On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 06:45:53PM +0100, cube@cubidou.net wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 12:34:25PM -0500, Sean Davis wrote:
> > Can someone recommend a good, *fully supported* PCI sound card for use with
> > NetBSD/i386? I've got an onboard auvia, but it only supports input/output -
> > it sounds great, but the codec is unknown by NetBSD, so no mixer, etc. Thus
> > things like mplayer, arts, all barf.
> 
> Unknown codec doesn't mean you won't get a mixer interface.

That's true. But it doesn't work. Arts complains with "Device Busy" or
something trying to startup with the onboard sound enabled, but works just
fine with the sblive.

> > The onboard is:
> > auvia0 at pci0 dev 17 function 5: VIA Technologies VT8235 AC'97 Audio (rev
> > 0x60)
> > auvia0: interrupting at irq 5
> > auvia0: ac97: C-Media unknown (0x434d4983) codec; no 3D stereo
> > auvia0: ac97: ext id bc2<AC97_23,AMAP,LDAC,SDAC,CDAC,DRA>
> > audio0 at auvia0: full duplex, independent
> 
> And mixerctl says what?  I have an auvia device with an unknow codec, I can
> change volume just fine.

mixerctl says everything I'd expect it to say - but the only setting that
works is master volume. xmix and mixerctl will let me change them all just
fine, it just makes absolutely no difference. Also, just like on every auvia
chipset I've ever tried, there are no bass/treble settings. The same is true
for the below sblive.

Is AC'97 really this dismal, or is it just NetBSD's support for it? Not to be
overly negative, but it seems like there are about 400 different ac'97 codecs,
and whether or not yours is supported is pretty much luck of the draw. And
even if you win that draw, whether or not it performs as it should is still up
for grabs.

> 
> > I've got a PCI SB Live!:
> > emuxki0 at pci0 dev 13 function 0: vendor 0x1102 product 0x0002 (audio
> > multimedia, revision 0x07)
> > emuxki0: ac97: SigmaTel STAC9708 codec; 18 bit DAC, 18 bit ADC, SigmaTel 3D
> > emuxki0: ac97: ext id 80<SDAC>
> > audio0 at emuxki0: full duplex, mmap, independent
> > 
> > But it performs horribly, although arts/mplayer will use it just fine. It
> > seems to change it's volume randomly. This happened in another machine as
> > well (the one the SB Live! came from).
> 
> Applications such as mplayer use OSS emulation to manipulate the mixer.

Is there something other than mplayer that I can use to play dvds and random
video files? last I tried, xine-gui didn't want to compile, although that
was a few weeks ago. Perhaps a better question would not be "is there
something other than mplayer," but "is there something that doesn't use
OSS, and thus fails to violate the POLA..."

> The problem is, our mixer interface is very OSS un-friendly.  Last year I
> committed a change that would allow OSS applications to always succeed in
> changing volume, since they have no way (i.e. OSS API offers no way) to
> know the actual granularity of a mixer control.  There are drawbacks,
> though, and maybe the "random" behaviour you're seeing is just that.

Hmm. Makes me wish this motherboard had an ISA slot. I *never* had any of
these sorts of issues with my trusty ol' SB64, and every mixer setting on it
actually did something. Then again, that card has absolutely nothing to do
with AC'97 on it, coincidence? :)

-Sean

-- 
/~\ The ASCII
\ / Ribbon Campaign                   Sean Davis
 X  Against HTML                       aka dive
/ \ Email!