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#1 2025-09-20 12:02:56

adamjonn
Member
Registered: 2025-09-20
Posts: 1

Audio Stuttering in Fullscreen Games on KDE Wayland (PipeWire)

I'm encountering an audio stuttering/crackling issue specifically when running games in fullscreen mode on my Wayland session. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

When I play games in fullscreen on Wayland, the audio crackles and stutters. This issue does not happen:

    When the game is in windowed or borderless windowed mode.

    When I switch to a  kwin_X11 session (everything runs perfectly there).

Interestingly, I previously had a visual stuttering issue in fullscreen Wayland, which I fixed by adding KWIN_DRM_NO_AMS=1 to my /etc/environment file. After fixing the video, this audio problem began.

This occurs whether I launch the session via kwin_wayland_wrapper or kwin_wayland_wrapper --xwayland.

System Information

To help with troubleshooting, here is my system information:

    Kernel: 6.16.7-arch1-1

    GPU: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (rev 07)

    CPU:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8350U CPU @ 1.70GHz

    Graphics Drivers: [e.g., nvidia 550.78 or mesa 1:24.1.1-1]

    Audio Server: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.4.8)

Relevant Packages

Here is a list of my installed PipeWire-related packages:

$ pacman -Qsq pipewire
kpipewire
libpipewire
libwireplumber
pipewire
pipewire-alsa
pipewire-audio
pipewire-jack
pipewire-pulse
pipewire-session-manager
wireplumber

Given that this issue is exclusive to fullscreen on Wayland, I'm wondering if this is a scheduling or buffer priority issue between KWin, PipeWire, and the game process.

Could there be a PipeWire or WirePlumber setting I need to adjust to prevent audio dropouts when a game takes fullscreen control?

Please let me know if you need any logs

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