somewhat experimental update for voice chat but it aint making it worse i guess

start.sh

@@ -72,15 +72,22 @@ export PULSE_SERVER="unix:${PULSE_RUNTIME_PATH}/native"
 # ~800% on 8 cores. A larger quantum gives the audio graph more buffer
 # headroom to absorb brief scheduling jitter, trading a few ms of latency
 # (irrelevant for one-way streaming) for fewer audible underruns/crackling.
-# Default PipeWire quantum is often 1024; bump to 4096.
 pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 4096 || true
 
-# Virtual microphone — use || true so a pre-existing module doesn't abort
+# ── Audio sinks ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-# the script (set -e is active). The "Failure: No such entity" in the old
+# game_output: CSS's own audio output (game sounds, music) — set as CSS's
-# logs was module-virtual-source failing; under PipeWire-Pulse we use
+#              default playback sink.
-# module-null-sink + module-remap-source which is better supported.
+# mic_sink:    browser mic input ONLY — pacat writes here, nothing else.
-pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=mic_sink sink_properties=device.description=mic_sink || true
+#
+# Without this split, CSS's own audio output was also landing in mic_sink
+# (the only sink that existed), which fed back into virtual_mic — CSS's own
+# game audio was drowning out / interfering with the actual browser mic
+# signal, so other players never heard a clean voice transmission.
+pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=game_output sink_properties=device.description=game_output || true
+pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=mic_sink     sink_properties=device.description=mic_sink     rate=48000 channels=1 channel_map=mono || true
 pactl load-module module-remap-source source_name=virtual_mic master=mic_sink.monitor || true
+
+pactl set-default-sink   game_output  || true
 pactl set-default-source virtual_mic  || true
 
 # ── Launch CSS ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
@@ -94,5 +101,17 @@ for i in $(seq 1 60); do
 done
 sleep 3
 
+# gst_agent.py targets game_output explicitly via pipewiresrc target-object,
+# so no extra env var is needed here for game audio capture.
+
+# ── Mic audio: socat → pacat (on-demand, per TCP connection) ─────────────────
+# signaling-server.js connects a TCP socket to port 12345 only while the user
+# holds PTT. socat spawns a fresh pacat per connection and kills it when the
+# connection closes — pacat only runs while actively transmitting, which also
+# keeps mic_sink idle (not RUNNING) the rest of the time.
+socat TCP-LISTEN:12345,reuseaddr,fork \
+  EXEC:"pacat --playback --device=mic_sink --format=s16le --rate=48000 --channels=1 --latency-msec=20" &
+echo "socat mic listener started on TCP :12345"
+
 # ── Start streaming agent ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 python3 ~/streaming-agent/gst_agent.py

streaming-agent/gst_agent.py

@@ -125,10 +125,18 @@ class CSSStreamAgent:
             f'webrtcbin. '
 
             # Game audio: pipewiresrc → Opus
-            # pipewiresrc is the native PipeWire GStreamer source (Ubuntu 24+/26).
+            # pipewiresrc with no target follows PipeWire's default *capture*
-            # It connects to the default audio output monitor via PipeWire directly,
+            # node (the microphone, virtual_mic) — not the default sink's
-            # avoiding the PulseAudio compatibility layer entirely.
+            # monitor — so without explicit targeting it silently captured
-            f'pipewiresrc ! '
+            # the mic into this track instead of game audio.
+            # game_output is a single PipeWire node with both playback ports
+            # (what CSS writes to) and monitor ports (the loopback read side)
+            # on the same node — there's no separate "game_output.monitor"
+            # node. stream.capture.sink=true tells PipeWire's autoconnect to
+            # link to that node's monitor/capture-sink ports rather than
+            # treating it as a regular source.
+            f'pipewiresrc target-object=game_output '
+            f'stream-properties="props,stream.capture.sink=(boolean)true" ! '
             f'audio/x-raw,format=F32LE,rate=48000,channels=2 ! '
             f'audioconvert ! '
             f'opusenc ! '