Audio on steamdeck with HDMI connected

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨freebee@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨steamdeck@sopuli.xyz⁩

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/1c66ddfc-b54f-4eb6-8a3c-a98c4669e94b.jpeg

Hi, First, is it possible to set the steamdeck to “default” to always keep picking the steamdeck speaker as default audio out also when an HDMI is connected through the USB-C? I have an old monitor (VGA to HDMI to USB-C haha) and would be easiest to still just output audio in the steamdeck speaker by default. It is easy to switch audio outputs in desktopmode, not in gaming mode unfortunately can’t switch to steamdeck speaker there, doesn’t work.

Second, how do y’all combine music and games? I prefer to play games while listening to youtube full albums (freetube or similar) in background. Doesn’t really seem to integrate well in gaming mode either? Tried adding Monophony and Freetube as non-steam games, but not very succesful. What’s your suggestion for optimizing the setup?

Sorry for the noob-questions. Pic unrelated, sort of.

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rotopenguin@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have a monitor with awful speakers (thanks Acer), and SteamOS will dutifully switch to them instead of using its own much better speakers. I made a non-steam shortcut with this abomination to kick it back to the internal speakers.

pactl set-default-sink 'alsa_output.pci-0000_04_00.5-platform-acp5x_mach.0.HiFi__hw_acp5x_1__sink'
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hungprocess@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The internal speakers cutting off while docked seems to be a bug; I had the same issue and was able to work around it by following this comment.

For music, I have FreeTube and Tidal installed as non-steam games. I’d prefer if I could hit the media control shortcuts on my keyboard and control Tidal while I’m in a game, for example, but I haven’t found a way to do that. The closest I’ve gotten is by installing Decky Loader and the Music Control plugin.

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- freebee@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Cool, you fixed my issues!
  
  The audio output still doesn’t default to the deck speakers, but after following your hint it is now at least easy to select it while in gaming mode.
  
  I installed the decky loader, and as non-steam game Audiotube. It seems to work, doesn’t matter very much to me if keyboard shortcuts like next track don’t function, I usually listen to full albums or dj mixes of 1 or 2 hours.
  
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vividspecter@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

is it possible to set the steamdeck to “default” to always keep picking the steamdeck speaker as default audio out also when an HDMI is connected through the USB-C?

Some audio issues were introduced in the SteamOS 3.5 update (partly due to having to handle the OLED model around the same time) which causes the HDMI problem. Hopefully it will be fixed in SteamOS 3.6 or 3.7. I’ve found that Bazzite doesn’t have the issue, although obviously that’s an invasive change, and I understand it’s still a bit buggy with the OLED model.

how do y’all combine music and games?

I think doing what you want could be a bit technically involved. One way might be to have one device control the music, and then cast it to the deck with snapcast or similar. Then, if you can get a snapcast client on the deck to be persistently running in the background, any music that is played on the other device, will be heard on the Deck.

Or more simply, you could try pairing your Deck in bluetooth from another device, and then select that Deck as an output. This is assuming that the Deck allows this, and that your OS supports this (Pipewire on Linux definitely does).

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