I do not see what you're talking about. Half if not all the games in Maemo use SDL for audio, and they experience no crackling. Also, Maemo does not use such a recent version of PA.

Please provide a testcase, as small as possible.

that's good to know. yes, i was planning to write a simple app to test this out.

it's weird that the emulator does that. it also suffers from chronic buffer underruns....

anyway, will report back once i have that test app running.

i've managed to solve the crackling sound. it's the way the emulator code was written.

i never realized this problem until now because i've been doing testing with the phone connected via USB: when i unplug the phone from the USB, the sound becomes super choppy and it struggles to keep up. it's like the emulator is slowing down?? when it's plugged into the charger, sound is almost smooth (98%).

if i unplug the charger and run the emulator, i can replicate the *almost smooth* sound playback by pressing on a key. i don't need to be focused in the emulator's window to replicate this. i can press and hold a key in the desktop and the sound playback will be smooth.

hmmmmmmm

problem fixed. code issue.