This is based on work done by Andrew Eikum. It has been in some form in Proton for the last 4 years.
If server's sampling rate is not 48kHz **DOOM Eternal** will try to set it 48kHz for the streams using the implemented interface. There's a whole class of audio devices that use 44.1kHz sampling rate and at least PulseAudio / PipeWire tends to inherit the value from the hardware to avoid resampling. The value can also be overridden by the user via the audio server's config files.
In such cases, if the interface is not present or stubbed, this results in **audio underruns and noticeable crackling**.
It's easy to test with pipewire-pulse:
``` $ cat /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/sample-rate.conf context.properties = { default.clock.rate = 41100 } ```
With PulseAudio this should be doable via setting `default-sample-rate = 41100` in `/etc/pulse/daemon.conf`.