doing an export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa before starting steam is a temporary fix for the pulseaudio issue. I saw in the forum previously that valve were looking at this problem already.

This also is a problem in openSUSE which does not have http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/S3TC texture compression available by default (because of patent issues?) and there is no sound without SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulseaudio added manually on the command-line.

Confirmed on current arch linux. Using kernel builtin Intel drivers here as well. Looking at this, it isn't actually 'needed' but is considered needed. Can someone with access to code confirm/deny?

Setting the environmental variable for S3TC does not resolve the issue on my machine. This also appears to be terminating during initial run-time checks and initialization rather than gameplay.

Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 2601 Mhz
4 logical processors
2 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
Linux (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.6.10-1-ARCH
X Server vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server release: 11301000

Video Card:
Driver: Intel Open Source Technology Center Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2

Driver Version:  3.0 Mesa 9.0.1
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
VendorID:  0x8086
DeviceID:  0x166
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
Primary Display Resolution:  1600 x 900
Desktop Resolution: 1600 x 900
Primary Display Size: 12.17" x 6.85"  (13.94" diag)
                                        30.9cm x 17.4cm  (35.4cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected

Sound card:
Audio device: Intel PantherPoint HDMI

Memory:
RAM: 15780 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: C
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 196857 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 146854 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:
Mon Dec 24 04:22:49 2012 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20121224042247_1.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-5df59ddc-01b0-4caa-8ebb-730ab2121223''
Mon Dec 24 04:28:25 2012 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20121224042823_1.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-0417b538-15e3-48cd-9d66-9eee22121223''
Mon Dec 24 04:58:55 2012 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20121224045853_1.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-f63ab86f-2080-4dfc-b1d7-5d6542121223''

Archlinux fix:
missing and unrecognized dependancy: lib32-libtxc_dxtn

Also have a problem with s3tc here and team fortress II.
(System information below)

steams says (error dialog):

Error!

Required OpenGL extension "GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc" is not supported. Please install S3TC texture support.

• Installed libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0

Rebooted
glxinfo reports:
$ glxinfo | grep texture_compression_s3tc
GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine,
but steams still reports the error.

• Forcing it to use it with

export force_s3tc_enable=true
Allows the program to start up, but it is mostly black rectangles on different backgrounds: the textures are broken, it seems.

• Could this be a 32-64 bit problem?

Installing
libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0:i386
makes steam report this during startup (no reboot, no force_s3tc_enable):
This system supports the OpenGL extension GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
and tf2 now starts
However, the textures are still broken...
(At least steam now reports consistent with glxinfo - which is probably a 64 bit program).

• System information:

Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 2901 Mhz
4 logical processors
2 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.2.0-35-generic
X Server vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server release: 11103000

Video Card:
Driver: Tungsten Graphics, Inc Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile x86/MMX/SSE2

Driver Version:  3.0 Mesa 8.0.4
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
VendorID:  0x8086
DeviceID:  0x166
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
Primary Display Resolution:  1600 x 900
Desktop Resolution: 1600 x 900
Primary Display Size: 12,17" x 6,85"  (13,94" diag)
                                        30,9cm x 17,4cm  (35,4cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected

Sound card:
Audio device: Intel PantherPoint HDMI

Memory:
RAM: 7711 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: da_DK.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 232574 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 94446 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:

You need to upgrade your Mesa driver to version 9.0.1. Not sure if the patent free libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0 will work. I removed it and used the export force_s3tc_enable=true workaround. Also experienced no problems using an Intel card.

Note to Valve: For the next Mesa release, if your apps only submit pre-compressed data for S3TC textures, you can check for the ANGLE_texture_compression_* extensions or GL_S3_s3tc to see if you can do precompressed texture data even without EXT_t_c_s3tc.

For users, for now, those apps can work using the previously mentioned force_s3tc_enable, which can also be set using the driconf configuration program.

Is anyone in still having pulseaudio issues? (Mentioned in the title.)

If not, it seems the S3TC portion is solved/explained, so I think this issue can be marked as closed.

For me both problems are not solved (still get the S3TC error and no sound by default). The games should not require command line parameters to work properly.

@Mailaender: The game requires S3TC, and Mesa < 9.1 requires either the libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0 library to be installed, or the force_s3tc_enable environment variable to be used. For Mesa 9.1, and newer, this should no longer be required for Intel graphics since we will enable S3TC for our driver without either of the above requirements.

Does this seem like a good plan for solving the S3TC portion of the issue? If so, I think it might be better to open a new issue focused solely on the audio portion of your issue. What do you think?

According to http://www.mesa3d.org/ version 9.1 is not yet released.

And the bug title is misleading: you don't need pulseaudio. It just defaults to SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulse which seems to be an Ubuntu name. SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa and SDL_AUDIODRIVER=pulseaudio will fix this as well.

@Mailaender: Yes, 9.1 is not available, but there are two options for S3TC on 9.0. For the environment variable option, you might consider adding export force_s3tc_enable=true to $HOME/.profile. (This may require you to logout/login.) This should avoid you having to alter your command line.

Issue transferred to ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games#21.

This issue is closed - continue conversation there.