Creative Gives In, They Open-Source Their X-Fi Driver

[Thetargos]

Just curious, could someone running these drivers provide the output from:

cat /proc/asound/pcm

and

cat /proc/asound/devices

Please?

[EmbraceUnity]

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/pcm
00-02: ALC882 Analog : ALC882 Analog : capture 2
00-01: ALC882 Digital : ALC882 Digital : playback 1 : capture 1
00-00: ALC882 Analog : ALC882 Analog : playback 1 : capture 1
01-00: X-Fi 20k1 : WaveOut/WaveIn : playback 8 : capture 1

and

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/devices
  2:        : timer
  3:        : sequencer
  4: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
  5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
  6: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
  7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
  9: [ 0]   : control
 10: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
 11: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
 12: [ 1]   : control

[Thetargos]

Interesting... I find these two tidbits especially interesting... Hopefully these will get sorted out with the help of the community and Creative working together on the drivers:

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/pcm
01-00: X-Fi 20k1 : WaveOut/WaveIn : playback 8 : capture 1

There seems to only be 8 analog playback channels (i.e, roughly 8 different sources can produce sounds simultaneously) with this driver (hardware issue?), while the snd-emu10k1 driver on both Audigy(2) and Live! cards yields:

00-00: emu10k1 : ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback : playback 32 : capture 1

Supposedly the driver on Live! cards could only use up to 24 different sources instead of the whole 32 ones, I'm not sure about Audigy(2) cards, though.

The number of devices seems to be less that those found with the snd-emu10k1 driver as well... I'm sure this is mostly due to the difference in architecture between the two chips, and the degree of support for the chips in the drivers, not to mention that the snd-emu10k1 drivers are very mature and support most of the features found on Emu10K1/2 cards (with the notable exceptions being 24-bit audio, sample rates of 96KHz and 192KHz), which for some are the most notable features of the cards, anyway (compared to the Sound Blaster Live!), oh, and IIRC the DSP's environmental effects engine is also supported (not quite EAX, but AFAIK it is programmable through the use of the as10k1 assembler [found in the alsa-tools package]).

This is the output on my Audigy 2 ZS:

cat /proc/asound/devices 
  2:        : timer
  3:        : sequencer
  4: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
  5: [ 0- 1]: raw midi
  6: [ 0- 0]: raw midi
  7: [ 0- 4]: digital audio playback
  8: [ 0- 4]: digital audio capture
  9: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback
 10: [ 0- 2]: digital audio playback
 11: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
 12: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
 13: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
 14: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
 15: [ 0]   : control
 16: [ 0- 2]: hardware dependent
 17: [ 0- 2]: raw midi
 18: [ 0- 3]: raw midi

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/devices
  2:        : timer
  3:        : sequencer
  4: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
  5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
  6: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
  7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
  8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
  9: [ 0]   : control
 10: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
 11: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
 12: [ 1]   : control

[entropy]

Is there a way of having 'bass' and 'treble' control
for the hardware mixer with the current driver?
Having a quick glance at ctmixer.h the driver apparently
does not feature those.

Btw, is there any documentation available for the newer
generation of cards (at least under NDA)?

[hobbes]

I own a SB Live! and I'm kind of curious how is going on the development of the X-Fi open source driver.

I'll be looking on the market soon for a new sound card. (Xonar or X-Fi)

Does 5.1 channels actually work?

Anyone?

[EagleDM]

No, it was stated a lot of times.

Current Open Source Creative X-Fi drivers DO NOT output 5.1, only stereo output.

BTW: Stereo output is pretty good, judging by the quality of the sound, It seems creative did configure correctly the output filters on the X-Fi, because it sounds as good as in Vista/XP, but currently, only stereo is available.

[EagleDM]

The Xonar does output 5.1 perfectly, but has a problem with the ALSA Mixer, the hardware DOES NOT support a "master volume" and as such you have to use some sort of software mixer to control the master output, such as Pulse Audio, aside from that, I have both cards on the system, Xonar and Creative X-Fi, both running at the same time in Ubuntu 8.10 and even to my astonishment, X-Fi does seem to output a cleaner quality sound with Stereo music than Xonar in Ubuntu, the totally opossed picture to Vista where Xonar does have better quality sound.

[hobbes]

The Xonar does output 5.1 perfectly, but has a problem with the ALSA Mixer, the hardware DOES NOT support a "master volume" and as such you have to use some sort of software mixer to control the master output, such as Pulse Audio, aside from that, I have both cards on the system, Xonar and Creative X-Fi, both running at the same time in Ubuntu 8.10 and even to my astonishment, X-Fi does seem to output a cleaner quality sound with Stereo music than Xonar in Ubuntu, the totally opossed picture to Vista where Xonar does have better quality sound.

Right now, I'm very inclined to buy a Xonar D2 or its PCIe version.

But, it will be necessary to upgrade my mobo too, and it can take a couple of months to buy the right hardware (ATI/Intel/Nvidia...)

But, things can change. Until the day, I actually purchase it. If by chance, the Creative X-Fi starts to output 5.1 by then, I'll change my mind on a heartbeat.

Let's hope for more development.

Thank you for replying.

[Enverex]

Has anyone actually picked up this driver? (i.e. ALSA). As it seems like they released it back in September and it's just been dead in the water since then, no-one working on improving it or fixing the bugs and no acceptance into ALSA.

Does anyone have any word on this?

[pfunkman]

Has anyone actually picked up this driver? (i.e. ALSA). As it seems like they released it back in September and it's just been dead in the water since then, no-one working on improving it or fixing the bugs and no acceptance into ALSA.

Does anyone have any word on this?

that does actually seem a bit strange. The only thing i can think of is that after so long there probably where not that many people left waiting for the xfi drivers so its now a low priority? I couls be wrong but i am curious to know how many where still waiting by the time this driver rolled around.