From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Takashi Iwai Subject: Re: problem with ALSA on AMD64 w/VIA chipset Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:17:19 +0100 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by SEMI 1.14.5 - "Awara-Onsen") Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="Multipart_Mon_Nov_22_18:17:19_2004-1" Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: alsa-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net Errors-To: alsa-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: To: Eric Sharkey Cc: alsa-devel@lists.sourceforge.net List-Id: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org --Multipart_Mon_Nov_22_18:17:19_2004-1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII At Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:30:21 -0500, Eric Sharkey wrote: > > > Hi all, > > I posted on alsa-user a while back, but I think I need developer > assistance with this. > > There seems to be a problem with Alsa when running on the AMD64 > architecture on motherboards with the Via K8T800 chipset. The sound > is highly irregular, with lots of drop-outs, but also speed-ups, > slow-downs and weird volume changes. > > I've got this problem on an Asus K8V SE motherboard. Rod Smith > has the same problem on an MSI Neo-FSR. > (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22asus+k8v%22+alsa&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&selm=1et59c-90v.ln%40speaker.rodsbooks.com&rnum=4) > > In that post, Rod thought the problem was the Alsa driver for the > on-board sound (VIA VT8237), but this is not the case, as I've installed > a PCI Trident 4DWave NX, and it shows exactly the same behavior. > The problem appears not to be in the low level driver code, but > something higher. > > The degree of the problem is highly sensitive to the load on the > CPU at the time. Games like bumprace, which use multiple threads > and never sleep (giving load values around 8), sound awful. Most > games like tuxkart, which keep the load under 1, sound perfectly fine. > > And yet, some things sound bad even when the CPU isn't loaded. > timidity++ is a good example. The current trident driver seems buggy with 2 periods. The patch below is a workwround (not a right fix, though). > This happens with both 64 and 32 bit kernels, and no amount of > twiddling with kernel parameters (ACPI/CPU frequency scaling, apic, > preemption, etc.) seems to make any difference. Hmm, I just thought of cpurfreq, but your report sounds that it's not the case. Could you unload powernow-k8 module just to be sure? I think you'd better to ask this on LKML, since the symptom looks like the kernel core problem. Takashi --Multipart_Mon_Nov_22_18:17:19_2004-1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Index: alsa-kernel/pci/trident/trident_main.c =================================================================== RCS file: /suse/tiwai/cvs/alsa/alsa-kernel/pci/trident/trident_main.c,v retrieving revision 1.59 diff -u -r1.59 trident_main.c --- alsa-kernel/pci/trident/trident_main.c 30 Jul 2004 12:44:59 -0000 1.59 +++ alsa-kernel/pci/trident/trident_main.c 11 Oct 2004 15:24:30 -0000 @@ -814,7 +814,7 @@ /* voice management */ - if (params_buffer_size(hw_params) / 2 != params_period_size(hw_params)) { + if (1 /*params_buffer_size(hw_params) / 2 != params_period_size(hw_params)*/) { if (evoice == NULL) { evoice = snd_trident_alloc_voice(trident, SNDRV_TRIDENT_VOICE_TYPE_PCM, 0, 0); if (evoice == NULL) --Multipart_Mon_Nov_22_18:17:19_2004-1-- ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/