ATI IXP hardware mixing

ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Zephiris]

Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support it,
and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that needs to
support it, since several glances through the source and brief API docs, as
well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal effectively nothing supporting
hardware mixing at all.


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 07:19 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
> mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
> hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support it,
> and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that needs to
> support it, since several glances through the source and brief API docs, as
> well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal effectively nothing supporting
> hardware mixing at all.

How do you know the device is capable of hardware mixing?

Lee


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Zephiris]

Lee Revell wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 07:19 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
>> Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
>> mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
>> hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support
>> it, and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that needs
>> to support it, since several glances through the source and brief API
>> docs, as well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal effectively nothing
>> supporting hardware mixing at all.
> 
> How do you know the device is capable of hardware mixing?
> 
> Lee
> 
> 
Other operating systems support hardware mixing on it. FreeBSD reportedly
does, Windows definitely does (yay for hardware acceleration of DS/DS3D,
too; up to 26 streams) and I didn't ask 'if' it does, I asked how to try to
work with hardware mixing in ALSA. Documentation, general walk-through of
the steps required in difference to non-hardware mixed, anything, please?

I've been getting short-changed on answers so far (and was previously
stonewalled on AU8830 support, back when people in ALSA channels cheerily
claimed you couldn't get hardware mixing on that, either), and it's getting
frustrating. I'm not asking for a lecture on "you can't do that because
it's not status quo", but merely how to implement such changes in the
source code.


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 08:16 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 07:19 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> >> Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
> >> mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
> >> hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support
> >> it, and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that needs
> >> to support it, since several glances through the source and brief API
> >> docs, as well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal effectively nothing
> >> supporting hardware mixing at all.
> > 
> > How do you know the device is capable of hardware mixing?
> > 
> > Lee
> > 
> > 
> Other operating systems support hardware mixing on it. FreeBSD reportedly
> does, Windows definitely does (yay for hardware acceleration of DS/DS3D,
> too; up to 26 streams) and I didn't ask 'if' it does, I asked how to try to
> work with hardware mixing in ALSA. Documentation, general walk-through of
> the steps required in difference to non-hardware mixed, anything, please?
> 
> I've been getting short-changed on answers so far (and was previously
> stonewalled on AU8830 support, back when people in ALSA channels cheerily
> claimed you couldn't get hardware mixing on that, either), and it's getting
> frustrating. I'm not asking for a lecture on "you can't do that because
> it's not status quo", but merely how to implement such changes in the
> source code.

Um... if the device can't do hardware mixing, how can changing the
driver help?

Windows and FreeBSD are using software mixing.

Lee


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Zephiris]

Lee Revell wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 08:16 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
>> Lee Revell wrote:
>> 
>> > On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 07:19 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
>> >> Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
>> >> mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
>> >> hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support
>> >> it, and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that
>> >> needs to support it, since several glances through the source and
>> >> brief API docs, as well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal
>> >> effectively nothing supporting hardware mixing at all.
>> > 
>> > How do you know the device is capable of hardware mixing?
>> > 
>> > Lee
>> > 
>> > 
>> Other operating systems support hardware mixing on it. FreeBSD reportedly
>> does, Windows definitely does (yay for hardware acceleration of DS/DS3D,
>> too; up to 26 streams) and I didn't ask 'if' it does, I asked how to try
>> to work with hardware mixing in ALSA. Documentation, general walk-through
>> of the steps required in difference to non-hardware mixed, anything,
>> please?
>> 
>> I've been getting short-changed on answers so far (and was previously
>> stonewalled on AU8830 support, back when people in ALSA channels cheerily
>> claimed you couldn't get hardware mixing on that, either), and it's
>> getting frustrating. I'm not asking for a lecture on "you can't do that
>> because it's not status quo", but merely how to implement such changes in
>> the source code.
> 
> Um... if the device can't do hardware mixing, how can changing the
> driver help?
> 
> Windows and FreeBSD are using software mixing.
> 
> Lee

People associated with ALSA have been daft enough to say that before about
sound cards that had exquisite hardware mixing, is it really too much to
ask for a simple parcel of information that appears to be omitted from the
documentation I can find for ALSA? I swear, if the consistently
condescending/fek-you attitude from ALSA over many years is any indication,
no wonder it moves like slag compared to other sound drivers and almost
never gets reasonably "full" support for any particular chipset. -_-

I already said I wasn't looking for more statements of non-support, but just
how such things have to be done in the source code. People should really
read once and a while.


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Lee Revell]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 08:47 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 08:16 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> >> Lee Revell wrote:
> >> 
> >> > On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 07:19 -0700, Zephiris wrote:
> >> >> Since people in ALSA devel channel won't answer, I'll have to ask on
> >> >> mailing-list/newsgroup. I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use
> >> >> hardware mixing. The hardware supports it, FreeBSD and Windows support
> >> >> it, and all I want is to know is what to change in the source that
> >> >> needs to support it, since several glances through the source and
> >> >> brief API docs, as well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal
> >> >> effectively nothing supporting hardware mixing at all.
> >> > 
> >> > How do you know the device is capable of hardware mixing?
> >> > 
> >> > Lee
> >> > 
> >> > 
> >> Other operating systems support hardware mixing on it. FreeBSD reportedly
> >> does, Windows definitely does (yay for hardware acceleration of DS/DS3D,
> >> too; up to 26 streams) and I didn't ask 'if' it does, I asked how to try
> >> to work with hardware mixing in ALSA. Documentation, general walk-through
> >> of the steps required in difference to non-hardware mixed, anything,
> >> please?
> >> 
> >> I've been getting short-changed on answers so far (and was previously
> >> stonewalled on AU8830 support, back when people in ALSA channels cheerily
> >> claimed you couldn't get hardware mixing on that, either), and it's
> >> getting frustrating. I'm not asking for a lecture on "you can't do that
> >> because it's not status quo", but merely how to implement such changes in
> >> the source code.
> > 
> > Um... if the device can't do hardware mixing, how can changing the
> > driver help?
> > 
> > Windows and FreeBSD are using software mixing.
> > 
> > Lee
> 
> People associated with ALSA have been daft enough to say that before about
> sound cards that had exquisite hardware mixing, is it really too much to
> ask for a simple parcel of information that appears to be omitted from the
> documentation I can find for ALSA?

Simple parcel of information?  Sorry, there's no way to make kernel
driver development simple.  This is not end user stuff.

>  I swear, if the consistently
> condescending/fek-you attitude from ALSA over many years is any indication,
> no wonder it moves like slag compared to other sound drivers and almost
> never gets reasonably "full" support for any particular chipset. -_-
> 

I don't know who told you that about AU8830 (which certainly does have
hardware mixing).  But ATIIXP certainly does not have hardware mixing.
You still won't say why you think it does.

> I already said I wasn't looking for more statements of non-support, but just
> how such things have to be done in the source code. People should really
> read once and a while.

Look at the emu10k1 driver and this document:

http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/writing-an-alsa-driver/c436.htm

Lee


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Re: ATI IXP hardware mixing

[Clemens Ladisch]

Zephiris wrote:
> I'm trying to get the ATI IXP driver to use hardware mixing.
> [...] all I want is to know is what to change in the source that needs
> to support it, since several glances through the source and brief API
> docs, as well as mailing lists, etc, don't reveal effectively nothing
> supporting hardware mixing at all.

It's documented in the description of snd_pcm_new() in the section
"Constructors":
| The fourth and fifth arguments are the number of substreams for
| playback and capture, respectively. [...]
| If a chip supports multiple playbacks or captures, you can specify
| more numbers, but they must be handled properly in open/close, etc.
| callbacks. When you need to know which substream you are referring to,
| then it can be obtained from struct snd_pcm_substream data passed to
| each callback as follows:
| 
|   struct snd_pcm_substream *substream;
|   int index = substream->number;

Then you have to use that index to access the corresponding DMA engine
of the hardware.


Regards,
Clemens

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