Sound interruptions during high radeon OpenGL load

[Boris Gjenero]

On my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop with Mobility Radeon X1400 and built in Intel HDA audio with STAC9200 codec, audio is normally perfect. Even with 100% load on both CPU cores audio is perfect. However, while playing high resolution video, audio has many tiny regular interruptions which can be like crackles or micro stuttering. This happens when playing 1080p YouTube video in Chrome or 1080p video via VLC using the OpenGL output. Other high GPU load, like scrolling Google Maps around a lot in Chrome, can also cause these interruptions. They don't only affect the application causing graphical load, but also affect other applications playing audio, like mpg123.

I've changed bdl_pos_adj, position_fix and enable_msi parameters of the snd_hda_intel module. Maybe bdl_pos_adj=64 and position_fix=1 makes it a bit better, but I'm not certain and it's certainly still not okay. I tried interrupt priorities as described in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/rtirq and that didn't help. Changing latency via setpci seems not applicable because this laptop uses PCI Express. Not running PulseAudio and using ALSA instead doesn't help. Running a bare-bones X configuration with twm doesn't help.

Configuring VLC to use XVideo video output makes audio perfect with the same video which was causing these interruptions when using OpenGL video output.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: linux-image-5.3.0-26-generic 5.3.0-26.28
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-26.28-generic 5.3.13
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-26-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k5.3.0-26-generic.
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC9200 Analog [STAC9200 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: bgjenero 1646 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: bgjenero 1646 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xefffc000 irq 27'
   Mixer name : 'SigmaTel STAC9200'
   Components : 'HDA:83847690,102801bd,00102201 HDA:14f12bfa,14f100c3,00090000'
   Controls : 22
   Simple ctrls : 9
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Sun Jan 26 16:45:23 2020
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=62d89c78-536c-42ab-968d-463122f8c3a2
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-01-19 (2929 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: Dell Inc. MM061
ProcFB: 0 radeondrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.3.0-26-generic root=UUID=d590f141-7b8d-421d-84b3-baa43181a241 ro resume=/dev/sda6
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-5.3.0-26-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-5.3.0-26-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.183.3
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to eoan on 2019-10-25 (93 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 06/13/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A17
dmi.board.name: 0XD720
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA17:bd06/13/2007:svnDellInc.:pnMM061:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0XD720:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: MM061
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

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