Cant run ET/RTCW and TS

[VindictivE]

ok, i am currently using an Audigy2 soundcard with the emu10k1 driver. however, when i run TS (which works perfectly fine) i cant seem to run a game simultaneously

an example of this is when i run ET from the console when TS is already loaded. it goes to load ET but freezes on the sound initialization. same thing happens in RTCW.

obviously this is because the device is in use. so, what settings do i need? is this a problem with ALSA or OSS or what?

what device should i tell the TS program to use and what device (if i can) should i tell the game to use?

all comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. thanks

ps, using kernel 2.6.5 on Slackware 9.1

[[DUCK]Butcher]

1. THERE ARE APP. 5000 THREADS ON THAT PROBLEM IN THE FORUMS!

2. It's a problem with ALSA (dunno if it also occurs with OSS - maybe). When an application is claiming the rights to capture/record from your soundcard, ALSA does not allow other applications, which also use the ALSA-interface to startup.
Thats because only ONE application per time can capture/record from your soundcard via ALSA.
All you need to do is: tell ALSA that the application you want to run, does not require capturing!

For ET this would be:
echo "et.x86 0 0 direct" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
echo "et.x86 0 0 disable" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0c/oss

[VindictivE]

first off, i know there are cause i have searched for and found them. only problem was, i couldnt understand the context cause they seemed to depend on previous messages. i searched for the echo trick as well, but was unable to grasp what was going on.

scheisse, didnt mean to start a ruckus :(

also, i typed it in the console, and now i can run ET and TeamSpeak at the same time, however, i dont have any sound in ET at all. any ideas why?

also, thought this might help. here is what it says when i load ET

------- sound initialization ----------
/dev/dsp : Invalid argument
Could not open /dev/dsp
---------------------------------------------

hope that gives some insight as to what is going wrong. there just isnt any sound at all in ET anymore :(

[[DUCK]Butcher]

to me it looks like either you pass et.x86 an invalid argument, or it is unable to open /dev/dsp (for sound-processing).

maybe you have /dev/dsp0? then you have to create a symlink.
or maybe you don't have write access to /dev/dsp?

could be... :confused:

[VindictivE]

well, before i passed the echo cmd's, i had sound in ET. it all worked well, and there is a symlink, and dsp does have write access enabled on it. ill check it again though, just to be sure. ;)

my RTCW sound still works, and i think i know why the ET doesnt work. when i was putting in the echo cmds, i accidentally wrote:

echo "et.x86 0 0 disable" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

and i forgot to change pcm0p to pcm0c. this is probably why it doesnt work. could someone please help me get it back? thanks

[[DUCK]Butcher]

Originally posted by VindictivE
my RTCW sound still works, and i think i know why the ET doesnt work. when i was putting in the echo cmds, i accidentally wrote:

echo "et.x86 0 0 disable" > /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss

and i forgot to change pcm0p to pcm0c. this is probably why it doesnt work. could someone please help me get it back? thanks
1. well, since the file is part of the proc-filesystem (which isn't really a physical filesystem), you just have to reboot and all data will be reset. Meaning you have to echo the lines again into /proc/asound/card0/pcm0?/oss !

2. Why don't you just erase the wrong line in the wrong file and insert the right one in the right file? :D

[VindictivE]

AWESOME, thanks a lot for the help Butcher. just one more question, what is the name of the RTCW x86 window?

ie, Enemy Territory is et.x86
so what is RTCW... rtcw.x86, wolf.x86 ?

[[DUCK]Butcher]

dunno :confused:

the easiest method is the following:
- start the game you wanna know.
- then change to a text-console (via ALT + F1 for example).
- log in (choose a user you want)
- start "top"
- press U and select the user, which started the x-session
- look for the game (it's perhaps the one application, which claims most CPU-power)
- voila, you know the name of the executable ;)

just for your information: echo bla > file OVERWRITES the data in the file - say: you can just set the "playback only" only for one application/game.

try using echo bla >> /proc/.... (2 times > !) - that should work for multiple games i think (since >> means "append to file").

[VindictivE]

thanks a lot man, you have been a great help. i found out the name of the program, and it is wolf.x86 for all those that might need it.

one more thing, if i use two ">" 's , does that make it permanent? is that what you mean?

like, for example:
echo "blah blah" >> /proc....

will that make it permanent or what? sorry, i didnt quite understand what you meant. :(
thanks

[[DUCK]Butcher]

First off: you cannot make data in the proc-filesystem to stay permanent!

echo "blabla" > anyfile
means: OVERWRITE the data in anyfile

echo "blabla" >> anyfile
means: APPEND to the data in anyfile

What i wanna say is: If you want to make multiple entries in _the_ one proc-file, you have to append the data to the file, because you would overwrite the previous entry with 'echo "blabla" > anyfile'.

okey? :D

[VindictivE]

k, gotcha ;)

heh, just started using slack and learned unix about 3 weeks ago. got my video, 2.6.5 kernel, audio, internet, and games working. lol, not too bad :p

thanks for all your help. just one more thing, is there a config file or script or something i can modify so that the echo command is given at startup? that would be the best, then i wouldnt have to type it in each time.

thx

[[DUCK]Butcher]

oh well... why don't you write your own script? :D

... Sry, i don't know cuz i'm using gentoo lnx :p

[VindictivE]

k man, thanks for all your help. ill check it out in my distro's IRC channel. thanks again. ;)