GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Vincent Vanackere]

Hi,

I'm sorry to ask such a common question here, but I'd like to know if
it is possible to configure my (old) Gravis Ultrasound ISA PnP card in 
order to enable multiple open of /dev/dsp with alsa.
  I know for sure that this card is able to perform hardware mixing: the 
windows drivers I'm using just do it. I've seen numerous posts on that 
subject in the mailing-list archive, but couldn't find any real answer:

1) Is it supported by alsa (yet) ?

2) If so, how can I enable it ? Do I have to play tricks with my 
.asoundrc ? Should I try another driver (gusclassic/gusmax/gusextreme)
instead of interwave ?

Thanks by advance for any answer,

Vincent


P.S.: my current drivers:

---------------------------------

diablo:~$ cat /proc/asound/pcm
00-00: CS4231 : AMD InterWave rev B (chip) : playback 1 : capture 1
00-01: AMD InterWave : AMD InterWave rev B (synth) : playback 1

diablo:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [card0          ]: AMD InterWave - AMD InterWave
                      AMD InterWave at 0x220, irq 5, dma 3&1

diablo:~$ cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 0.9.0rc1.
Compiled on May 31 2002 for kernel 2.4.19-pre9.


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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Ville Syrjälä]

On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:29:52AM +0200, Vincent Vanackere wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm sorry to ask such a common question here, but I'd like to know if
> it is possible to configure my (old) Gravis Ultrasound ISA PnP card in 
> order to enable multiple open of /dev/dsp with alsa.

Should be possible. With a GUS PnP you have to use the second pcm device.
first one is the codec and second is the synth. That would be mapped to
/dev/adsp for OSS emulation. You have to pass the snd-interwave module
snd_pcm_channels=n parameter where n is from 2 to 16.

The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
the required conversion for some reason. Interwave supports also
interleaved DMA but the driver doesn't use this feature.

One way of using it currently is having multiple mono wavs.
"aplay -D plughw:0,1 -c 1 -I mono.wav" will play one file. You can use
that multiple times at the same time or you can specify all the files at
once "aplay -D plughw:0,1 -c N -I mono1.wav mono2.wav ... monoN.wav".

OK. I just checked and it only works with one or two channels per aplay.
So if you want more channels you'll have to run multiple aplays
simultaneosly.


And the obligatory ad... :)
If you really want to use hardware mixing you can try the mikmod driver I
wrote. It requires CVS version of alsa-lib or a patch. Both are at 
"http://www.saunalahti.fi/~syrjala/alsa/"


Great card BTW :) Well apart from the nasty hissing bug. I have one with
16 MB memory. A really nice card with Utopia soundbank. If only Jaroslav
would have the time to add MIDI emulation to the driver...

-- 
Ville Syrjälä
syrjala@sci.fi
http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/

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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Paul Davis]

>The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
>it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
>the required conversion for some reason.

i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
think it doesn't work?

>Great card BTW :) 

yeah, the only one that has ever existed AFAIK that provided a true
MIDI data rate periodic interrupt. a sadly missing feature on all
other cards.

--p

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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Ville Syrjälä]

On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:20:31PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> >The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
> >it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
> >the required conversion for some reason.
> 
> i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
> hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
> cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
> to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
> fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
> think it doesn't work?

# aplay -D plughw:0,1 stereo.wav
aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available

There is a snd_pcm_plug_change_access() function in pcm_plug.c so I'm
thinking it should work, but it doesn't.

-- 
Ville Syrjälä
syrjala@sci.fi
http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/

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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Paul Davis]

>On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:20:31PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
>> >The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
>> >it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
>> >the required conversion for some reason.
>> 
>> i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
>> hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
>> cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
>> to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
>> fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
>> think it doesn't work?
>
># aplay -D plughw:0,1 stereo.wav
>aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available

can you try it with the -I option, and also the -m option (in all
combinations)?

--p


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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Ville Syrjälä]

On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 12:22:02PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> >On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:20:31PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> >> >The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
> >> >it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
> >> >the required conversion for some reason.
> >> 
> >> i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
> >> hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
> >> cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
> >> to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
> >> fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
> >> think it doesn't work?
> >
> ># aplay -D plughw:0,1 stereo.wav
> >aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available
> 
> can you try it with the -I option, and also the -m option (in all
> combinations)?

I wont be able to do any testing until next week. I know -I works but
AFAIK only with mono files. As I said it only works with up tp two files.
Due to channels_max being hardcoded to 2 in snd_pcm_hardware_t. -I sets
the access type to noninterleaved so it's not really the problem here.

Did you mean -M as in mmap? It's not supported anymore. There used to be
some ugly hack to make it work but Jaroslav threw it out. It's interesting
to note that capture claims to support mmap (I haven't tested). I don't
understand what the actual problem with mmap and playback is. You'd have
to ask Jaroslav.

-- 
Ville Syrjälä
syrjala@sci.fi
http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/

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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Jaroslav Kysela]

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On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, [iso-8859-1] Ville Syrjälä wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:20:31PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> > >The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
> > >it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
> > >the required conversion for some reason.
> > 
> > i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
> > hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
> > cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
> > to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
> > fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
> > think it doesn't work?
> 
> # aplay -D plughw:0,1 stereo.wav
> aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available
> 
> There is a snd_pcm_plug_change_access() function in pcm_plug.c so I'm
> thinking it should work, but it doesn't.

Could you try alsa-lib from current CVS? The problem is, that GUS Synth 
PCM device doesn't support mmaped access at the time, so mmap emulation in 
alsa-lib should be turned on. I've added a GUS.conf file to 
/usr/share/alsa/cards with redefinition of pcm.hw (mmap_emulation is set 
to on).

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project  http://www.alsa-project.org
SuSE Linux    http://www.suse.com


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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Ville Syrjälä]

On Tue, Jun 11, 2002 at 09:04:08AM +0200, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, [iso-8859-1] Ville Syrjälä wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 09:20:31PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> > > >The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
> > > >it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
> > > >the required conversion for some reason.
> > > 
> > > i find this very suprising and somewhat hard to believe. the
> > > hammerfall also uses a non-interleaved data layout (as all the best
> > > cards do :), and yet despite the fact that the driver contains no code
> > > to handle an interleaved stream, aplay via plughw:N,0 works just
> > > fine i.e. alsa-lib handles the conversion perfectly. what makes you
> > > think it doesn't work?
> > 
> > # aplay -D plughw:0,1 stereo.wav
> > aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available
> > 
> > There is a snd_pcm_plug_change_access() function in pcm_plug.c so I'm
> > thinking it should work, but it doesn't.
> 
> Could you try alsa-lib from current CVS? The problem is, that GUS Synth 
> PCM device doesn't support mmaped access at the time, so mmap emulation in 
> alsa-lib should be turned on. I've added a GUS.conf file to 
> /usr/share/alsa/cards with redefinition of pcm.hw (mmap_emulation is set 
> to on).

No help from this. With or without -M.

$ aplay -D plughwtu:0,1 foo.wav 
Playing WAVE 'foo.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian,
Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo
ALSA lib pcm_plug.c:657:(snd_pcm_plug_hw_refine_schange) Unable to find an
usable access for 'plughw:0,1'
aplay: set_params:754: Access type not available


BTW you forgot to add GUS.conf to Makefile.am.

-- 
Ville Syrjälä
syrjala@sci.fi
http://www.sci.fi/~syrjala/

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Re: GUS driver status : multiple open of /dev/dsp ?

[Vincent Vanackere]

Ville Syrjälä wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 11:29:52AM +0200, Vincent Vanackere wrote:
> 
>>I'm sorry to ask such a common question here, but I'd like to know if
>>it is possible to configure my (old) Gravis Ultrasound ISA PnP card in 
>>order to enable multiple open of /dev/dsp with alsa.
> 
> 
> Should be possible. With a GUS PnP you have to use the second pcm device.
> first one is the codec and second is the synth. That would be mapped to
> /dev/adsp for OSS emulation. You have to pass the snd-interwave module
> snd_pcm_channels=n parameter where n is from 2 to 16.


So in that case, does it mean that by simply replacing /dev/dsp with a 
symlink to /dev/sound/adsp, I can have 2 different (and up to 16...) oss 
applications transparently accessing the sound card ? However, that 
sounds too easy to be true... I can't test this right now - I'm at work 
- but I'll have a try tonight.


> The problem with GUS synth is that it uses non-interleaved data layout so
> it's not relly useful for pcm stuff. alsa-lib doesn't want to do
> the required conversion for some reason. Interwave supports also
> interleaved DMA but the driver doesn't use this feature.


I'm a little confused with this: is it related to/does that explain the fact
that xmms crashes systematically when I set the alsa output to GUS/synth ?

Many thanks for your help,

Vincent


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