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- 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 toggling 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). Development 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
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