[0.16.51] Linux version from website no sound

[0xF]

What did you do?

• I downloaded the game from archive for linux and run the executable.

What happened?

• The game launched and runs fine but there in no sound or it seems to be hard-pointed to wrong device.

What did you expect to happen instead?

• Run it with sound on desired device.

Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?

• Always. (At least for the website version.)

It seems to me that the game is not routed correctly through PipeWire. At first I thought there is no sound at all, but after trying:

Code: Select all

padsp ./factorio

I noticed the sound started coming from my headphones that lies on my desk and that I am not normally using. I have them even disabled in pulsemixer.
I do not see the game in pulsemixer nor I manage to find any way to point the game to output the sound from my speakers.
With all this I would blame it on bad configuration somewhere in my system but it is reproducible on SteamDeck.
On SteamDeck the game defaults to "Filter Chain Sink". When I change it to speakers it instantly switches back to "Filter Chain Sink".

Funnily enough, when I downgrade my steam version, the sound is fine as expected on both PC and SteamDeck. However I want to keep my steam version to be the newest one and separated. That's why I downloaded the game from the archive in the first place.
Steam must be launching it in different way. What does steam differently, and can I launch it the same way?

[pioruns]

You are running Arch Rolling. This could be the reason for this problem. Try different distro.
I am playing on Debian and Fedora and never had any problems with sound. My system does not create Filter Chain Sink output device either.

[0xF]

Thanks for the tip but right now I don't have the means to try that.

Beside, I don't think it's a distro issue since the steam version is working fine, tush meaning it can run with no problems on my current setup.
I think the answer lies in the way steam launches the executable. I think that the steam sets some variables for the game to work correctly, which are unknown to me.
The newest stable version from the web is 2.0.43 right now, and it works fine. My guess is that the 0.16.51 is looking for something old and the steam helps correct its lookings, but I don't know what and how.

Right now I'm using really ugly workaround. I have copy of steam version of the newest one (2.0.43 right now) and copy of steam version 0.16.51 which is set to save its saves and configs to its own root directory. In steam the games beta is set to 0.16.51 so the game do not auto-update without my knowledge. Then I'm launching the game through two script that first creates/changes pointer "factorio" in Steam/steamapps/common to point either to the newest one or to the 0.16.51, and then it runs the executable.
I don't like it but for now it kinda does what I want.

[pioruns]

You don't have means to reinstall Arch? I think you can. Installing any OS while preserving /home is very easy. I reinstalled Debian to Fedora on my main PC two weeks ago. No problem. Didn't lost anything.

Factorio is working well on Debian (Pulseaudio) and Fedora 42 (Pipewire), but not on your system. Maybe because of that output device, which doesn't produce any sound. That's why I said it could be distro issue - because it's working on other distros.
Have you tried other games (native Linux)?
Also, you can try creating new user in Arch, log in there and run Factorio again on clean profile.

[Bilka]

I think 0.16.51 is before SDL, so it might be trying to use alsa.

[0xF]

You don't have means to reinstall Arch? I think you can. Installing any OS while preserving /home is very easy. I reinstalled Debian to Fedora on my main PC two weeks ago. No problem. Didn't lost anything.

Well, everything can be easy once you know what you are doing.
As of now, I do not have available ready to be reimaged flash drive. Since I'm familiar only with installing/reinstalling from one storage device/partition to another, and since my PC has only one system that shares the same partition as home, I'm not doing it without proper backup since the only method I can think of right now is to do it from the same system that I need to reinstall.

I need to check my flash drives before I can reimage them. I'm not against it, one of the first things I was thinking of to troubleshoot it was to try it on fresh install as well, but I need to find time for that... And that was not yesterday, it is not today and I doubt it will be the next week. That's why I'm asking on this forum before doing something as big as reinstalling system just to troubleshoot outdated version of game.

Have you tried other games (native Linux)?
Also, you can try creating new user in Arch, log in there and run Factorio again on clean profile.

Yes, multiple games, this is the first time I run into something like that. Maybe second if you count Don't Starve, but to fix that I needed to create fake binary of pulseaudio in /usr/bin/ (maybe this can be the problem).
As for the user, I'll may be able to try it tomorrow since in one hour I have to be on my way to work. I'll get back to you once I try it.

I think 0.16.51 is before SDL, so it might be trying to use alsa.

I'll look into it tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.