SB X-Fi driver status update

SB X-Fi driver status update

[Takashi Iwai]

Hi,

now I'm stabilizing the driver a bit.  I hope it won't hang up any
more (so often), and make you happy testing. 

** DOWNLOAD **

The snd-sbxfi driver is included in my sound-unstable git tree, and
alsa-driver-unstable snapshot tarball.
    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/tiwai/sound-unstable-2.6.git
    ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tiwai/snapshot/alsa-driver-unstable-snapshot.tar.gz

The git commits can be browsed via 
    http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/tiwai/sound-unstable-2.6.git;a=summary

The snapshot tarball includes HEAD and alsa-kernel/HEAD files.  These
contain alsa-driver and sound git commit logs.  Check these files and
compare with the above gitweb page whether you have the latest
version.

** BUILD **

If you want to build the sbxfi driver on your 2.6.27 git tree, at
best, do the following:

 - pull sound-2.6.git tree devel branch
   % git pull \
	git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/tiwai/sound-2.6.git devel
 - pull sound-unstable-2.6.git tree topic/sbxfi branch
   % git pull \
	git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/tiwai/sound-unstable-2.6.git\
        topic/sbxfi

In that way, you can update only the sound and keep the rest clean.
(The master branches of sound and sound-unstable git trees are for the
 latest upsteram, i.e. 2.6.28-pre git tree.)

In other versions, it'd be better to use alsa-driver-unstable snapshot
tarball to build external modules.

** UPDATED NOTES **

Below are some updates:

- As default, the driver works only as a constant sample rate, either
  48000 or 96000 (default).  The rate can be changed via the module
  option base_rate.  For enabling the continuous rate support (it was
  on before), define XXX_CONT_RATE in sbxfi.c.

- The debug module option is 1 as default, i.e. showing some debug
  messages but not too often.  You can set debug=0 to suppress, or
  debug=2 or 3 to see more.  If you have problems (especially
  regarding with the sound quality problem), run with debug=2.

- Please check whether the default (base_rate=96000) works as is for
  different rates, formats, channels.  Then try base_rate=48000.

- If you are brave, try recording, too :)  It's no full-duplex, so you
  can't play and record at the same time.  Define XXX_FULL_DUPLEX in
  sbxfi.c to enable the (possible) full-duplex.

- If playback works well, try to define XXX_USE_SG in sbxfi.c.  This
  will make the driver using SG buffer instead of continuous pages.

- Also, test SBXFI_DMA_MASK being DMA_32BIT_MASK, especially if you
  have RAM more than 2GB.

- You can try dmix as well.  E.g. simply run like 
	% aplay -Dplug:dmix:0 foo.wav


thanks,

Takashi

Re: SB X-Fi driver status update

[Vedran Miletić]

Does that mean that you, without hardware (also, with enormous help of
couple of guys here on the mailing list), basically got from
absolutely nothing to somewhat working driver in less than a week?

Awesome. Really impressive.

-- 
Vedran Miletić
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Re: SB X-Fi driver status update

[Alexey Bazhin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1894 bytes --]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:18:32 +0200
Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> now I'm stabilizing the driver a bit.  I hope it won't hang up any
> more (so often), and make you happy testing. 
speakers-test and aplay works perfect with both base_rates and any
sample rate (tried only stereo samples), but mplayer become more glitchy
- sound pauses for a bit every 5-10 seconds, dmesg included.

> - As default, the driver works only as a constant sample rate, either
>   48000 or 96000 (default).  The rate can be changed via the module
>   option base_rate.  For enabling the continuous rate support (it was
>   on before), define XXX_CONT_RATE in sbxfi.c.
only tried speakers-test:
96khz works fine
48khz plays slow (frequency is lower than it should be)
44.1khz silent, speakers-test ends with error, dmesg included.

root@mayonaka:~# speaker-test -c 2 -r 44100 -t sine

speaker-test 1.0.15

Playback device is default
Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
Rate set to 44100Hz (requested 44100Hz)
Buffer size range from 32 to 16384
Period size range from 32 to 16384
Using max buffer size 16384
Periods = 4
was set period_size = 4096
was set buffer_size = 16384
 0 - Front Left
Write error: -5,Input/output error
xrun_recovery failed: -5,Input/output error
Transfer failed: Operation not permitted
 
> - If playback works well, try to define XXX_USE_SG in sbxfi.c.  This
>   will make the driver using SG buffer instead of continuous pages.
works absolutely the same as without it.

> - Also, test SBXFI_DMA_MASK being DMA_32BIT_MASK, especially if you
>   have RAM more than 2GB.
i have 3GB RAM on my test box, everything worked fine with 32-bit mask,
but i haven't done many tests...

> - You can try dmix as well.  E.g. simply run like 
> 	% aplay -Dplug:dmix:0 foo.wav
works fine.

-- 
 Alexey Bazhin
  mailto:baz@irc.msk.ru
  ICQ 125125882

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Re: SB X-Fi driver status update

[The Source]

Alexey Bazhin пишет:
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:18:32 +0200
> Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> now I'm stabilizing the driver a bit.  I hope it won't hang up any
>> more (so often), and make you happy testing. 
>>     
> speakers-test and aplay works perfect with both base_rates and any
> sample rate (tried only stereo samples), but mplayer become more glitchy
> - sound pauses for a bit every 5-10 seconds, dmesg included.
>
>   
>> - As default, the driver works only as a constant sample rate, either
>>   48000 or 96000 (default).  The rate can be changed via the module
>>   option base_rate.  For enabling the continuous rate support (it was
>>   on before), define XXX_CONT_RATE in sbxfi.c.
>>     
> only tried speakers-test:
> 96khz works fine
> 48khz plays slow (frequency is lower than it should be)
> 44.1khz silent, speakers-test ends with error, dmesg included.
>
> root@mayonaka:~# speaker-test -c 2 -r 44100 -t sine
>
> speaker-test 1.0.15
>
> Playback device is default
> Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
> Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
> Rate set to 44100Hz (requested 44100Hz)
> Buffer size range from 32 to 16384
> Period size range from 32 to 16384
> Using max buffer size 16384
> Periods = 4
> was set period_size = 4096
> was set buffer_size = 16384
>  0 - Front Left
> Write error: -5,Input/output error
> xrun_recovery failed: -5,Input/output error
> Transfer failed: Operation not permitted
>  
>   
>> - If playback works well, try to define XXX_USE_SG in sbxfi.c.  This
>>   will make the driver using SG buffer instead of continuous pages.
>>     
> works absolutely the same as without it.
>
>   
>> - Also, test SBXFI_DMA_MASK being DMA_32BIT_MASK, especially if you
>>   have RAM more than 2GB.
>>     
> i have 3GB RAM on my test box, everything worked fine with 32-bit mask,
> but i haven't done many tests...
>
>   
>> - You can try dmix as well.  E.g. simply run like 
>> 	% aplay -Dplug:dmix:0 foo.wav
>>     
> works fine.
>
>   
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Alsa-devel mailing list
> Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
> http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
>   
I tested several players with alsa (oss causes oops):
xine works fine
xmms ok
mplayer constantly shows some error message I wasn't able to read (it's 
blinking) and sound pauses for ~0.2 second every ~27 seconds.
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Re: SB X-Fi driver status update

[The Source]

Alexey Bazhin пишет:
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:18:32 +0200
> Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> now I'm stabilizing the driver a bit.  I hope it won't hang up any
>> more (so often), and make you happy testing. 
>>     
> speakers-test and aplay works perfect with both base_rates and any
> sample rate (tried only stereo samples), but mplayer become more glitchy
> - sound pauses for a bit every 5-10 seconds, dmesg included.
>
>   
>> - As default, the driver works only as a constant sample rate, either
>>   48000 or 96000 (default).  The rate can be changed via the module
>>   option base_rate.  For enabling the continuous rate support (it was
>>   on before), define XXX_CONT_RATE in sbxfi.c.
>>     
> only tried speakers-test:
> 96khz works fine
> 48khz plays slow (frequency is lower than it should be)
> 44.1khz silent, speakers-test ends with error, dmesg included.
>
> root@mayonaka:~# speaker-test -c 2 -r 44100 -t sine
>
> speaker-test 1.0.15
>
> Playback device is default
> Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
> Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
> Rate set to 44100Hz (requested 44100Hz)
> Buffer size range from 32 to 16384
> Period size range from 32 to 16384
> Using max buffer size 16384
> Periods = 4
> was set period_size = 4096
> was set buffer_size = 16384
>  0 - Front Left
> Write error: -5,Input/output error
> xrun_recovery failed: -5,Input/output error
> Transfer failed: Operation not permitted
>  
>   
>> - If playback works well, try to define XXX_USE_SG in sbxfi.c.  This
>>   will make the driver using SG buffer instead of continuous pages.
>>     
> works absolutely the same as without it.
>
>   
>> - Also, test SBXFI_DMA_MASK being DMA_32BIT_MASK, especially if you
>>   have RAM more than 2GB.
>>     
> i have 3GB RAM on my test box, everything worked fine with 32-bit mask,
> but i haven't done many tests...
>
>   
>> - You can try dmix as well.  E.g. simply run like 
>> 	% aplay -Dplug:dmix:0 foo.wav
>>     
> works fine.
>
>   
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Alsa-devel mailing list
> Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
> http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
>   
--I tested several players with alsa (oss causes oops):
--xine works fine
--xmms ok
--mplayer constantly shows some error message I wasn't able to read --(it's
--blinking) and sound pauses for ~0.2 second every ~27 seconds.

mplayer error message was about PCM not found. Just set mixer channel to 
master in mplayer alsa output settings to avoid it. This won't help 
solve the sound-pause problem however.

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Re: SB X-Fi driver status update

[Takashi Iwai]

At Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:34:46 +0400,
The Source wrote:
> 
> Alexey Bazhin пишет:
> > On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:18:32 +0200
> > Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> now I'm stabilizing the driver a bit.  I hope it won't hang up any
> >> more (so often), and make you happy testing. 
> >>     
> > speakers-test and aplay works perfect with both base_rates and any
> > sample rate (tried only stereo samples), but mplayer become more glitchy
> > - sound pauses for a bit every 5-10 seconds, dmesg included.
> >
> >   
> >> - As default, the driver works only as a constant sample rate, either
> >>   48000 or 96000 (default).  The rate can be changed via the module
> >>   option base_rate.  For enabling the continuous rate support (it was
> >>   on before), define XXX_CONT_RATE in sbxfi.c.
> >>     
> > only tried speakers-test:
> > 96khz works fine
> > 48khz plays slow (frequency is lower than it should be)
> > 44.1khz silent, speakers-test ends with error, dmesg included.
> >
> > root@mayonaka:~# speaker-test -c 2 -r 44100 -t sine
> >
> > speaker-test 1.0.15
> >
> > Playback device is default
> > Stream parameters are 44100Hz, S16_LE, 2 channels
> > Sine wave rate is 440.0000Hz
> > Rate set to 44100Hz (requested 44100Hz)
> > Buffer size range from 32 to 16384
> > Period size range from 32 to 16384
> > Using max buffer size 16384
> > Periods = 4
> > was set period_size = 4096
> > was set buffer_size = 16384
> >  0 - Front Left
> > Write error: -5,Input/output error
> > xrun_recovery failed: -5,Input/output error
> > Transfer failed: Operation not permitted
> >  
> >   
> >> - If playback works well, try to define XXX_USE_SG in sbxfi.c.  This
> >>   will make the driver using SG buffer instead of continuous pages.
> >>     
> > works absolutely the same as without it.
> >
> >   
> >> - Also, test SBXFI_DMA_MASK being DMA_32BIT_MASK, especially if you
> >>   have RAM more than 2GB.
> >>     
> > i have 3GB RAM on my test box, everything worked fine with 32-bit mask,
> > but i haven't done many tests...
> >
> >   
> >> - You can try dmix as well.  E.g. simply run like 
> >> 	% aplay -Dplug:dmix:0 foo.wav
> >>     
> > works fine.
> >
> >   
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Alsa-devel mailing list
> > Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
> > http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
> >   
> --I tested several players with alsa (oss causes oops):
> --xine works fine
> --xmms ok
> --mplayer constantly shows some error message I wasn't able to read --(it's
> --blinking) and sound pauses for ~0.2 second every ~27 seconds.
> 
> mplayer error message was about PCM not found.

Could you elaborate?

> Just set mixer channel to 
> master in mplayer alsa output settings to avoid it.

If I understand correctly, you mean "PCM" mixer element is not found.
OK, that's basically a problem of mplayer.  But, in future, we can add
"PCM" mixer volume as well.

> This won't help 
> solve the sound-pause problem however.

Not sure about this yet.


thanks,

Takashi
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