Wine sound problems

Question

Wine 1.3.25 changed the way sound works in Wine. As OMG! Ubuntu! reported:

Wine 1.3.25 (...) saw a ‘total rewrite of audio support’ and the removal of several audio drivers. The result is breakage of audio support for Wine apps through PulseAudio – Ubuntu’s default sound server.

— http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/07/latest-wine-update-breaks-pulseaudio/

So I have tried to avoid the problem by using PlayOnLinux to set an older Wine version for every application on a different wineprefix. But there are some applications that work much better on more recent versions, or simply won't run on wine <1.3.25.

So I had to upgrade. And that's when audio problems started. Some examples:

• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (demo) audio sounds in a terrible way I don't know how to describe (rough? jagged? I can try to record it if you want), and then after a few seconds it stops altogether, even after executing winetricks quartz.
• The World in Conflict demo has a similar problem, though in this case sound lasts a little longer. The game is rated Platinum on AppDB for Wine 1.3.20, though, so in this case I can just downgrade that specific prefix. But this is not always the case. EDIT: Found a workaround. See comments.
• Sound in videos in the Steam client either doesn't work or sounds just like World in Conflict.
• Portal just doesn't want to work. Audio stops working when you get to the main menu. If you're lucky, after restarting it several times it works for some time, but then it randomly stops working again, forcing the player to quit the game. It has a Platinum rating on AppDB for version 1.3.35 on Arch, but only Bronze on Ubuntu on 1.3.34 because of the sound issues.
• Portal 2 is like Portal, but even worse: when you get past the main menu, it stops working after a few seconds.

Some of these may be normal Wine bugs, but since the first three are so similar and all these problems seem to affect Ubuntu only, this problem has to be caused by that 'total rewrite of audio support' in Wine 1.3.35.

I have read lots of Ask Ubuntu questions and things posted on other websites, but nothing I have tried has solved my problems so far. Killing pulseaudio just makes the sound indicator disappear for a second, until pulseaudio is automatically restarted. Disabling it for wine doesn't work either: running pasuspender -- winecfg and clicking on the test audio button just makes the Wine window "go dark".

So, is there any way to fix this?

Edit: getting the debs from this place (from the Launchpad bug tells me it has unmet dependencies, and if I try to install that dependency, Synaptic tells me it has to remove a whole lot of packages! Not willing to do that.

Solution

Comment converted to answer from OP

Further testing has revealed a possible solution: deleting the registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Drivers and creating an "Audio" string in Drivers with value "alsa". This fixes sound problems on Steam videos and makes World In Conflict work like Portal. However, it doesn't affect RollerCoaster Tycoon and some other apps. Is this just a regular wine bug or an ubuntu/pulseaudio specific problem?

Comments

[Nicolas S.]

Further testing has revealed a possible solution: deleting the registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Drivers and creating an "Audio" string in Drivers with value "alsa". This fixes sound problems on Steam videos and makes World In Conflict work like Portal. However, it doesn't affect RollerCoaster Tycoon and some other apps. Is this just a regular wine bug or an ubuntu/pulseaudio specific problem?

[donquixote]

and how can you edit the registry in wine?

[donquixote]

i see, you brows the C: drive, then start C:\windows\regedit.exe