How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

Hi,

I am thinking about upgrading my Audigy2 sound card, and was looking at the X-Fi. However, the feature matrix for X-Fi cards on the ALSA site only says "PCI". (I assume that also includes PCIe these days.) Given that there is a basic snd-ctxfi driver, it seems likely that this matrix should also include "ANALOGio", and so I was wondering if someone could tell me what the actual matrix entry for the X-Fi cards should be these days, please?

Would the documentation that Creative has released allow any additional features to be implemented in the future? I am obviously hoping at least for feature parity with the Audigy2, i.e. multi-voiced hardware mixing. That "crystalizer" would seem to be one of the cards main selling points, too. However, if the driver is "feature complete" as far as Creative's documentation goes, then one of the Xonar cards would seem better value for money.

Thanks for any assistance,
Cheers,
Chris

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Brendan Pike]

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:43:08 -0800 (PST)
Chris Rankin <rankincj@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am thinking about upgrading my Audigy2 sound card, and was looking at the X-Fi. However, the feature matrix for X-Fi cards on the ALSA site only says "PCI". (I assume that also includes PCIe these days.) Given that there is a basic snd-ctxfi driver, it seems likely that this matrix should also include "ANALOGio", and so I was wondering if someone could tell me what the actual matrix entry for the X-Fi cards should be these days, please?
> 
> Would the documentation that Creative has released allow any additional features to be implemented in the future? I am obviously hoping at least for feature parity with the Audigy2, i.e. multi-voiced hardware mixing. That "crystalizer" would seem to be one of the cards main selling points, too. However, if the driver is "feature complete" as far as Creative's documentation goes, then one of the Xonar cards would seem better value for money.
> 
> Thanks for any assistance,
> Cheers,
> Chris
> 

The matrix is horribly out of date. Yes PCIe cards (emu20k2) are
supported. HWMix also exists and works perfectly, I can play
many things at once directly accessing ALSA, without the need of
pulseaudio or whatever meme of the year it is. Its probably the only
fancy feature that is supported on the chip.

There is no sequencer support, and no access to the DSP features,
which would be needed to put it in line with the old emu10k1 features.

I use an Auzentech X-Fi Forte myself, which works great. If all you
want is hardware mixing and record capabilities, then you can upgrade
without worry.

I would like to see DSP based equalizer support someday, but I'm not
counting on it happening. Creative would need to release more specs to
allow access to and use the DSP to load the necessary firmware that
provides these effects features. (Including crystalizer)

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

--- On Mon, 18/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> The matrix is horribly out of date. Yes PCIe cards
> (emu20k2) are supported. HWMix also exists and works perfectly,
That's interesting! Can you post the output of

/proc/asound/<X-Fi card>/pcm0p/info

please?
 
> I use an Auzentech X-Fi Forte myself, which works great.

Are the emu20k1 cards equally well supported? It looks like emu20k2 cards are exclusively PCIe, whereas I'd probably be looking for a PCI card.

Thanks,
Chris

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Brendan Pike]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:21:57 -0800 (PST)
Chris Rankin <rankincj@yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- On Mon, 18/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> > The matrix is horribly out of date. Yes PCIe cards
> > (emu20k2) are supported. HWMix also exists and works perfectly,
> That's interesting! Can you post the output of
> 
> /proc/asound/<X-Fi card>/pcm0p/info
> 
> please?

That doesn't exist here. The driver is limited in that it doesn't really
provide any information in /proc/asound at all.
>  
> > I use an Auzentech X-Fi Forte myself, which works great.
> 
> Are the emu20k1 cards equally well supported? It looks like emu20k2 cards are exclusively PCIe, whereas I'd probably be looking for a PCI card.

My previous card was a PCI emu20k1 based X-Fi Prelude, which worked the
same way as my current card does.

> 
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 
> 
>       

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

--- On Mon, 18/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> HWMix also exists and works perfectly,

The last time someone assured me that a card supported HWMix, it turned out that he was using dmix without realising it.

Can you confirm that you can still play two sounds concurrently with the following $HOME/.asoundrc file, please?

pcm.XFi {
    type plug
    slave {
        pcm "hw:0"
    }
}

So you would run the following command simultaneously across two terminals:

$ aplay -D XFi <wav-file>

Cheers,
Chris

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Brendan Pike]

Its impossible for me to be using dmix as dmix isn't even compiled into
my alsa-libs.

I'm 100% sure that HwMix is supported. When I said direct hardware
access I meant it. I'm sure anyone else with an XFi card can confirm
this too.

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R   ] media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.22  USE="python -alisp -debug
-doc" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="extplug ioplug ladspa lfloat plug -adpcm -alaw
-asym -copy -dmix -dshare -dsnoop -empty -file -hooks -iec958 -linear
-meter -mmap_emul -mulaw -multi -null -rate -route -share -shm
-softvol" 0 kB



On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:04:12 -0800 (PST)
Chris Rankin <rankincj@yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- On Mon, 18/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> > HWMix also exists and works perfectly,
> 
> The last time someone assured me that a card supported HWMix, it turned out that he was using dmix without realising it.
> 
> Can you confirm that you can still play two sounds concurrently with the following $HOME/.asoundrc file, please?
> 
> pcm.XFi {
>     type plug
>     slave {
>         pcm "hw:0"
>     }
> }
> 
> So you would run the following command simultaneously across two terminals:
> 
> $ aplay -D XFi <wav-file>
> 
> Cheers,
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
>       

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

--- On Sat, 23/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> I'm 100% sure that HwMix is supported. When I said direct
> hardware access I meant it. I'm sure anyone else with an XFi card
> can confirm this too.

That's just it - someone on Phoronix is saying that it isn't supported:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21486

"Just as a FYI multi voice hardware mixing is not present in the linux x-fi drivers."

That post is dated 17th Jan 2010.

Cheers,
Chris

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:46:37 -0800 (PST),
Chris Rankin wrote:
> 
> --- On Sat, 23/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> > I'm 100% sure that HwMix is supported. When I said direct
> > hardware access I meant it. I'm sure anyone else with an XFi card
> > can confirm this too.
> 
> That's just it - someone on Phoronix is saying that it isn't supported:
> http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21486
> 
> "Just as a FYI multi voice hardware mixing is not present in the linux x-fi drivers."
> 
> That post is dated 17th Jan 2010.

It's a wrong information.


Takashi

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Brendan Pike]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:28:13 +0100
Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:

> At Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:46:37 -0800 (PST),
> Chris Rankin wrote:
> > 
> > --- On Sat, 23/1/10, Brendan Pike <spike@spykes.net> wrote:
> > > I'm 100% sure that HwMix is supported. When I said direct
> > > hardware access I meant it. I'm sure anyone else with an XFi card
> > > can confirm this too.
> > 
> > That's just it - someone on Phoronix is saying that it isn't supported:
> > http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21486
> > 
> > "Just as a FYI multi voice hardware mixing is not present in the linux x-fi drivers."
> > 
> > That post is dated 17th Jan 2010.
> 
> It's a wrong information.
> 
> 
> Takashi

X-Fi is such a generic term these days with Creative.
There are non emu20k1/2 based X-Fi's that do NOT support HWMix.
The Phoronix post was probably referring to those cards and thinking
it applies to all of them as a result.

Just a peek in the source code would show you that the hardware SRC is
supported.

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

--- On Sun, 24/1/10, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
> > "Just as a FYI multi voice hardware mixing is not
> > present in the linux x-fi drivers."
> 
> It's a wrong information.

Takashi,

Thanks for replying, and confirming what Brendan has been saying :-). So how many hardware "voices" does the X-Fi driver support, please? And is further development of snd-ctxfi stalled, pending any additional information from Creative?

Thanks,
Chris

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:57:30 -0800 (PST),
Chris Rankin wrote:
> 
> --- On Sun, 24/1/10, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
> > > "Just as a FYI multi voice hardware mixing is not
> > > present in the linux x-fi drivers."
> > 
> > It's a wrong information.
> 
> Takashi,
> 
> Thanks for replying, and confirming what Brendan has been saying :-). So how many hardware "voices" does the X-Fi driver support, please?

8 streams per channel, i.e. 64 streams.

> And is further development of snd-ctxfi stalled, pending any additional information from Creative?

It's stalled, AFAIK.  I have no time for it, and no any patches given
by others, too.  Maybe you can ask Creative guys for any problems.
The addresses can be found in git change log.


Takashi

Re: How much of the X-Fi (emu20k1) chip has Creative documented?

[Chris Rankin]

--- On Mon, 25/1/10, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
> It's stalled, AFAIK.  I have no time for it, and no
> any patches given by others, too.

Fair enough. So for reference, the current ALSA matrix entry for snd-ctxfi would be:

[PCI]/[PCIe] [ANALOGio] [HWMix] [5.1] [7.1] ... and?

> Maybe you can ask Creative guys for any problems.

Heh, that sounds like a plan. Something along the lines of "I am thinking of buying a X-Fi card, and was wondering how functional it would be under Linux." ;-).

Thanks,
Chris