Windows 98, Powered by PulseAudio!

Created on November 05, 2021
Indexed on August 26, 2023 at 03:38 PM

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This is the kind of shit that would happen to me sometimes without me even noticing whenever I needed to capture VGA output with audio.

For those who don't know why this happened, PulseAudio's conventions for volume controls are really weird; it's not always as simple as "0 to 100%, here, something like 25-50% is a reasonable default". For input devices such as the standard Line In audio port, there is a base level, and then there is 100%, and you can even go higher than that.

The problem is that a volume level of 100% for this input device is so obscenely loud that it's guaranteed to shock your body if you're not prepared... and since PulseAudio seems to be inconsistent on whether it wants to remember your setting or reset back to its bad defaults, you're bound to be caught off guard if you have a loopback module running. This is why it matters to monitor audio levels in the volume controls and OBS Studio before making an important recording. The line input's volume should be set to "base" wherever possible!

PulseAudio is one of the most vocally detested programs in the Linux community for a number of reasons, despite being the most ubiquitous audio server across major Linux distributions since the days of Ubuntu 8.04. More recently, the sentiments have been echoed by the new release of Debian 12 (which Razorback has upgraded to a couple days ago), as it changes the default audio platform to PipeWire, though only for the GNOME Desktop Environment by the looks of it.

This footage was recorded in the production of Project Sunfish. Windows NT Workstation 4.0 also makes an appearance here, running on a Pentium Pro computer I used to create an animation and send it to a rendering farm of 10 old CPUs in 5 different SMP computers.

Sunfish

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Comments

ASMR nice

Yeah. I know that feeling with PulseAudio.

Unfortunately, PulseAudio is not so polished to even solve easily that kind of glitches. Even worse: The transition from PulseAudio to Pipewire is even getting worse than I expected, because the lack of decent desktop applets and the integration with another programs makes me to think twice before to jump into that new technology.

Killer startup sound

Kugee - August 26, 2023 at 04:55 PM

I was still using Windows 7 when that video was being made.

I think I recall hearing this kind of audio in hardcore memphis.

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