# Horrible Sound Quality on Linux?

**URL:** <https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584>\
**Category:** FMOD Engine\
**Tags:** cpp\
**Created:** [November 4, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584 "2025-11-04T23:54:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rune101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/0ea827/32.png) [@rune101](https://qa.fmod.com/u/rune101)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584/1 "2025-11-04T23:54:53Z")

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Hello Guys.

So I am making a small game in c++ using opengl and using fmod engine for audio. The audio quality for exactly same source code and music files result in very different sound quality. On windows, it works fine. Sounds awesome. But the Linux build has this very tearing sound which feels like it has been compressed to death. I looked for information online and couldn’t find anything useful.

What could be the reason for this. Everything is exactly the same from source to compiler.

Thanks in advanced.

Cheers

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**Author:** ![Leah\_FMOD](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/leah_fmod/32/3685_2.png) [@Leah\_FMOD](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Leah_FMOD)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 5:17am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584/2 "2025-11-12T05:17:21Z")

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Hi!

What version of the FMOD Engine are you using? Can I please get you to use [Debug\_Initialize](https://www.fmod.com/docs/2.02/api/core-api-common.html#debug_initialize) to set the `flags` argument to [FMOD\_DEBUG\_LEVEL\_LOG](https://www.fmod.com/docs/2.02/api/core-api-common.html#fmod_debug_level_log), and post a log in which the issue occurs here for me to take a closer look at?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rune101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/0ea827/32.png) [@rune101](https://qa.fmod.com/u/rune101)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584/3 "2025-11-15T19:15:04Z")

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Hello, Sorry for the late response.

VERSION is **131856**

I setup FMOD::Debug\_Initalize but found out that it is never triggered. No log files, No Callback hits.

Is it because the FMOD is not generating any logs or is something wrong with my code.

```cpp
FMOD::Debug_Initialize( FMOD_DEBUG_LEVEL_LOG, FMOD_DEBUG_MODE_CALLBACK, FmodDebugCallback, "" );

```

Thanks for your time 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Leah\_FMOD](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/leah_fmod/32/3685_2.png) [@Leah\_FMOD](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Leah_FMOD)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2025, 1:40am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/horrible-sound-quality-on-linux/23584/4 "2025-11-18T01:40:59Z")

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> [@rune101](#):
>
> I setup FMOD::Debug\_Initalize but found out that it is never triggered. No log files, No Callback hits.

Debug\_Initialize will not work without using the logging versions of the FMOD libs. Can you confirm for me that you’re using them instead of the standard release libs? You can recognize them from the “L” suffix - i.e. fmodL.dll, libfmodL.so, etc.