Audio

General topics

Settings

Audio

General audio help

• Audio settings descriptions - This page contains the options and settings to ensure your audio device functions correctly with Kodi. The settings chosen here can have a big impact on CPU load on lower powered hardware, so it is worth the time to understand the available options and how they should be configured.

The options shown in the images are from a Windows 10 installation and may differ from other hardware platforms. Some options change depending on which audio output device has been selected.

If this is your first time adjusting the Audio Settings you may like to use the Audio Quick Start Guide.

• Audio quickstart guide - Depending on how your equipment is connected together you'll need to adjust the audio settings. The following is meant to act as a guide to get you started, thus you may want to do further adjustments for your own particular set of equipment.
• Audio troubleshooting - This page describes some of the steps you can take to troubleshoot audio problem and gives background information on audio concepts as a foundation for understand why some things work as they do.

OS specific help

• Windows audio - This page describes how to set up audio for the Windows OS. It covers how to set up Kodi when using either Directsound or WASAPI, and when to use one vs the other.
• Linux audio - Linux audio

• PulseAudio - This page goes into detail on using PulseAudio on Linux systems. PulseAudio is used when Kodi is installed in a desktop-environment rather than a dedicated/direct boot setup. PulseAudio allows normal video & audio playback in XBMC while at the same time allowing the user to get audio in their browser or other applications. It also allows Kodi playback of video or audio to be paused in order to run a game, Skype or similar. Kodi is set to only use PulseAudio if you have installed it and running.