Linux 3.11: Bay Trail Audio, 32+ Sound Cards

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 3.11: Bay Trail Audio, 32+ Sound Cards

The sound/audio kernel driver pull request has been submitted for the Linux 3.11 merge window. The changes this time around aren't too exciting, but there's the continued bettering of the Linux audio stack...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTQwMjI

[peppercats]

The only significant change in the ALSA core side is the support for more than 32 card instances, configurable via kconfig.

[DebianLinuxero]

In the FOSS world there are few projects on reverse-engineering the graphic cards' drivers.

Programmers worked to achieve from basic support to advanced 3D features.
A very difficult task. But there are people who do it.

But sound it's different.

It seems that there is not enough people interested, nor have knowledge to do hardware accelerated sound drivers from a reverse-engineered Windows driver.
Sound cards with 3d sound by hardware exists since Sound Blaster Live! from 1998. And 15 years later still haven't a single hard OpenAL implementation. Of none card.


I think that the programers comunity must work harder in sound support.

[archibald]

I think that the programers comunity must work harder in sound support.

The community consists of people donating their time voluntarily. If people don't want to spend their time working for free on something that doesn't interest them, we have no right to tell them to do otherwise. If we don't like it then we can either donate money to somebody who will work on it, or do the work ourselves.

[DebianLinuxero]

The community consists of people donating their time voluntarily. If people don't want to spend their time working for free on something that doesn't interest them, we have no right to tell them to do otherwise. If we don't like it then we can either donate money to somebody who will work on it, or do the work ourselves.

Agreed.

It's my English what must improve in order to not write must when I should write should.


Really, my intention was not to demand or complaint. It was clumsy English of mine. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[mmstick]

The community consists of people donating their time voluntarily. If people don't want to spend their time working for free on something that doesn't interest them, we have no right to tell them to do otherwise. If we don't like it then we can either donate money to somebody who will work on it, or do the work ourselves.

Let's not forget that a large portion of the community is being paid to volunteer in open source projects. There really aren't many people working on ALSA like we should have. I hope this kernel fixes my problems with Creative Recon3D not having any sound at all, and even Creative Sound Blaster Zs also not having sound.

[GreatEmerald]

It seems that there is not enough people interested, nor have knowledge to do hardware accelerated sound drivers from a reverse-engineered Windows driver.
Sound cards with 3d sound by hardware exists since Sound Blaster Live! from 1998. And 15 years later still haven't a single hard OpenAL implementation. Of none card.

Yea, ctxfi for one is still in a rather poor state. It plays sound, but that's pretty much it, it uses none of the card's features.

About 3D sound, though, what do you mean? We have OpenAL Soft, and it supports EFX. And EFX was always software-only, as opposed to EAX which was tied to hardware (for no real good reason, and hence why it's been phased out in favour of EFX).

[zxy_thf]

Yea, ctxfi for one is still in a rather poor state. It plays sound, but that's pretty much it, it uses none of the card's features.

About 3D sound, though, what do you mean? We have OpenAL Soft, and it supports EFX. And EFX was always software-only, as opposed to EAX which was tied to hardware (for no real good reason, and hence why it's been phased out in favour of EFX).

AFAIK few Windows users are interested in hw accelerated sound.
ASIO is more important for professional users.

[DebianLinuxero]

Yea, ctxfi for one is still in a rather poor state. It plays sound, but that's pretty much it, it uses none of the card's features.

About 3D sound, though, what do you mean? We have OpenAL Soft, and it supports EFX. And EFX was always software-only, as opposed to EAX which was tied to hardware (for no real good reason, and hence why it's been phased out in favour of EFX).

Hello.

I mean, an OpenAL implementation that can run on the sound card processor (I read some time ago that the X-FI chip is a MIPS based processor with the capacity of a Pentium 4) rather than with the system CPU.

If you still don't see the difference, think about graphics : think about the difference between soft OpenGL and hardware accelerated OpenGL.

When you buy a dedicated sound card of 75+ dollars, appart of a better sound quality compared to a integrated sound chip of a motherboard, you would spect that the card will take care of all (or most) of the things, calculus and processes related to sound. You would spect that the sound card, will release the system CPU of that.

Spatial sound calculus (3d sound), hardware mixing of various sound sources (applications or external devices), MIDI synthesys and such.

I think EFX as a software only API is not a good idea. Nor EAX as a Creative only (from version 3 to 5). But we also have OpenAL, that is free for all.

Now the issue is that OpenAL (in Linux) was never implemented at hardware level for none card. Nor Creative Soundblasters, nor Maxi Sound Fortissimos, nor Asus Xonars ...

[GreatEmerald]

Hello.

I mean, an OpenAL implementation that can run on the sound card processor (I read some time ago that the X-FI chip is a MIPS based processor with the capacity of a Pentium 4) rather than with the system CPU.

If you still don't see the difference, think about graphics : think about the difference between soft OpenGL and hardware accelerated OpenGL.

When you buy a dedicated sound card of 75+ dollars, appart of a better sound quality compared to a integrated sound chip of a motherboard, you would spect that the card will take care of all (or most) of the things, calculus and processes related to sound. You would spect that the sound card, will release the system CPU of that.

Spatial sound calculus (3d sound), hardware mixing of various sound sources (applications or external devices), MIDI synthesys and such.

I think EFX as a software only API is not a good idea. Nor EAX as a Creative only (from version 3 to 5). But we also have OpenAL, that is free for all.

Now the issue is that OpenAL (in Linux) was never implemented at hardware level for none card. Nor Creative Soundblasters, nor Maxi Sound Fortissimos, nor Asus Xonars ...

Not really, there is very little actual gain from doing sound in hardware. It's nothing like video acceleration. The accelerated sound procedures are simple enough that even transporting the data to the sound card and back is not always worth the effort. I've seen reviews where people talked about it, and there was little to no difference when it was on and when it was off. Dealing with the quirks of the sound card can also be bot worth the effort (there's no clearly defined, cross-hardware way of doing that AFAIK).

Hardware MIDI would indeed be nice, as not everything supports FluidSynth/Timidity.