Hello everyone!

Do somebody have success with 5.1 sound ?
If so, please recommend PCI Sound Card to work with OpenBSD 4.2(-CURRENT).

I have MARC'ed a bit but similar messages were > 1 year ago.
I'd like to think that something have been changed..

Thank you for your time.
-- 

C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.

[ message continues ]

currently there is nearly no support for more than two channel
audio; supported cards that can do 5.1 will run in 2 channel mode
(ie stereo)

imho cmpci(4) and uaudio(4) cards are the easyer to make work in >2
channel mode, recent sound blaster cards are unlikly to get a
working driver soon.

-- Alexandre

[ message continues ]

For some strange reason I recall reading about some work being done on 
the Sound Blaster "Audigy" cards. Many of those cards are 5.1, 6.1 or 
7.1 surround sound.

A quick search on "openbsd audigy" shows we've had support since 3.9 but 
I'm not sure if this includes the surround sound features, or if it's 
just two channel?

kind regards,
JCR

[ message continues ]

Older audigy cards based on EMU10K1 chips are supposed to work with
the emu(4) driver, it's still two channel. Newer cards based on
CA0106 will not work because there's no driver for the chip. The
last time I've asked creative for documentation they didn't reply;
since then, I've lost interest in these cards.

-- Alexandre

[ message continues ]

Alexandre,

Off-list I was told that some of the older "SoundBlaster Live" cards 
will work in 5.1 mode including front/surround/centre/lfe control, but 
the off-list statement contradicts what you said earlier about no 5.1 
(or better) support?


Thanks,
JCR

[ message continues ]

as far as the hardware, you may be able to control the speakers
separately with emu(4), cmpci(4) and possibly others.  if `mixerctl -a`
shows outputs.center, outputs.lfe, etc, then this could be possible.

however, the emu(4) and cmpci(4) low level drivers only support 1 or
2 channel input/output.  audio(4) itself does not restrict the number
of channels.

I think the bigger question is: what applications actually output more
than 2 audio channels?  none, afaik.  please let me know if there is
something I do not know about.

also, some devices support AC-3 pass-through.  that is, the devices
themselves decode (2.1, 5.1, 7.1) AC-3 audio streams, but this is not
supported in audio(4) nor in the low level drivers.

-- 
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

[ message continues ]

so, what about applications from vendors who actually care about
openness and don't require NDAs?

IMO OpenAL seems like a selling point for creative's hardware, which
they like to keep secrets about.

-- 
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

[ message continues ]

Short answer, get another OS. Windows would be best for amateur sound
recording/processing/listening. I don't think the BSDs nor Linux we'll
see real 5.1 support for a good period of time. ALSA is trying something
at the moment but its very specific and broken most of the time, a
hassle really.

[ message continues ]

err Linux / Alsa support 5.1 fine on a number of cards, have done for a long
time.




[ message continues ]

err, for cards where a developer has signed an NDA?

-- 
jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org

[ message continues ]

OSS4 works just fine, even with 7.1. And it has been open-sourced. Maybe
someone could port it to OpenBSD? It has already been ported to FreeBSD.
And there are drivers for ALSA that support 5.1, without an NDA being
signed. IIRC, back when I used ALSA, my Intel HDA worked with all
channels. And it definitely does with OSS4.1.

-- 
Jonathan

[ message continues ]