Intermittent HDMI audio crackling after boot and during game videos with AVR and 7.1 output

[Pirmin86]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Are you using any gamescope patches or a forked version of gamescope?

• The issue occurs on upstream gamescope without any modifications

Current Behavior

I am experiencing intermittent audio crackling/popping when using HDMI audio with SteamOS.

My system is connected as follows:

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
-> HDMI
-> Arcam AVR21 AV receiver
-> HDMI video passthrough
-> Samsung Q9FN TV

The Arcam AVR21 processes the audio signal and passes the video signal through to the Samsung Q9FN.

SteamOS is configured for 7.1 surround output.

My physical speaker configuration is 5.1.2.

The audio issue behaves as follows:

• Shortly after booting SteamOS, the audio produces occasional crackling/popping sounds.
• The crackling becomes less frequent over time.
• After some time, the audio becomes completely clean and the issue disappears.
• In games, crackling/popping is more noticeable during videos or cutscenes.
• During normal gameplay, the audio is usually clean and the issue is either absent or occurs only very rarely.

The issue appears to be independent of the AVR upmixer mode.

I tested:

• Auro-3D
• DTS Neural:X
• Dolby Surround

The crackling/popping behavior remains the same with all three modes.

Because the behavior occurs independently of the AVR upmixer, the issue does not appear to be specific to one particular upmixing mode.

The problem appears to be related to the SteamOS HDMI audio path, audio initialization after boot, or multichannel PCM output, but I cannot determine the exact cause.

Click to expand

Steps To Reproduce

1. Boot SteamOS normally.

2. Connect the system using the following HDMI chain:

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
-> HDMI
-> Arcam AVR21 AV receiver
-> HDMI video passthrough
-> Samsung Q9FN TV

3. Configure SteamOS audio output to 7.1 surround.

4. Use the Arcam AVR21 with a 5.1.2 speaker configuration.

5. Play audio shortly after booting SteamOS.

6. Observe occasional audio crackling/popping shortly after startup.

7. Continue using the system.

8. Observe that the crackling/popping becomes less frequent over time and eventually disappears completely.

9. Start a game.

10. Observe that crackling/popping can occur more frequently during pre-rendered videos or cutscenes, while normal gameplay audio is usually clean or only rarely affected.

11. Repeat the test using the following AVR upmixing modes:

• Auro-3D
• DTS Neural:X
• Dolby Surround

12. Observe that the audio crackling/popping behavior remains the same regardless of the selected AVR upmixer.

Hardware information

- Distro: SteamOS 3.8 Stable (current Stable version)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
- Driver Version: [unknown]
- AV Receiver: Arcam AVR21
- TV: Samsung Q9FN
- Speaker configuration: 5.1.2
- SteamOS audio output: 7.1 surround

Software information

Additional information:

The HDMI connection is:

RX 9070 XT -> Arcam AVR21 -> Samsung Q9FN

The Arcam AVR21 processes the audio signal and passes the video signal through to the TV.

The issue occurs regardless of the AVR upmixer mode.

Tested AVR processing modes:

- Auro-3D
- DTS Neural:X
- Dolby Surround

The crackling/popping behavior is the same with all three modes.

The most unusual behavior is that the issue is more noticeable shortly after booting SteamOS, gradually becomes less frequent, and eventually disappears completely.

During games, the issue is more noticeable during videos/cutscenes than during normal gameplay.

I can provide additional system information, audio configuration details, logs, or perform additional tests if useful.

Which gamescope backends have the issue you are reporting?

• Wayland (default for nested gamescope)
• DRM (default for embedded gamescope, i.e. gamescope-session)
• SDL
• OpenVR

Logging, screenshots, or anything else

No response