CS2 - Running audio capture applications prevent audio from playing

[SolsticeSpectrum]

Your system information

• System information from steam: system info gist
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

If the game is started while an audio capture application such as Discord runs in the background, the game will run without any aduio. The only fix is then closing Discord, the game and Steam. If Steam is not closed too, it will run without audio even when Discord has been closed already. This is annoying because I basically have to make sure I run the apps in correct order.

Something I tried:

Based on a suggestion in other issue I tried creating .asoundrc

ctl.dmixer {
type pulse
}
pcm.pulse {
type pulse
}
ctl.pulse {
type pulse
}
pcm.!default {
type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
type pulse
}

This didn't work however, I do have pulseaudio

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Start Discord
2. Run the game

[lou-perret]

Start the game with -sdlaudiodriver pipewire

[SolsticeSpectrum]

Start the game with -sdlaudiodriver pipewire

I have pulseaudio

[JacKeTUs]

Try -sdlaudiodriver pulseaudio instead for now. Or, if you can, try install pipewire and use it instead. Or just wait for the fix

It's related to that issue #3256
CS2 with sdl3 tries to use ALSA sound system by default, and tries to grab the device exclusively. When discord running, audio device can't be grabbed exclusively and you have no audio. Using other sdlaudiodriver helps

Valve devs are aware of the issue, and in Dota2 issue here: ValveSoftware/Dota-2#2491 (comment) they mentioned that they are working for the fix

[icculus]

Yeah, I think this will be solved by ValveSoftware/Dota-2#2491 when Pulse support is fixed. Please retest once that fix is in place!

[parona-source]

#3312 (comment)

#3256 (comment) Should work now.

[SolsticeSpectrum]

#3312 (comment)

#3256 (comment) Should work now.

Yes the latest update fixed my issue

EDIT: The audio works in main menu but not in the game, when I tried switching between output devices to possibly fix it, it crashed the game and I got penalty because it was hanged for several minutes

[Xinayder]

I have a weird issue related to audio as well. I was playing a match today while talking on Discord, I noticed that after a few rounds, the audio would get out of sync. Restarting the game fixed the issue temporarily, then the audio was delayed again. These were the startup parameters I used:

mangohud gamemoderun %command% -sdlaudiodriver pipewire -borderless -novid -nojoy -freq 75 -high -threads 12 -sdlvideodriver wayland

[JacKeTUs]

audio was delayed again

I think it's another issue, already opened:
#3283

[SolsticeSpectrum]

I didn't experience any issues in latest updates so I'll close this one. If I'll find another issue, I'll reopen it