Comment 11 for bug 577727

Pulseaudio is not regressive, it is better than ALSA or OSS for sure! I had the same problem that Quake 4 sound didn't work but you can do that:

Edit (use sudo also): /etc/openal/alsoft.conf:

Uncomment drivers so that pulse is first, save the file:
drivers = pulse

Restart your computer just in case. After that i had no problems in Quake 4. It uses OpenAL as it's sound layer for Linux.

You can also look here:
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup#OpenALApplications