Portal sound doesn't work

anm112 · Post by **anm112** » Mon May 17, 2010 6:04 pm

I recently downloaded Steam and installed the game Portal, but the sound does not work in the game. Sound does sometimes work at startup and at the game menu, but never in the game itself. Can anyone think of a solution to this problem.

Specs:
Ubuntu 10.04
Wine 1.1.42
AMD Athlon X2
Nvidia graphics card

ricsi-pontaz · Post by **ricsi-pontaz** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:01 am

Try to use OSS instead ALSA in Wineconfig. This solved the problem for me.

anm112 · Post by **anm112** » Tue May 18, 2010 3:50 pm

I tried all of the drivers in the "audio" tab, but none of them worked.

When I start the game for the first time after restarting the computer, audio works in the startup screens and the main menu. Once I click "start new game" it cuts off, and I get no sound ever again on startup of the game unless I restart my computer.

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Wed May 19, 2010 3:31 pm

Valve has added a new option for their Source games to pass sound to OpenAL, in case you have sound problems. It's worth a shot, just try passing "-snd_openal" (without quotes) to Portal to use it and see if it solves anything.

anm112 · Post by **anm112** » Wed May 19, 2010 4:26 pm

Someone on another forum said that I should upgrade to the newest wine version, which I did with no positive outcome. I want to try what you said DaVince, but have no idea how to do that. If you could noobify your statement for me I would appreciate it.

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Wed May 19, 2010 5:01 pm

I assume you're running Portal through Steam? Then open the game's properties (right click > properties), click "set launch options" and paste -snd_openal in the box. The game should now try using OpenAL instead of its standard audio system.

Emmental · Post by **Emmental** » Sun May 23, 2010 3:09 am

I've been having the same problem, though I haven't bothered trying a reboot as I've found a way to get the sound to work:

In the Wine config screen, change the Hardware Acceleration setting at the bottom of the audio tab from Full to Emulation. This should work without requiring a reboot.

Occasionally the sound will stutter or stick for a few seconds when starting up and starting a new game but after that it seems mostly OK, with just the occasional stutter. For the record, my sound driver setting in Wine is ALSA.

I didn't need to use the -snd_openal setting to get it to work but using it does seem to reduce stuttering further.

anm112 · Post by **anm112** » Mon May 31, 2010 8:34 pm

Thanks for the help guys. What DaVince said worked perfectly. My frame rate is terrible though, so I have to buy a new GPU anyway.