OpenAL problem?

[elsenator]

I seem to have a sound problem of some sort. It complains about a missing dsp device node. But isn't that used only by OSS? I don't have that node.

This is the error message i get:

which: no chcon in (/usr/kde/3.5/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/opt/bin:/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.1.1:/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.1.1:/opt/blackdown-jdk-1.4.2.03/bin:/opt/blackdown-jdk-1.4.2.03/jre/bin:/usr/kde/3.5/bin:/usr/qt/3/bin:/usr/games/bin)
open /dev/[sound/]dsp: No such file or directory
./penumbra: line 9: 7838 Segmentation fault ./penumbra.bin "$@"
Penumbra exited unexpectedly, please check
/home/senator/.frictionalgames/Penumbra Overture/Episode1/hpl.log
for any error messages
Also try running
ulimit -c unlimited
And re-running Penumbra and try and recreate the error
then submit the generated core file or stack trace

And this is the last part of the log file:

...
Renderer3D created
Creating screen buffers size 800.000000 : 600.000000
Creating programs
RendererPostEffects created
Adding engine materials
--------------------------------------------------------

Initializing Sound Module
--------------------------------------------------------
Initializing OpenAL.
Trying to open audio device...

I've tried installing as root too, but that didn't make any difference.

Any ideas for a solution? Oh, and i have the full version 1.0.596

[Urkle]

the version of OpenAL shipped with the game only has support for OSS. You can try replacing it with your system openAL and seeing if that will work. But most likely you need to check your alsa configuration and make sure the OSS compatability modules are loaded.

P.S.
I am testing an updated openal build that has full support for ALSA and will try posting it up here sometime this week for users to test.

[elsenator]

I've now tried with my systems Openal lib, but i got the same error. I would very much appreciate it if you would post one with alsa support. Oss is not exactly standard anymore. Well, at least not on any of my systems.

[Zygfryd]

I had the same problem running the penumbra shell script on my gentoo system. Cd'ing /opt/penumbra and running the binary directly solved the problem (although there is impulse noise in the game, probably underruns or something like that, but that's a problem with other games too).

[elsenator]

I had the same problem running the penumbra shell script on my gentoo system. Cd'ing /opt/penumbra and running the binary directly solved the problem (although there is impulse noise in the game, probably underruns or something like that, but that's a problem with other games too).

I don't quite understand what you mean. How is what you describe sound related? I had no problems installing the game. It's when i run the executable it crashes. I use Gentoo too.

[Zygfryd]

I'm saying that I did have the exact same error when I started the game through the "penumbra" wrapper, but using the executable "penumbra.bin" directly solved my problem. (And directly from the game's directory, game doesn't start otherwise).

[elsenator]

Ok, now i understand, thanks for clearing it up. It didn't solve my problem though.

I created an .openalrc file containing this:

(define devices '(alsa))
(define alsa-out-device default)
(define speaker-num 2)

It did something, but now i get this in hpl.log:

Initializing Sound Module
--------------------------------------------------------
Initializing OpenAL.
Trying to open audio device... FATAL ERROR: Failed! Check your OpenAL installation
Deleting ATI shader to 0

[elsenator]

Ok, so i got it working now... sort of. I found out that i hadn't oss emulation turned on, so i did. Now the game starts and the graphics work perfectly. But, the sound plops and fizzes and runs at a wrong audio rate, making each sound play either too fast, or too slow.

I really hope you get some alsa going soon. I'd really like to play this game, but i won't ruin the experience by playing it as it is with OSS.

What puzzles me a bit though, is that i've tried making openal use alsa(the .openal file i quoted in a post above) , but then the game starts crashing again... any idea why?