| Introduction |
| ------------ |
| |
| This file is a collection of all the old Readme files distributed with |
| OSS/Lite by Hannu Savolainen. Since the new Linux sound driver is founded |
| on it I think these information may still be interesting for users that |
| have to configure their sound system. |
| |
| Be warned: Alan Cox is the current maintainer of the Linux sound driver so if |
| you have problems with it, please contact him or the current device-specific |
| driver maintainer (e.g. for aedsp16 specific problems contact me). If you have |
| patches, contributions or suggestions send them to Alan: I'm sure they are |
| welcome. |
| |
| In this document you will find a lot of references about OSS/Lite or ossfree: |
| they are gone forever. Keeping this in mind and with a grain of salt this |
| document can be still interesting and very helpful. |
| |
| [ File edited 17.01.1999 - Riccardo Facchetti ] |
| [ Edited miroSOUND section 19.04.2001 - Robert Siemer ] |
| |
| OSS/Free version 3.8 release notes |
| ---------------------------------- |
| |
| Please read the SOUND-HOWTO (available from sunsite.unc.edu and other Linux FTP |
| sites). It gives instructions about using sound with Linux. It's bit out of |
| date but still very useful. Information about bug fixes and such things |
| is available from the web page (see above). |
| |
| Please check http://www.opensound.com/pguide for more info about programming |
| with OSS API. |
| |
| ==================================================== |
| - THIS VERSION ____REQUIRES____ Linux 2.1.57 OR LATER. |
| ==================================================== |
| |
| Packages "snd-util-3.8.tar.gz" and "snd-data-0.1.tar.Z" |
| contain useful utilities to be used with this driver. |
| See http://www.opensound.com/ossfree/ for |
| download instructions. |
| |
| If you are looking for the installation instructions, please |
| look forward into this document. |
| |
| Supported sound cards |
| --------------------- |
| |
| See below. |
| |
| Contributors |
| ------------ |
| |
| This driver contains code by several contributors. In addition several other |
| persons have given useful suggestions. The following is a list of major |
| contributors. (I could have forgotten some names.) |
| |
| Craig Metz 1/2 of the PAS16 Mixer and PCM support |
| Rob Hooft Volume computation algorithm for the FM synth. |
| Mika Liljeberg uLaw encoding and decoding routines |
| Jeff Tranter Linux SOUND HOWTO document |
| Greg Lee Volume computation algorithm for the GUS and |
| lots of valuable suggestions. |
| Andy Warner ISC port |
| Jim Lowe, |
| Amancio Hasty Jr FreeBSD/NetBSD port |
| Anders Baekgaard Bug hunting and valuable suggestions. |
| Joerg Schubert SB16 DSP support (initial version). |
| Andrew Robinson Improvements to the GUS driver |
| Megens SA MIDI recording for SB and SB Pro (initial version). |
| Mikael Nordqvist Linear volume support for GUS and |
| nonblocking /dev/sequencer. |
| Ian Hartas SVR4.2 port |
| Markus Aroharju and |
| Risto Kankkunen Major contributions to the mixer support |
| of GUS v3.7. |
| Hunyue Yau Mixer support for SG NX Pro. |
| Marc Hoffman PSS support (initial version). |
| Rainer Vranken Initialization for Jazz16 (initial version). |
| Peter Trattler Initial version of loadable module support for Linux. |
| JRA Gibson 16 bit mode for Jazz16 (initial version) |
| Davor Jadrijevic MAD16 support (initial version) |
| Gregor Hoffleit Mozart support (initial version) |
| Riccardo Facchetti Audio Excel DSP 16 (aedsp16) support |
| James Hightower Spotting a tiny but important bug in CS423x support. |
| Denis Sablic OPTi 82C924 specific enhancements (non PnP mode) |
| Tim MacKenzie Full duplex support for OPTi 82C930. |
| |
| Please look at lowlevel/README for more contributors. |
| |
| There are probably many other names missing. If you have sent me some |
| patches and your name is not in the above list, please inform me. |
| |
| Sending your contributions or patches |
| ------------------------------------- |
| |
| First of all it's highly recommended to contact me before sending anything |
| or before even starting to do any work. Tell me what you suggest to be |
| changed or what you have planned to do. Also ensure you are using the |
| very latest (development) version of OSS/Free since the change may already be |
| implemented there. In general it's a major waste of time to try to improve a |
| several months old version. Information about the latest version can be found |
| from http://www.opensound.com/ossfree. In general there is no point in |
| sending me patches relative to production kernels. |
| |
| Sponsors etc. |
| ------------- |
| |
| The following companies have greatly helped development of this driver |
| in form of a free copy of their product: |
| |
| Novell, Inc. UnixWare personal edition + SDK |
| The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. A SCO OpenServer + SDK |
| Ensoniq Corp, a SoundScape card and extensive amount of assistance |
| MediaTrix Peripherals Inc, a AudioTrix Pro card + SDK |
| Acer, Inc. a pair of AcerMagic S23 cards. |
| |
| In addition the following companies have provided me sufficient amount |
| of technical information at least some of their products (free or $$$): |
| |
| Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd. |
| Media Vision Inc. |
| Analog Devices Inc. |
| Logitech Inc. |
| Aztech Labs Inc. |
| Crystal Semiconductor Corporation, |
| Integrated Circuit Systems Inc. |
| OAK Technology |
| OPTi |
| Turtle Beach |
| miro |
| Ad Lib Inc. ($$) |
| Music Quest Inc. ($$) |
| Creative Labs ($$$) |
| |
| If you have some problems |
| ========================= |
| |
| Read the sound HOWTO (sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/...?). |
| Also look at the home page (http://www.opensound.com/ossfree). It may |
| contain info about some recent bug fixes. |
| |
| It's likely that you have some problems when trying to use the sound driver |
| first time. Sound cards don't have standard configuration so there are no |
| good default configuration to use. Please try to use same I/O, DMA and IRQ |
| values for the sound card than with DOS. |
| |
| If you get an error message when trying to use the driver, please look |
| at /var/adm/messages for more verbose error message. |
| |
| |
| The following errors are likely with /dev/dsp and /dev/audio. |
| |
| - "No such device or address". |
| This error indicates that there are no suitable hardware for the |
| device file or the sound driver has been compiled without support for |
| this particular device. For example /dev/audio and /dev/dsp will not |
| work if "digitized voice support" was not enabled during "make config". |
| |
| - "Device or resource busy". Probably the IRQ (or DMA) channel |
| required by the sound card is in use by some other device/driver. |
| |
| - "I/O error". Almost certainly (99%) it's an IRQ or DMA conflict. |
| Look at the kernel messages in /var/adm/notice for more info. |
| |
| - "Invalid argument". The application is calling ioctl() |
| with impossible parameters. Check that the application is |
| for sound driver version 2.X or later. |
| |
| Linux installation |
| ================== |
| |
| IMPORTANT! Read this if you are installing a separately |
| distributed version of this driver. |
| |
| Check that your kernel version works with this |
| release of the driver (see Readme). Also verify |
| that your current kernel version doesn't have more |
| recent sound driver version than this one. IT'S HIGHLY |
| RECOMMENDED THAT YOU USE THE SOUND DRIVER VERSION THAT |
| IS DISTRIBUTED WITH KERNEL SOURCES. |
| |
| - When installing separately distributed sound driver you should first |
| read the above notice. Then try to find proper directory where and how |
| to install the driver sources. You should not try to install a separately |
| distributed driver version if you are not able to find the proper way |
| yourself (in this case use the version that is distributed with kernel |
| sources). Remove old version of linux/drivers/sound directory before |
| installing new files. |
| |
| - To build the device files you need to run the enclosed shell script |
| (see below). You need to do this only when installing sound driver |
| first time or when upgrading to much recent version than the earlier |
| one. |
| |
| - Configure and compile Linux as normally (remember to include the |
| sound support during "make config"). Please refer to kernel documentation |
| for instructions about configuring and compiling kernel. File Readme.cards |
| contains card specific instructions for configuring this driver for |
| use with various sound cards. |
| |
| Boot time configuration (using lilo and insmod) |
| ----------------------------------------------- |
| |
| This information has been removed. Too many users didn't believe |
| that it's really not necessary to use this method. Please look at |
| Readme of sound driver version 3.0.1 if you still want to use this method. |
| |
| Problems |
| -------- |
| |
| Common error messages: |
| |
| - /dev/???????: No such file or directory. |
| Run the script at the end of this file. |
| |
| - /dev/???????: No such device. |
| You are not running kernel which contains the sound driver. When using |
| modularized sound driver this error means that the sound driver is not |
| loaded. |
| |
| - /dev/????: No such device or address. |
| Sound driver didn't detect suitable card when initializing. Please look at |
| Readme.cards for info about configuring the driver with your card. Also |
| check for possible boot (insmod) time error messages in /var/adm/messages. |
| |
| - Other messages or problems |
| Please check http://www.opensound.com/ossfree for more info. |
| |
| Configuring version 3.8 (for Linux) with some common sound cards |
| ================================================================ |
| |
| This document describes configuring sound cards with the freeware version of |
| Open Sound Systems (OSS/Free). Information about the commercial version |
| (OSS/Linux) and its configuration is available from |
| http://www.opensound.com/linux.html. Information presented here is |
| not valid for OSS/Linux. |
| |
| If you are unsure about how to configure OSS/Free |
| you can download the free evaluation version of OSS/Linux from the above |
| address. There is a chance that it can autodetect your sound card. In this case |
| you can use the information included in soundon.log when configuring OSS/Free. |
| |
| |
| IMPORTANT! This document covers only cards that were "known" when |
| this driver version was released. Please look at |
| http://www.opensound.com/ossfree for info about |
| cards introduced recently. |
| |
| When configuring the sound driver, you should carefully |
| check each sound configuration option (particularly |
| "Support for /dev/dsp and /dev/audio"). The default values |
| offered by these programs are not necessarily valid. |
| |
| |
| THE BIGGEST MISTAKES YOU CAN MAKE |
| ================================= |
| |
| 1. Assuming that the card is Sound Blaster compatible when it's not. |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| The number one mistake is to assume that your card is compatible with |
| Sound Blaster. Only the cards made by Creative Technology or which have |
| one or more chips labeled by Creative are SB compatible. In addition there |
| are few sound chipsets which are SB compatible in Linux such as ESS1688 or |
| Jazz16. Note that SB compatibility in DOS/Windows does _NOT_ mean anything |
| in Linux. |
| |
| IF YOU REALLY ARE 150% SURE YOU HAVE A SOUND BLASTER YOU CAN SKIP THE REST OF |
| THIS CHAPTER. |
| |
| For most other "supposed to be SB compatible" cards you have to use other |
| than SB drivers (see below). It is possible to get most sound cards to work |
| in SB mode but in general it's a complete waste of time. There are several |
| problems which you will encounter by using SB mode with cards that are not |
| truly SB compatible: |
| |
| - The SB emulation is at most SB Pro (DSP version 3.x) which means that |
| you get only 8 bit audio (there is always an another ("native") mode which |
| gives the 16 bit capability). The 8 bit only operation is the reason why |
| many users claim that sound quality in Linux is much worse than in DOS. |
| In addition some applications require 16 bit mode and they produce just |
| noise with a 8 bit only device. |
| - The card may work only in some cases but refuse to work most of the |
| time. The SB compatible mode always requires special initialization which is |
| done by the DOS/Windows drivers. This kind of cards work in Linux after |
| you have warm booted it after DOS but they don't work after cold boot |
| (power on or reset). |
| - You get the famous "DMA timed out" messages. Usually all SB clones have |
| software selectable IRQ and DMA settings. If the (power on default) values |
| currently used by the card don't match configuration of the driver you will |
| get the above error message whenever you try to record or play. There are |
| few other reasons to the DMA timeout message but using the SB mode seems |
| to be the most common cause. |
| |
| 2. Trying to use a PnP (Plug & Play) card just like an ordinary sound card |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| Plug & Play is a protocol defined by Intel and Microsoft. It lets operating |
| systems to easily identify and reconfigure I/O ports, IRQs and DMAs of ISA |
| cards. The problem with PnP cards is that the standard Linux doesn't currently |
| (versions 2.1.x and earlier) don't support PnP. This means that you will have |
| to use some special tricks (see later) to get a PnP card alive. Many PnP cards |
| work after they have been initialized but this is not always the case. |
| |
| There are sometimes both PnP and non-PnP versions of the same sound card. |
| The non-PnP version is the original model which usually has been discontinued |
| more than an year ago. The PnP version has the same name but with "PnP" |
| appended to it (sometimes not). This causes major confusion since the non-PnP |
| model works with Linux but the PnP one doesn't. |
| |
| You should carefully check if "Plug & Play" or "PnP" is mentioned in the name |
| of the card or in the documentation or package that came with the card. |
| Everything described in the rest of this document is not necessarily valid for |
| PnP models of sound cards even you have managed to wake up the card properly. |
| Many PnP cards are simply too different from their non-PnP ancestors which are |
| covered by this document. |
| |
| |
| Cards that are not (fully) supported by this driver |
| =================================================== |
| |
| See http://www.opensound.com/ossfree for information about sound cards |
| to be supported in future. |
| |
| |
| How to use sound without recompiling kernel and/or sound driver |
| =============================================================== |
| |
| There is a commercial sound driver which comes in precompiled form and doesn't |
| require recompiling of the kernel. See http://www.4Front-tech.com/oss.html for |
| more info. |
| |
| |
| Configuring PnP cards |
| ===================== |
| |
| New versions of most sound cards use the so-called ISA PnP protocol for |
| soft configuring their I/O, IRQ, DMA and shared memory resources. |
| Currently at least cards made by Creative Technology (SB32 and SB32AWE |
| PnP), Gravis (GUS PnP and GUS PnP Pro), Ensoniq (Soundscape PnP) and |
| Aztech (some Sound Galaxy models) use PnP technology. The CS4232/4236 audio |
| chip by Crystal Semiconductor (Intel Atlantis, HP Pavilion and many other |
| motherboards) is also based on PnP technology but there is a "native" driver |
| available for it (see information about CS4232 later in this document). |
| |
| PnP sound cards (as well as most other PnP ISA cards) are not supported |
| by this version of the driver . Proper |
| support for them should be released during 97 once the kernel level |
| PnP support is available. |
| |
| There is a method to get most of the PnP cards to work. The basic method |
| is the following: |
| |
| 1) Boot DOS so the card's DOS drivers have a chance to initialize it. |
| 2) _Cold_ boot to Linux by using "loadlin.exe". Hitting ctrl-alt-del |
| works with older machines but causes a hard reset of all cards on recent |
| (Pentium) machines. |
| 3) If you have the sound driver in Linux configured properly, the card should |
| work now. "Proper" means that I/O, IRQ and DMA settings are the same as in |
| DOS. The hard part is to find which settings were used. See the documentation of |
| your card for more info. |
| |
| Windows 95 could work as well as DOS but running loadlin may be difficult. |
| Probably you should "shut down" your machine to MS-DOS mode before running it. |
| |
| Some machines have a BIOS utility for setting PnP resources. This is a good |
| way to configure some cards. In this case you don't need to boot DOS/Win95 |
| before starting Linux. |
| |
| Another way to initialize PnP cards without DOS/Win95 is a Linux based |
| PnP isolation tool. When writing this there is a pre alpha test version |
| of such a tool available from ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/unix/linux/utils. The |
| file is called isapnptools-*. Please note that this tool is just a temporary |
| solution which may be incompatible with future kernel versions having proper |
| support for PnP cards. There are bugs in setting DMA channels in earlier |
| versions of isapnptools so at least version 1.6 is required with sound cards. |
| |
| Yet another way to use PnP cards is to use (commercial) OSS/Linux drivers. See |
| http://www.opensound.com/linux.html for more info. This is probably the way you |
| should do it if you don't want to spend time recompiling the kernel and |
| required tools. |
| |
| |
| Read this before trying to configure the driver |
| =============================================== |
| |
| There are currently many cards that work with this driver. Some of the cards |
| have native support while others work since they emulate some other |
| card (usually SB, MSS/WSS and/or MPU401). The following cards have native |
| support in the driver. Detailed instructions for configuring these cards |
| will be given later in this document. |
| |
| Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS16) and compatibles: |
| Pro Audio Spectrum 16 |
| Pro Audio Studio 16 |
| Logitech Sound Man 16 |
| NOTE! The original Pro Audio Spectrum as well as the PAS+ are not |
| and will not be supported by the driver. |
| |
| Media Vision Jazz16 based cards |
| Pro Sonic 16 |
| Logitech SoundMan Wave |
| (Other Jazz based cards should work but I don't have any reports |
| about them). |
| |
| Sound Blasters |
| SB 1.0 to 2.0 |
| SB Pro |
| SB 16 |
| SB32/64/AWE |
| Configure SB32/64/AWE just like SB16. See lowlevel/README.awe |
| for information about using the wave table synth. |
| NOTE! AWE63/Gold and 16/32/AWE "PnP" cards need to be activated |
| using isapnptools before they work with OSS/Free. |
| SB16 compatible cards by other manufacturers than Creative. |
| You have been fooled since there are _no_ SB16 compatible |
| cards on the market (as of May 1997). It's likely that your card |
| is compatible just with SB Pro but there is also a non-SB- |
| compatible 16 bit mode. Usually it's MSS/WSS but it could also |
| be a proprietary one like MV Jazz16 or ESS ES688. OPTi |
| MAD16 chips are very common in so called "SB 16 bit cards" |
| (try with the MAD16 driver). |
| |
| ====================================================================== |
| "Supposed to be SB compatible" cards. |
| Forget the SB compatibility and check for other alternatives |
| first. The only cards that work with the SB driver in |
| Linux have been made by Creative Technology (there is at least |
| one chip on the card with "CREATIVE" printed on it). The |
| only other SB compatible chips are ESS and Jazz16 chips |
| (maybe ALSxxx chips too but they probably don't work). |
| Most other "16 bit SB compatible" cards such as "OPTi/MAD16" or |
| "Crystal" are _NOT_ SB compatible in Linux. |
| |
| Practically all sound cards have some kind of SB emulation mode |
| in addition to their native (16 bit) mode. In most cases this |
| (8 bit only) SB compatible mode doesn't work with Linux. If |
| you get it working it may cause problems with games and |
| applications which require 16 bit audio. Some 16 bit only |
| applications don't check if the card actually supports 16 bits. |
| They just dump 16 bit data to a 8 bit card which produces just |
| noise. |
| |
| In most cases the 16 bit native mode is supported by Linux. |
| Use the SB mode with "clones" only if you don't find anything |
| better from the rest of this doc. |
| ====================================================================== |
| |
| Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) |
| GUS |
| GUS + the 16 bit option |
| GUS MAX |
| GUS ACE (No MIDI port and audio recording) |
| GUS PnP (with RAM) |
| |
| MPU-401 and compatibles |
| The driver works both with the full (intelligent mode) MPU-401 |
| cards (such as MPU IPC-T and MQX-32M) and with the UART only |
| dumb MIDI ports. MPU-401 is currently the most common MIDI |
| interface. Most sound cards are compatible with it. However, |
| don't enable MPU401 mode blindly. Many cards with native support |
| in the driver have their own MPU401 driver. Enabling the standard one |
| will cause a conflict with these cards. So check if your card is |
| in the list of supported cards before enabling MPU401. |
| |
| Windows Sound System (MSS/WSS) |
| Even when Microsoft has discontinued their own Sound System card |
| they managed to make it a standard. MSS compatible cards are based on |
| a codec chip which is easily available from at least two manufacturers |
| (AD1848 by Analog Devices and CS4231/CS4248 by Crystal Semiconductor). |
| Currently most sound cards are based on one of the MSS compatible codec |
| chips. The CS4231 is used in the high quality cards such as GUS MAX, |
| MediaTrix AudioTrix Pro and TB Tropez (GUS MAX is not MSS compatible). |
| |
| Having a AD1848, CS4248 or CS4231 codec chip on the card is a good |
| sign. Even if the card is not MSS compatible, it could be easy to write |
| support for it. Note also that most MSS compatible cards |
| require special boot time initialization which may not be present |
| in the driver. Also, some MSS compatible cards have native support. |
| Enabling the MSS support with these cards is likely to |
| cause a conflict. So check if your card is listed in this file before |
| enabling the MSS support. |
| |
| Yamaha FM synthesizers (OPL2, OPL3 (not OPL3-SA) and OPL4) |
| Most sound cards have a FM synthesizer chip. The OPL2 is a 2 |
| operator chip used in the original AdLib card. Currently it's used |
| only in the cheapest (8 bit mono) cards. The OPL3 is a 4 operator |
| FM chip which provides better sound quality and/or more available |
| voices than the OPL2. The OPL4 is a new chip that has an OPL3 and |
| a wave table synthesizer packed onto the same chip. The driver supports |
| just the OPL3 mode directly. Most cards with an OPL4 (like |
| SM Wave and AudioTrix Pro) support the OPL4 mode using MPU401 |
| emulation. Writing a native OPL4 support is difficult |
| since Yamaha doesn't give information about their sample ROM chip. |
| |
| Enable the generic OPL2/OPL3 FM synthesizer support if your |
| card has a FM chip made by Yamaha. Don't enable it if your card |
| has a software (TRS) based FM emulator. |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| NOTE! OPL3-SA is different chip than the ordinary OPL3. In addition |
| to the FM synth this chip has also digital audio (WSS) and |
| MIDI (MPU401) capabilities. Support for OPL3-SA is described below. |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| Yamaha OPL3-SA1 |
| |
| Yamaha OPL3-SA1 (YMF701) is an audio controller chip used on some |
| (Intel) motherboards and on cheap sound cards. It should not be |
| confused with the original OPL3 chip (YMF278) which is entirely |
| different chip. OPL3-SA1 has support for MSS, MPU401 and SB Pro |
| (not used in OSS/Free) in addition to the OPL3 FM synth. |
| |
| There are also chips called OPL3-SA2, OPL3-SA3, ..., OPL3SA-N. They |
| are PnP chips and will not work with the OPL3-SA1 driver. You should |
| use the standard MSS, MPU401 and OPL3 options with these chips and to |
| activate the card using isapnptools. |
| |
| 4Front Technologies SoftOSS |
| |
| SoftOSS is a software based wave table emulation which works with |
| any 16 bit stereo sound card. Due to its nature a fast CPU is |
| required (P133 is minimum). Although SoftOSS does _not_ use MMX |
| instructions it has proven out that recent processors (which appear |
| to have MMX) perform significantly better with SoftOSS than earlier |
| ones. For example a P166MMX beats a PPro200. SoftOSS should not be used |
| on 486 or 386 machines. |
| |
| The amount of CPU load caused by SoftOSS can be controlled by |
| selecting the CONFIG_SOFTOSS_RATE and CONFIG_SOFTOSS_VOICES |
| parameters properly (they will be prompted by make config). It's |
| recommended to set CONFIG_SOFTOSS_VOICES to 32. If you have a |
| P166MMX or faster (PPro200 is not faster) you can set |
| CONFIG_SOFTOSS_RATE to 44100 (kHz). However with slower systems it |
| recommended to use sampling rates around 22050 or even 16000 kHz. |
| Selecting too high values for these parameters may hang your |
| system when playing MIDI files with hight degree of polyphony |
| (number of concurrently playing notes). It's also possible to |
| decrease CONFIG_SOFTOSS_VOICES. This makes it possible to use |
| higher sampling rates. However using fewer voices decreases |
| playback quality more than decreasing the sampling rate. |
| |
| SoftOSS keeps the samples loaded on the system's RAM so much RAM is |
| required. SoftOSS should never be used on machines with less than 16 MB |
| of RAM since this is potentially dangerous (you may accidentally run out |
| of memory which probably crashes the machine). |
| |
| SoftOSS implements the wave table API originally designed for GUS. For |
| this reason all applications designed for GUS should work (at least |
| after minor modifications). For example gmod/xgmod and playmidi -g are |
| known to work. |
| |
| To work SoftOSS will require GUS compatible |
| patch files to be installed on the system (in /dos/ultrasnd/midi). You |
| can use the public domain MIDIA patchset available from several ftp |
| sites. |
| |
| ********************************************************************* |
| IMPORTANT NOTICE! The original patch set distributed with the Gravis |
| Ultrasound card is not in public domain (even though it's available from |
| some FTP sites). You should contact Voice Crystal (www.voicecrystal.com) |
| if you like to use these patches with SoftOSS included in OSS/Free. |
| ********************************************************************* |
| |
| PSS based cards (AD1848 + ADSP-2115 + Echo ESC614 ASIC) |
| Analog Devices and Echo Speech have together defined a sound card |
| architecture based on the above chips. The DSP chip is used |
| for emulation of SB Pro, FM and General MIDI/MT32. |
| |
| There are several cards based on this architecture. The most known |
| ones are Orchid SW32 and Cardinal DSP16. |
| |
| The driver supports downloading DSP algorithms to these cards. |
| |
| NOTE! You will have to use the "old" config script when configuring |
| PSS cards. |
| |
| MediaTrix AudioTrix Pro |
| The ATP card is built around a CS4231 codec and an OPL4 synthesizer |
| chips. The OPL4 mode is supported by a microcontroller running a |
| General MIDI emulator. There is also a SB 1.5 compatible playback mode. |
| |
| Ensoniq SoundScape and compatibles |
| Ensoniq has designed a sound card architecture based on the |
| OTTO synthesizer chip used in their professional MIDI synthesizers. |
| Several companies (including Ensoniq, Reveal and Spea) are selling |
| cards based on this architecture. |
| |
| NOTE! The SoundScape PnP is not supported by OSS/Free. Ensoniq VIVO and |
| VIVO90 cards are not compatible with Soundscapes so the Soundscape |
| driver will not work with them. You may want to use OSS/Linux with these |
| cards. |
| |
| OPTi MAD16 and Mozart based cards |
| The Mozart (OAK OTI-601), MAD16 (OPTi 82C928), MAD16 Pro (OPTi 82C929), |
| OPTi 82C924/82C925 (in _non_ PnP mode) and OPTi 82C930 interface |
| chips are used in many different sound cards, including some |
| cards by Reveal miro and Turtle Beach (Tropez). The purpose of these |
| chips is to connect other audio components to the PC bus. The |
| interface chip performs address decoding for the other chips. |
| NOTE! Tropez Plus is not MAD16 but CS4232 based. |
| NOTE! MAD16 PnP cards (82C924, 82C925, 82C931) are not MAD16 compatible |
| in the PnP mode. You will have to use them in MSS mode after having |
| initialized them using isapnptools or DOS. 82C931 probably requires |
| initialization using DOS/Windows (running isapnptools is not enough). |
| It's possible to use 82C931 with OSS/Free by jumpering it to non-PnP |
| mode (provided that the card has a jumper for this). In non-PnP mode |
| 82C931 is compatible with 82C930 and should work with the MAD16 driver |
| (without need to use isapnptools or DOS to initialize it). All OPTi |
| chips are supported by OSS/Linux (both in PnP and non-PnP modes). |
| |
| Audio Excel DSP16 |
| Support for this card was written by Riccardo Faccetti |
| (riccardo@cdc8g5.cdc.polimi.it). The AEDSP16 driver included in |
| the lowlevel/ directory. To use it you should enable the |
| "Additional low level drivers" option. |
| |
| Crystal CS4232 and CS4236 based cards such as AcerMagic S23, TB Tropez _Plus_ and |
| many PC motherboards (Compaq, HP, Intel, ...) |
| CS4232 is a PnP multimedia chip which contains a CS3231A codec, |
| SB and MPU401 emulations. There is support for OPL3 too. |
| Unfortunately the MPU401 mode doesn't work (I don't know how to |
| initialize it). CS4236 is an enhanced (compatible) version of CS4232. |
| NOTE! Don't ever try to use isapnptools with CS4232 since this will just |
| freeze your machine (due to chip bugs). If you have problems in getting |
| CS4232 working you could try initializing it with DOS (CS4232C.EXE) and |
| then booting Linux using loadlin. CS4232C.EXE loads a secret firmware |
| patch which is not documented by Crystal. |
| |
| Turtle Beach Maui and Tropez "classic" |
| This driver version supports sample, patch and program loading commands |
| described in the Maui/Tropez User's manual. |
| There is now full initialization support too. The audio side of |
| the Tropez is based on the MAD16 chip (see above). |
| NOTE! Tropez Plus is different card than Tropez "classic" and will not |
| work fully in Linux. You can get audio features working by configuring |
| the card as a CS4232 based card (above). |
| |
| |
| Jumpers and software configuration |
| ================================== |
| |
| Some of the earliest sound cards were jumper configurable. You have to |
| configure the driver use I/O, IRQ and DMA settings |
| that match the jumpers. Just few 8 bit cards are fully jumper |
| configurable (SB 1.x/2.x, SB Pro and clones). |
| Some cards made by Aztech have an EEPROM which contains the |
| config info. These cards behave much like hardware jumpered cards. |
| |
| Most cards have jumper for the base I/O address but other parameters |
| are software configurable. Sometimes there are few other jumpers too. |
| |
| Latest cards are fully software configurable or they are PnP ISA |
| compatible. There are no jumpers on the board. |
| |
| The driver handles software configurable cards automatically. Just configure |
| the driver to use I/O, IRQ and DMA settings which are known to work. |
| You could usually use the same values than with DOS and/or Windows. |
| Using different settings is possible but not recommended since it may cause |
| some trouble (for example when warm booting from an OS to another or |
| when installing new hardware to the machine). |
| |
| Sound driver sets the soft configurable parameters of the card automatically |
| during boot. Usually you don't need to run any extra initialization |
| programs when booting Linux but there are some exceptions. See the |
| card-specific instructions below for more info. |
| |
| The drawback of software configuration is that the driver needs to know |
| how the card must be initialized. It cannot initialize unknown cards |
| even if they are otherwise compatible with some other cards (like SB, |
| MPU401 or Windows Sound System). |
| |
| |
| What if your card was not listed above? |
| ======================================= |
| |
| The first thing to do is to look at the major IC chips on the card. |
| Many of the latest sound cards are based on some standard chips. If you |
| are lucky, all of them could be supported by the driver. The most common ones |
| are the OPTi MAD16, Mozart, SoundScape (Ensoniq) and the PSS architectures |
| listed above. Also look at the end of this file for list of unsupported |
| cards and the ones which could be supported later. |
| |
| The last resort is to send _exact_ name and model information of the card |
| to me together with a list of the major IC chips (manufactured, model) to |
| me. I could then try to check if your card looks like something familiar. |
| |
| There are many more cards in the world than listed above. The first thing to |
| do with these cards is to check if they emulate some other card or interface |
| such as SB, MSS and/or MPU401. In this case there is a chance to get the |
| card to work by booting DOS before starting Linux (boot DOS, hit ctrl-alt-del |
| and boot Linux without hard resetting the machine). In this method the |
| DOS based driver initializes the hardware to use known I/O, IRQ and DMA |
| settings. If sound driver is configured to use the same settings, everything |
| should work OK. |
| |
| |
| Configuring sound driver (with Linux) |
| ===================================== |
| |
| The sound driver is currently distributed as part of the Linux kernel. The |
| files are in /usr/src/linux/drivers/sound/. |
| |
| **************************************************************************** |
| * ALWAYS USE THE SOUND DRIVER VERSION WHICH IS DISTRIBUTED WITH * |
| * THE KERNEL SOURCE PACKAGE YOU ARE USING. SOME ALPHA AND BETA TEST * |
| * VERSIONS CAN BE INSTALLED FROM A SEPARATELY DISTRIBUTED PACKAGE * |
| * BUT CHECK THAT THE PACKAGE IS NOT MUCH OLDER (OR NEWER) THAN THE * |
| * KERNEL YOU ARE USING. IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THE KERNEL/DRIVER * |
| * INTERFACE CHANGES BETWEEN KERNEL RELEASES WHICH MAY CAUSE SOME * |
| * INCOMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS. * |
| * * |
| * IN CASE YOU INSTALL A SEPARATELY DISTRIBUTED SOUND DRIVER VERSION, * |
| * BE SURE TO REMOVE OR RENAME THE OLD SOUND DRIVER DIRECTORY BEFORE * |
| * INSTALLING THE NEW ONE. LEAVING OLD FILES TO THE SOUND DRIVER * |
| * DIRECTORY _WILL_ CAUSE PROBLEMS WHEN THE DRIVER IS USED OR * |
| * COMPILED. * |
| **************************************************************************** |
| |
| To configure the driver, run "make config" in the kernel source directory |
| (/usr/src/linux). Answer "y" or "m" to the question about Sound card support |
| (after the questions about mouse, CD-ROM, ftape, etc. support). Questions |
| about options for sound will then be asked. |
| |
| After configuring the kernel and sound driver and compile the kernel |
| following instructions in the kernel README. |
| |
| The sound driver configuration dialog |
| ------------------------------------- |
| |
| Sound configuration starts by making some yes/no questions. Be careful |
| when answering to these questions since answering y to a question may |
| prevent some later ones from being asked. For example don't answer y to |
| the first question (PAS16) if you don't really have a PAS16. Don't enable |
| more cards than you really need since they just consume memory. Also |
| some drivers (like MPU401) may conflict with your SCSI controller and |
| prevent kernel from booting. If you card was in the list of supported |
| cards (above), please look at the card specific config instructions |
| (later in this file) before starting to configure. Some cards must be |
| configured in way which is not obvious. |
| |
| So here is the beginning of the config dialog. Answer 'y' or 'n' to these |
| questions. The default answer is shown so that (y/n) means 'y' by default and |
| (n/y) means 'n'. To use the default value, just hit ENTER. But be careful |
| since using the default _doesn't_ guarantee anything. |
| |
| Note also that all questions may not be asked. The configuration program |
| may disable some questions depending on the earlier choices. It may also |
| select some options automatically as well. |
| |
| "ProAudioSpectrum 16 support", |
| - Answer 'y'_ONLY_ if you have a Pro Audio Spectrum _16_, |
| Pro Audio Studio 16 or Logitech SoundMan 16 (be sure that |
| you read the above list correctly). Don't answer 'y' if you |
| have some other card made by Media Vision or Logitech since they |
| are not PAS16 compatible. |
| NOTE! Since 3.5-beta10 you need to enable SB support (next question) |
| if you want to use the SB emulation of PAS16. It's also possible to |
| the emulation if you want to use a true SB card together with PAS16 |
| (there is another question about this that is asked later). |
| "Sound Blaster support", |
| - Answer 'y' if you have an original SB card made by Creative Labs |
| or a full 100% hardware compatible clone (like Thunderboard or |
| SM Games). If your card was in the list of supported cards (above), |
| please look at the card specific instructions later in this file |
| before answering this question. For an unknown card you may answer |
| 'y' if the card claims to be SB compatible. |
| Enable this option also with PAS16 (changed since v3.5-beta9). |
| |
| Don't enable SB if you have a MAD16 or Mozart compatible card. |
| |
| "Generic OPL2/OPL3 FM synthesizer support", |
| - Answer 'y' if your card has a FM chip made by Yamaha (OPL2/OPL3/OPL4). |
| Answering 'y' is usually a safe and recommended choice. However some |
| cards may have software (TSR) FM emulation. Enabling FM support |
| with these cards may cause trouble. However I don't currently know |
| such cards. |
| "Gravis Ultrasound support", |
| - Answer 'y' if you have GUS or GUS MAX. Answer 'n' if you don't |
| have GUS since the GUS driver consumes much memory. |
| Currently I don't have experiences with the GUS ACE so I don't |
| know what to answer with it. |
| "MPU-401 support (NOT for SB16)", |
| - Be careful with this question. The MPU401 interface is supported |
| by almost any sound card today. However some natively supported cards |
| have their own driver for MPU401. Enabling the MPU401 option with |
| these cards will cause a conflict. Also enabling MPU401 on a system |
| that doesn't really have a MPU401 could cause some trouble. If your |
| card was in the list of supported cards (above), please look at |
| the card specific instructions later in this file. |
| |
| In MOST cases this MPU401 driver should only be used with "true" |
| MIDI-only MPU401 professional cards. In most other cases there |
| is another way to get the MPU401 compatible interface of a |
| sound card to work. |
| Support for the MPU401 compatible MIDI port of SB16, ESS1688 |
| and MV Jazz16 cards is included in the SB driver. Use it instead |
| of this separate MPU401 driver with these cards. As well |
| Soundscape, PSS and Maui drivers include their own MPU401 |
| options. |
| |
| It's safe to answer 'y' if you have a true MPU401 MIDI interface |
| card. |
| "6850 UART Midi support", |
| - It's safe to answer 'n' to this question in all cases. The 6850 |
| UART interface is so rarely used. |
| "PSS (ECHO-ADI2111) support", |
| - Answer 'y' only if you have Orchid SW32, Cardinal DSP16 or some |
| other card based on the PSS chipset (AD1848 codec + ADSP-2115 |
| DSP chip + Echo ESC614 ASIC CHIP). |
| "16 bit sampling option of GUS (_NOT_ GUS MAX)", |
| - Answer 'y' if you have installed the 16 bit sampling daughtercard |
| to your GUS. Answer 'n' if you have GUS MAX. Enabling this option |
| disables GUS MAX support. |
| "GUS MAX support", |
| - Answer 'y' only if you have a GUS MAX. |
| "Microsoft Sound System support", |
| - Again think carefully before answering 'y' to this question. It's |
| safe to answer 'y' in case you have the original Windows Sound |
| System card made by Microsoft or Aztech SG 16 Pro (or NX16 Pro). |
| Also you may answer 'y' in case your card was not listed earlier |
| in this file. For cards having native support in the driver, consult |
| the card specific instructions later in this file. Some drivers |
| have their own MSS support and enabling this option will cause a |
| conflict. |
| Note! The MSS driver permits configuring two DMA channels. This is a |
| "nonstandard" feature and works only with very few cards (if any). |
| In most cases the second DMA channel should be disabled or set to |
| the same channel than the first one. Trying to configure two separate |
| channels with cards that don't support this feature will prevent |
| audio (at least recording) from working. |
| "Ensoniq Soundscape support", |
| - Answer 'y' if you have a sound card based on the Ensoniq SoundScape |
| chipset. Such cards are being manufactured at least by Ensoniq, |
| Spea and Reveal (note that Reveal makes other cards also). The oldest |
| cards made by Spea don't work properly with Linux. |
| Soundscape PnP as well as Ensoniq VIVO work only with the commercial |
| OSS/Linux version. |
| "MediaTrix AudioTrix Pro support", |
| - Answer 'y' if you have the AudioTrix Pro. |
| "Support for MAD16 and/or Mozart based cards", |
| - Answer y if your card has a Mozart (OAK OTI-601) or MAD16 |
| (OPTi 82C928, 82C929, 82C924/82C925 or 82C930) audio interface chip. |
| These chips are |
| currently quite common so it's possible that many no-name cards |
| have one of them. In addition the MAD16 chip is used in some |
| cards made by known manufacturers such as Turtle Beach (Tropez), |
| Reveal (some models) and Diamond (some recent models). |
| Note OPTi 82C924 and 82C925 are MAD16 compatible only in non PnP |
| mode (jumper selectable on many cards). |
| "Support for TB Maui" |
| - This enables TB Maui specific initialization. Works with TB Maui |
| and TB Tropez (may not work with Tropez Plus). |
| |
| |
| Then the configuration program asks some y/n questions about the higher |
| level services. It's recommended to answer 'y' to each of these questions. |
| Answer 'n' only if you know you will not need the option. |
| |
| "MIDI interface support", |
| - Answering 'n' disables /dev/midi## devices and access to any |
| MIDI ports using /dev/sequencer and /dev/music. This option |
| also affects any MPU401 and/or General MIDI compatible devices. |
| "FM synthesizer (YM3812/OPL-3) support", |
| - Answer 'y' here. |
| "/dev/sequencer support", |
| - Answering 'n' disables /dev/sequencer and /dev/music. |
| |
| Entering the I/O, IRQ and DMA config parameters |
| ----------------------------------------------- |
| |
| After the above questions the configuration program prompts for the |
| card specific configuration information. Usually just a set of |
| I/O address, IRQ and DMA numbers are asked. With some cards the program |
| asks for some files to be used during initialization of the card. For example |
| many cards have a DSP chip or microprocessor which must be initialized by |
| downloading a program (microcode) file to the card. |
| |
| Instructions for answering these questions are given in the next section. |
| |
| |
| Card specific information |
| ========================= |
| |
| This section gives additional instructions about configuring some cards. |
| Please refer manual of your card for valid I/O, IRQ and DMA numbers. Using |
| the same settings with DOS/Windows and Linux is recommended. Using |
| different values could cause some problems when switching between |
| different operating systems. |
| |
| Sound Blasters (the original ones by Creative) |
| --------------------------------------------- |
| |
| NOTE! Check if you have a PnP Sound Blaster (cards sold after summer 1995 |
| are almost certainly PnP ones). With PnP cards you should use isapnptools |
| to activate them (see above). |
| |
| It's possible to configure these cards to use different I/O, IRQ and |
| DMA settings. Since the possible/default settings have changed between various |
| models, you have to consult manual of your card for the proper ones. It's |
| a good idea to use the same values than with DOS/Windows. With SB and SB Pro |
| it's the only choice. SB16 has software selectable IRQ and DMA channels but |
| using different values with DOS and Linux is likely to cause troubles. The |
| DOS driver is not able to reset the card properly after warm boot from Linux |
| if Linux has used different IRQ or DMA values. |
| |
| The original (steam) Sound Blaster (versions 1.x and 2.x) use always |
| DMA1. There is no way to change it. |
| |
| The SB16 needs two DMA channels. A 8 bit one (1 or 3) is required for |
| 8 bit operation and a 16 bit one (5, 6 or 7) for the 16 bit mode. In theory |
| it's possible to use just one (8 bit) DMA channel by answering the 8 bit |
| one when the configuration program asks for the 16 bit one. This may work |
| in some systems but is likely to cause terrible noise on some other systems. |
| |
| It's possible to use two SB16/32/64 at the same time. To do this you should |
| first configure OSS/Free for one card. Then edit local.h manually and define |
| SB2_BASE, SB2_IRQ, SB2_DMA and SB2_DMA2 for the second one. You can't get |
| the OPL3, MIDI and EMU8000 devices of the second card to work. If you are |
| going to use two PnP Sound Blasters, ensure that they are of different model |
| and have different PnP IDs. There is no way to get two cards with the same |
| card ID and serial number to work. The easiest way to check this is trying |
| if isapnptools can see both cards or just one. |
| |
| NOTE! Don't enable the SM Games option (asked by the configuration program) |
| if you are not 101% sure that your card is a Logitech Soundman Games |
| (not a SM Wave or SM16). |
| |
| SB Clones |
| --------- |
| |
| First of all: There are no SB16 clones. There are SB Pro clones with a |
| 16 bit mode which is not SB16 compatible. The most likely alternative is that |
| the 16 bit mode means MSS/WSS. |
| |
| There are just a few fully 100% hardware SB or SB Pro compatible cards. |
| I know just Thunderboard and SM Games. Other cards require some kind of |
| hardware initialization before they become SB compatible. Check if your card |
| was listed in the beginning of this file. In this case you should follow |
| instructions for your card later in this file. |
| |
| For other not fully SB clones you may try initialization using DOS in |
| the following way: |
| |
| - Boot DOS so that the card specific driver gets run. |
| - Hit ctrl-alt-del (or use loadlin) to boot Linux. Don't |
| switch off power or press the reset button. |
| - If you use the same I/O, IRQ and DMA settings in Linux, the |
| card should work. |
| |
| If your card is both SB and MSS compatible, I recommend using the MSS mode. |
| Most cards of this kind are not able to work in the SB and the MSS mode |
| simultaneously. Using the MSS mode provides 16 bit recording and playback. |
| |
| ProAudioSpectrum 16 and compatibles |
| ----------------------------------- |
| |
| PAS16 has a SB emulation chip which can be used together with the native |
| (16 bit) mode of the card. To enable this emulation you should configure |
| the driver to have SB support too (this has been changed since version |
| 3.5-beta9 of this driver). |
| |
| With current driver versions it's also possible to use PAS16 together with |
| another SB compatible card. In this case you should configure SB support |
| for the other card and to disable the SB emulation of PAS16 (there is a |
| separate questions about this). |
| |
| With PAS16 you can use two audio device files at the same time. /dev/dsp (and |
| /dev/audio) is connected to the 8/16 bit native codec and the /dev/dsp1 (and |
| /dev/audio1) is connected to the SB emulation (8 bit mono only). |
| |
| Gravis Ultrasound |
| ----------------- |
| |
| There are many different revisions of the Ultrasound card (GUS). The |
| earliest ones (pre 3.7) don't have a hardware mixer. With these cards |
| the driver uses a software emulation for synth and pcm playbacks. It's |
| also possible to switch some of the inputs (line in, mic) off by setting |
| mixer volume of the channel level below 10%. For recording you have |
| to select the channel as a recording source and to use volume above 10%. |
| |
| GUS 3.7 has a hardware mixer. |
| |
| GUS MAX and the 16 bit sampling daughtercard have a CS4231 codec chip which |
| also contains a mixer. |
| |
| Configuring GUS is simple. Just enable the GUS support and GUS MAX or |
| the 16 bit daughtercard if you have them. Note that enabling the daughter |
| card disables GUS MAX driver. |
| |
| NOTE for owners of the 16 bit daughtercard: By default the daughtercard |
| uses /dev/dsp (and /dev/audio). Command "ln -sf /dev/dsp1 /dev/dsp" |
| selects the daughter card as the default device. |
| |
| With just the standard GUS enabled the configuration program prompts |
| for the I/O, IRQ and DMA numbers for the card. Use the same values than |
| with DOS. |
| |
| With the daughter card option enabled you will be prompted for the I/O, |
| IRQ and DMA numbers for the daughter card. You have to use different I/O |
| and DMA values than for the standard GUS. The daughter card permits |
| simultaneous recording and playback. Use /dev/dsp (the daughtercard) for |
| recording and /dev/dsp1 (GUS GF1) for playback. |
| |
| GUS MAX uses the same I/O address and IRQ settings than the original GUS |
| (GUS MAX = GUS + a CS4231 codec). In addition an extra DMA channel may be used. |
| Using two DMA channels permits simultaneous playback using two devices |
| (dev/dsp0 and /dev/dsp1). The second DMA channel is required for |
| full duplex audio. |
| To enable the second DMA channels, give a valid DMA channel when the config |
| program asks for the GUS MAX DMA (entering -1 disables the second DMA). |
| Using 16 bit DMA channels (5,6 or 7) is recommended. |
| |
| If you have problems in recording with GUS MAX, you could try to use |
| just one 8 bit DMA channel. Recording will not work with one DMA |
| channel if it's a 16 bit one. |
| |
| Microphone input of GUS MAX is connected to mixer in little bit nonstandard |
| way. There is actually two microphone volume controls. Normal "mic" controls |
| only recording level. Mixer control "speaker" is used to control volume of |
| microphone signal connected directly to line/speaker out. So just decrease |
| volume of "speaker" if you have problems with microphone feedback. |
| |
| GUS ACE works too but any attempt to record or to use the MIDI port |
| will fail. |
| |
| GUS PnP (with RAM) is partially supported but it needs to be initialized using |
| DOS or isapnptools before starting the driver. |
| |
| MPU401 and Windows Sound System |
| ------------------------------- |
| |
| Again. Don't enable these options in case your card is listed |
| somewhere else in this file. |
| |
| Configuring these cards is obvious (or it should be). With MSS |
| you should probably enable the OPL3 synth also since |
| most MSS compatible cards have it. However check that this is true |
| before enabling OPL3. |
| |
| Sound driver supports more than one MPU401 compatible cards at the same time |
| but the config program asks config info for just the first of them. |
| Adding the second or third MPU interfaces must be done manually by |
| editing sound/local.h (after running the config program). Add defines for |
| MPU2_BASE & MPU2_IRQ (and MPU3_BASE & MPU3_IRQ) to the file. |
| |
| CAUTION! |
| |
| The default I/O base of Adaptec AHA-1542 SCSI controller is 0x330 which |
| is also the default of the MPU401 driver. Don't configure the sound driver to |
| use 0x330 as the MPU401 base if you have a AHA1542. The kernel will not boot |
| if you make this mistake. |
| |
| PSS |
| --- |
| |
| Even the PSS cards are compatible with SB, MSS and MPU401, you must not |
| enable these options when configuring the driver. The configuration |
| program handles these options itself. (You may use the SB, MPU and MSS options |
| together with PSS if you have another card on the system). |
| |
| The PSS driver enables MSS and MPU401 modes of the card. SB is not enabled |
| since it doesn't work concurrently with MSS. The driver loads also a |
| DSP algorithm which is used to for the general MIDI emulation. The |
| algorithm file (.ld) is read by the config program and written to a |
| file included when the pss.c is compiled. For this reason the config |
| program asks if you want to download the file. Use the genmidi.ld file |
| distributed with the DOS/Windows drivers of the card (don't use the mt32.ld). |
| With some cards the file is called 'synth.ld'. You must have access to |
| the file when configuring the driver. The easiest way is to mount the DOS |
| partition containing the file with Linux. |
| |
| It's possible to load your own DSP algorithms and run them with the card. |
| Look at the directory pss_test of snd-util-3.0.tar.gz for more info. |
| |
| AudioTrix Pro |
| ------------- |
| |
| You have to enable the OPL3 and SB (not SB Pro or SB16) drivers in addition |
| to the native AudioTrix driver. Don't enable MSS or MPU drivers. |
| |
| Configuring ATP is little bit tricky since it uses so many I/O, IRQ and |
| DMA numbers. Using the same values than with DOS/Win is a good idea. Don't |
| attempt to use the same IRQ or DMA channels twice. |
| |
| The SB mode of ATP is implemented so the ATP driver just enables SB |
| in the proper address. The SB driver handles the rest. You have to configure |
| both the SB driver and the SB mode of ATP to use the same IRQ, DMA and I/O |
| settings. |
| |
| Also the ATP has a microcontroller for the General MIDI emulation (OPL4). |
| For this reason the driver asks for the name of a file containing the |
| microcode (TRXPRO.HEX). This file is usually located in the directory |
| where the DOS drivers were installed. You must have access to this file |
| when configuring the driver. |
| |
| If you have the effects daughtercard, it must be initialized by running |
| the setfx program of snd-util-3.0.tar.gz package. This step is not required |
| when using the (future) binary distribution version of the driver. |
| |
| Ensoniq SoundScape |
| ------------------ |
| |
| NOTE! The new PnP SoundScape is not supported yet. Soundscape compatible |
| cards made by Reveal don't work with Linux. They use older revision |
| of the Soundscape chipset which is not fully compatible with |
| newer cards made by Ensoniq. |
| |
| The SoundScape driver handles initialization of MSS and MPU supports |
| itself so you don't need to enable other drivers than SoundScape |
| (enable also the /dev/dsp, /dev/sequencer and MIDI supports). |
| |
| !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| !!!!! !!!! |
| !!!!! NOTE! Before version 3.5-beta6 there WERE two sets of audio !!!! |
| !!!!! device files (/dev/dsp0 and /dev/dsp1). The first one WAS !!!! |
| !!!!! used only for card initialization and the second for audio !!!! |
| !!!!! purposes. It WAS required to change /dev/dsp (a symlink) to !!!! |
| !!!!! point to /dev/dsp1. !!!! |
| !!!!! !!!! |
| !!!!! This is not required with OSS versions 3.5-beta6 and later !!!! |
| !!!!! since there is now just one audio device file. Please !!!! |
| !!!!! change /dev/dsp to point back to /dev/dsp0 if you are !!!! |
| !!!!! upgrading from an earlier driver version using !!!! |
| !!!!! (cd /dev;rm dsp;ln -s dsp0 dsp). !!!! |
| !!!!! !!!! |
| !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| |
| The configuration program asks one DMA channel and two interrupts. One IRQ |
| and one DMA is used by the MSS codec. The second IRQ is required for the |
| MPU401 mode (you have to use different IRQs for both purposes). |
| There were earlier two DMA channels for SoundScape but the current driver |
| version requires just one. |
| |
| The SoundScape card has a Motorola microcontroller which must initialized |
| _after_ boot (the driver doesn't initialize it during boot). |
| The initialization is done by running the 'ssinit' program which is |
| distributed in the snd-util-3.0.tar.gz package. You have to edit two |
| defines in the ssinit.c and then compile the program. You may run ssinit |
| manually (after each boot) or add it to /etc/rc.d/rc.local. |
| |
| The ssinit program needs the microcode file that comes with the DOS/Windows |
| driver of the card. You will need to use version 1.30.00 or later |
| of the microcode file (sndscape.co0 or sndscape.co1 depending on |
| your card model). THE OLD sndscape.cod WILL NOT WORK. IT WILL HANG YOUR |
| MACHINE. The only way to get the new microcode file is to download |
| and install the DOS/Windows driver from ftp://ftp.ensoniq.com/pub. |
| |
| Then you have to select the proper microcode file to use: soundscape.co0 |
| is the right one for most cards and sndscape.co1 is for few (older) cards |
| made by Reveal and/or Spea. The driver has capability to detect the card |
| version during boot. Look at the boot log messages in /var/adm/messages |
| and locate the sound driver initialization message for the SoundScape |
| card. If the driver displays string <Ensoniq Soundscape (old)>, you have |
| an old card and you will need to use sndscape.co1. For other cards use |
| soundscape.co0. New Soundscape revisions such as Elite and PnP use |
| code files with higher numbers (.co2, .co3, etc.). |
| |
| NOTE! Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO is not compatible with other Soundscape cards. |
| Currently it's possible to use it in Linux only with OSS/Linux |
| drivers. |
| |
| Check /var/adm/messages after running ssinit. The driver prints |
| the board version after downloading the microcode file. That version |
| number must match the number in the name of the microcode file (extension). |
| |
| Running ssinit with a wrong version of the sndscape.co? file is not |
| dangerous as long as you don't try to use a file called sndscape.cod. |
| If you have initialized the card using a wrong microcode file (sounds |
| are terrible), just modify ssinit.c to use another microcode file and try |
| again. It's possible to use an earlier version of sndscape.co[01] but it |
| may sound weird. |
| |
| MAD16 (Pro) and Mozart |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| You need to enable just the MAD16 /Mozart support when configuring |
| the driver. _Don't_ enable SB, MPU401 or MSS. However you will need the |
| /dev/audio, /dev/sequencer and MIDI supports. |
| |
| Mozart and OPTi 82C928 (the original MAD16) chips don't support |
| MPU401 mode so enter just 0 when the configuration program asks the |
| MPU/MIDI I/O base. The MAD16 Pro (OPTi 82C929) and 82C930 chips have MPU401 |
| mode. |
| |
| TB Tropez is based on the 82C929 chip. It has two MIDI ports. |
| The one connected to the MAD16 chip is the second one (there is a second |
| MIDI connector/pins somewhere??). If you have not connected the second MIDI |
| port, just disable the MIDI port of MAD16. The 'Maui' compatible synth of |
| Tropez is jumper configurable and not connected to the MAD16 chip (the |
| Maui driver can be used with it). |
| |
| Some MAD16 based cards may cause feedback, whistle or terrible noise if the |
| line3 mixer channel is turned too high. This happens at least with Shuttle |
| Sound System. Current driver versions set volume of line3 low enough so |
| this should not be a problem. |
| |
| If you have a MAD16 card which have an OPL4 (FM + Wave table) synthesizer |
| chip (_not_ an OPL3), you have to append a line containing #define MAD16_OPL4 |
| to the file linux/drivers/sound/local.h (after running make config). |
| |
| MAD16 cards having a CS4231 codec support full duplex mode. This mode |
| can be enabled by configuring the card to use two DMA channels. Possible |
| DMA channel pairs are: 0&1, 1&0 and 3&0. |
| |
| NOTE! Cards having an OPTi 82C924/82C925 chip work with OSS/Free only in |
| non-PnP mode (usually jumper selectable). The PnP mode is supported only |
| by OSS/Linux. |
| |
| MV Jazz (ProSonic) |
| ------------------ |
| |
| The Jazz16 driver is just a hack made to the SB Pro driver. However it works |
| fairly well. You have to enable SB, SB Pro (_not_ SB16) and MPU401 supports |
| when configuring the driver. The configuration program asks later if you |
| want support for MV Jazz16 based cards (after asking SB base address). Answer |
| 'y' here and the driver asks the second (16 bit) DMA channel. |
| |
| The Jazz16 driver uses the MPU401 driver in a way which will cause |
| problems if you have another MPU401 compatible card. In this case you must |
| give address of the Jazz16 based MPU401 interface when the config |
| program prompts for the MPU401 information. Then look at the MPU401 |
| specific section for instructions about configuring more than one MPU401 cards. |
| |
| Logitech Soundman Wave |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| Read the above MV Jazz specific instructions first. |
| |
| The Logitech SoundMan Wave (don't confuse this with the SM16 or SM Games) is |
| a MV Jazz based card which has an additional OPL4 based wave table |
| synthesizer. The OPL4 chip is handled by an on board microcontroller |
| which must be initialized during boot. The config program asks if |
| you have a SM Wave immediately after asking the second DMA channel of jazz16. |
| If you answer 'y', the config program will ask name of the file containing |
| code to be loaded to the microcontroller. The file is usually called |
| MIDI0001.BIN and it's located in the DOS/Windows driver directory. The file |
| may also be called as TSUNAMI.BIN or something else (older cards?). |
| |
| The OPL4 synth will be inaccessible without loading the microcontroller code. |
| |
| Also remember to enable SB MPU401 support if you want to use the OPL4 mode. |
| (Don't enable the 'normal' MPU401 device as with some earlier driver |
| versions (pre 3.5-alpha8)). |
| |
| NOTE! Don't answer 'y' when the driver asks about SM Games support |
| (the next question after the MIDI0001.BIN name). However |
| answering 'y' doesn't cause damage your computer so don't panic. |
| |
| Sound Galaxies |
| -------------- |
| |
| There are many different Sound Galaxy cards made by Aztech. The 8 bit |
| ones are fully SB or SB Pro compatible and there should be no problems |
| with them. |
| |
| The older 16 bit cards (SG Pro16, SG NX Pro16, Nova and Lyra) have |
| an EEPROM chip for storing the configuration data. There is a microcontroller |
| which initializes the card to match the EEPROM settings when the machine |
| is powered on. These cards actually behave just like they have jumpers |
| for all of the settings. Configure driver for MSS, MPU, SB/SB Pro and OPL3 |
| supports with these cards. |
| |
| There are some new Sound Galaxies in the market. I have no experience with |
| them so read the card's manual carefully. |
| |
| ESS ES1688 and ES688 'AudioDrive' based cards |
| --------------------------------------------- |
| |
| Support for these two ESS chips is embedded in the SB driver. |
| Configure these cards just like SB. Enable the 'SB MPU401 MIDI port' |
| if you want to use MIDI features of ES1688. ES688 doesn't have MPU mode |
| so you don't need to enable it (the driver uses normal SB MIDI automatically |
| with ES688). |
| |
| NOTE! ESS cards are not compatible with MSS/WSS so don't worry if MSS support |
| of OSS doesn't work with it. |
| |
| There are some ES1688/688 based sound cards and (particularly) motherboards |
| which use software configurable I/O port relocation feature of the chip. |
| This ESS proprietary feature is supported only by OSS/Linux. |
| |
| There are ES1688 based cards which use different interrupt pin assignment than |
| recommended by ESS (5, 7, 9/2 and 10). In this case all IRQs don't work. |
| At least a card called (Pearl?) Hypersound 16 supports IRQ 15 but it doesn't |
| work. |
| |
| ES1868 is a PnP chip which is (supposed to be) compatible with ESS1688 |
| probably works with OSS/Free after initialization using isapnptools. |
| |
| Reveal cards |
| ------------ |
| |
| There are several different cards made/marketed by Reveal. Some of them |
| are compatible with SoundScape and some use the MAD16 chip. You may have |
| to look at the card and try to identify its origin. |
| |
| Diamond |
| ------- |
| |
| The oldest (Sierra Aria based) sound cards made by Diamond are not supported |
| (they may work if the card is initialized using DOS). The recent (LX?) |
| models are based on the MAD16 chip which is supported by the driver. |
| |
| Audio Excel DSP16 |
| ----------------- |
| |
| Support for this card is currently not functional. A new driver for it |
| should be available later this year. |
| |
| PCMCIA cards |
| ------------ |
| |
| Sorry, can't help. Some cards may work and some don't. |
| |
| TI TM4000M notebooks |
| -------------------- |
| |
| These computers have a built in sound support based on the Jazz chipset. |
| Look at the instructions for MV Jazz (above). It's also important to note |
| that there is something wrong with the mouse port and sound at least on |
| some TM models. Don't enable the "C&T 82C710 mouse port support" when |
| configuring Linux. Having it enabled is likely to cause mysterious problems |
| and kernel failures when sound is used. |
| |
| miroSOUND |
| --------- |
| |
| The miroSOUND PCM1-pro, PCM12 and PCM20 radio has been used |
| successfully. These cards are based on the MAD16, OPL4, and CS4231A chips |
| and everything said in the section about MAD16 cards applies here, |
| too. The only major difference between the PCMxx and other MAD16 cards |
| is that instead of the mixer in the CS4231 codec a separate mixer |
| controlled by an on-board 80C32 microcontroller is used. Control of |
| the mixer takes place via the ACI (miro's audio control interface) |
| protocol that is implemented in a separate lowlevel driver. Make sure |
| you compile this ACI driver together with the normal MAD16 support |
| when you use a miroSOUND PCMxx card. The ACI mixer is controlled by |
| /dev/mixer and the CS4231 mixer by /dev/mixer1 (depends on load |
| time). Only in special cases you want to change something regularly on |
| the CS4231 mixer. |
| |
| The miroSOUND PCM12 and PCM20 radio is capable of full duplex |
| operation (simultaneous PCM replay and recording), which allows you to |
| implement nice real-time signal processing audio effect software and |
| network telephones. The ACI mixer has to be switched into the "solo" |
| mode for duplex operation in order to avoid feedback caused by the |
| mixer (input hears output signal). You can de-/activate this mode |
| through toggleing the record button for the wave controller with an |
| OSS-mixer. |
| |
| The PCM20 contains a radio tuner, which is also controlled by |
| ACI. This radio tuner is supported by the ACI driver together with the |
| miropcm20.o module. Also the 7-band equalizer is integrated |
| (limited by the OSS-design). Developement has started and maybe |
| finished for the RDS decoder on this card, too. You will be able to |
| read RadioText, the Programme Service name, Programme TYpe and |
| others. Even the v4l radio module benefits from it with a refined |
| strength value. See aci.[ch] and miropcm20*.[ch] for more details. |
| |
| The following configuration parameters have worked fine for the PCM12 |
| in Markus Kuhn's system, many other configurations might work, too: |
| CONFIG_MAD16_BASE=0x530, CONFIG_MAD16_IRQ=11, CONFIG_MAD16_DMA=3, |
| CONFIG_MAD16_DMA2=0, CONFIG_MAD16_MPU_BASE=0x330, CONFIG_MAD16_MPU_IRQ=10, |
| DSP_BUFFSIZE=65536, SELECTED_SOUND_OPTIONS=0x00281000. |
| |
| Bas van der Linden is using his PCM1-pro with a configuration that |
| differs in: CONFIG_MAD16_IRQ=7, CONFIG_MAD16_DMA=1, CONFIG_MAD16_MPU_IRQ=9 |
| |
| Compaq Deskpro XL |
| ----------------- |
| |
| The builtin sound hardware of Compaq Deskpro XL is now supported. |
| You need to configure the driver with MSS and OPL3 supports enabled. |
| In addition you need to manually edit linux/drivers/sound/local.h and |
| to add a line containing "#define DESKPROXL" if you used |
| make menuconfig/xconfig. |
| |
| Others? |
| ------- |
| |
| Since there are so many different sound cards, it's likely that I have |
| forgotten to mention many of them. Please inform me if you know yet another |
| card which works with Linux, please inform me (or is anybody else |
| willing to maintain a database of supported cards (just like in XF86)?). |
| |
| Cards not supported yet |
| ======================= |
| |
| Please check the version of sound driver you are using before |
| complaining that your card is not supported. It's possible you are |
| using a driver version which was released months before your card was |
| introduced. |
| |
| First of all, there is an easy way to make most sound cards work with Linux. |
| Just use the DOS based driver to initialize the card to a known state, then use |
| loadlin.exe to boot Linux. If Linux is configured to use the same I/O, IRQ and |
| DMA numbers as DOS, the card could work. |
| (ctrl-alt-del can be used in place of loadlin.exe but it doesn't work with |
| new motherboards). This method works also with all/most PnP sound cards. |
| |
| Don't get fooled with SB compatibility. Most cards are compatible with |
| SB but that may require a TSR which is not possible with Linux. If |
| the card is compatible with MSS, it's a better choice. Some cards |
| don't work in the SB and MSS modes at the same time. |
| |
| Then there are cards which are no longer manufactured and/or which |
| are relatively rarely used (such as the 8 bit ProAudioSpectrum |
| models). It's extremely unlikely that such cards ever get supported. |
| Adding support for a new card requires much work and increases time |
| required in maintaining the driver (some changes need to be done |
| to all low level drivers and be tested too, maybe with multiple |
| operating systems). For this reason I have made a decision to not support |
| obsolete cards. It's possible that someone else makes a separately |
| distributed driver (diffs) for the card. |
| |
| Writing a driver for a new card is not possible if there are no |
| programming information available about the card. If you don't |
| find your new card from this file, look from the home page |
| (http://www.opensound.com/ossfree). Then please contact |
| manufacturer of the card and ask if they have (or are willing to) |
| released technical details of the card. Do this before contacting me. I |
| can only answer 'no' if there are no programming information available. |
| |
| I have made decision to not accept code based on reverse engineering |
| to the driver. There are three main reasons: First I don't want to break |
| relationships to sound card manufacturers. The second reason is that |
| maintaining and supporting a driver without any specs will be a pain. |
| The third reason is that companies have freedom to refuse selling their |
| products to other than Windows users. |
| |
| Some companies don't give low level technical information about their |
| products to public or at least their require signing a NDA. It's not |
| possible to implement a freeware driver for them. However it's possible |
| that support for such cards become available in the commercial version |
| of this driver (see http://www.4Front-tech.com/oss.html for more info). |
| |
| There are some common audio chipsets that are not supported yet. For example |
| Sierra Aria and IBM Mwave. It's possible that these architectures |
| get some support in future but I can't make any promises. Just look |
| at the home page (http://www.opensound.com/ossfree/) |
| for latest info. |
| |
| Information about unsupported sound cards and chipsets is welcome as well |
| as free copies of sound cards, SDKs and operating systems. |
| |
| If you have any corrections and/or comments, please contact me. |
| |
| Hannu Savolainen |
| hannu@opensound.com |
| |
| home page of OSS/Free: http://www.opensound.com/ossfree |
| |
| home page of commercial OSS |
| (Open Sound System) drivers: http://www.opensound.com/oss.html |