osu!lazer AppImage uses ALSA instead of PulseAudio/PipeWire on Linux → game audio missing in Discord/OBS shares

[Rishabh-Sarang]

Type

Game behaviour

Bug description

Title

osu!lazer AppImage uses ALSA instead of PulseAudio/PipeWire on Linux → game audio missing in Discord/OBS shares

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Describe the bug

On a modern PipeWire system (Arch Linux + Wayland), the osu!lazer AppImage opens an ALSA device directly (ALSA Playback [osu!]).
Because the stream never hits the sink’s monitor ports, third‑party apps that record “system audio” (Discord screen‑share, OBS, etc.) cannot hear the game unless I manually patch the ports each session.

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Steps to reproduce

1. Install osu!lazer AppImage (tested with 2025.606.1).
2. Ensure PulseAudio is not running; PipeWire + WirePlumber handle audio (pipewire --version → 1.6.2).
3. Launch osu!lazer.
   pavucontrol ▸ Playback shows **“PipeWire ALSA [osu!]”.*
4. Start a Discord screen share or OBS capture whose input is the default monitor source.
5. Observe: every program except osu! is audible to viewers.
6. Open Helvum – osu!’s outputs are not routed to <sink>.monitor_*.

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Expected behaviour

osu!lazer should appear as a normal PulseAudio / PipeWire client so its audio is automatically mixed into the default sink and its monitor, requiring no manual routing.

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Actual behaviour

Audio backend = ALSA → manual pw-link/Helvum patch required on every launch → inconvenient and confusing for users.

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Possible cause

osu!lazer’s Linux build is using SDL2’s ALSA backend rather than the PulseAudio or PipeWire backends.
Enabling the pulse (or new pipewire) driver at build‑time, or exposing a setting/back‑end chooser in‑game, should resolve the issue and restore out‑of‑the‑box compatibility with screen‑sharing tools.

Screenshots or videos

No response

Version

2025.607.0

Logs

compressed-logs.zip

[bdach]

downgrading to discussion because this is not a "bug" but a feature request for linux specifically (because linux insists on replacing working technology with shinier technology that does less than its predecessor / breaks every single app out there but the shinier technology has more knobs to turn so people say that it's good, but I digress)

osu!lazer’s Linux build is using SDL2’s ALSA backend rather than the PulseAudio or PipeWire backends.

I don't think we are doing any of that, if anything BASS (the audio library we use) should be responsible for any and all things audio

[sineplusx]

osu!lazer’s Linux build is using SDL2’s ALSA backend rather than the PulseAudio or PipeWire backends. Enabling the pulse (or new pipewire) driver at build‑time, or exposing a setting/back‑end chooser in‑game, should resolve the issue and restore out‑of‑the‑box compatibility with screen‑sharing tools.

Would be nice if it were the case. The current audio library used is BASS, which is closed-source and only supports ALSA output. There is a PR for adding a SDL audio backend (ppy/osu-framework#6002) but it is rather low priority at the moment.

See related discussion: #33949

As for solving your "manual patching" issue, I am sure you can find a config or write a script that does this for you.

[dododome01]

It is possible to change a config to not need to do it manually with helvum every time.

You just need to edit the alsa (/etc/asound.conf) config file to have everything run by pulseaudio (pcm and ctl default to type pulse).

Im not really experienced on what im doing, so i wont share my config, but if someone else has the same problem, it may point them into the right direction for a workaround.