. Right now i don't get audio through to the client because of this and using pulseaudio is not an option since it breaks sound for the rest of my audio setup which has absolutely no issues using alsa directly.

[Puerto-Rico]

since steam dont give a ♥♥♥♥, about fixing its software, i found an almost viable solution run pulseaudio as normal, and run kodi in alsa sinkmode to get propper sound with dts ma / dts atmos - and when you need to use steam you just have to live with pulse, which is fine for the most part, with pcm and dts, as i know no games is using more complex audio formats than dts anyways.

it clearly would be preferable if we could just direct the sound towards alsa instead, since steam os is target as a couch thing it would be the right thing to do since most people in this setup has av recivers that handle the decoding.

But we are clearly working with valvle a firm, where the dev are clearly not given a rats a**

just to take another example - there is still no solution to change the registrant email on a steam account. you can change the notification email but the login email can't be changed!
what is worse is that they wont even transfer all to bought games to another account.

so today i login with an email that i don't use and gets notifications on another.

[wuddih]

steam does not define what audiodevice a games uses. the game does that and the game usually calls system functions and that would be whatever audiomanagement your system uses.

[Puerto-Rico]

@wuddih, in valve games like hl2/cs there is no way to change audio device directly for output, and even if there where that won't help getting sound in the steam client in picturemode. it is possible to set input device in steam client so that the mic works with alsa directly, but the output is not possible as i know of.