Re: [Alsa-user] ALSA DMIX + CH51DUP

[Gene H. <gen...@ve...>]

On Thursday 02 February 2006 03:55, Ionic wrote:
>Thanks Gene,
>
>the problem is I bought this card in the hope it was the one with the
>emu10k-Chip. Well, unfortunally it wasn't.  However I cannot take it
>back and just get an Audigy 2. I bought this card from a small
>hardwareshop and I don't want to get problems with them again cause I
>take back another thing. (I *had* to do this few times because the
> other things weren't working really at all.)
>
>So, it seems I have to buy a new one, probably from the Internet. Oh
>well, I'll look...
>
>
>By the way, I still have another card (intel_8x0 if I remember
>correctly) onboard (and thus, I thought this card is not so good).
>Should I give it a try again? I'm not sure if it can do
> hardwaremixing, I think it cannot, this was the main reason for me
> buying this SB card.
>
The intel_8x0 is also the motherboard audio I have.  It worked 
reasonably well for me for over 2 years and still is but I now have it 
seperated out as snd_card_1 and using it as the skype audio, at which 
it excels.  As to hardware mixing, I'm not sure about the nonemclature, 
although it can take the spdif or the analogue audio from your cdrom 
and do that at the same time it was doing the rear panel analogue input 
from the 6 inch jumper from my pcHDTV-3000 card's analogue output, all 
at the same time.  Or at least the bondout on this mobo allowed it, a 
biostar with the Nforce2 chipset.

And you're right, the old SBLives could mix just fine, limited only by 
the headroom in a 16 bit window.  Any mixing the ca106 chipset does 
will be done in software according to what I was told on this list.  
Support for it will come in due time I suppose, if only because so many 
are succumbing to the propaganda on the SBLive 24 bit Value's box.  As 
to whether a linux driver will ever do what the winderz version can do, 
that will be up to the coders since creative isn't sharing.  I suspect 
if a feature demands too much cpu, or impinges heavily on the interrupt 
facilities to function well, that feature may be left out by the coders 
until such time as the cpu horsepower allows it not to bog the system 
down.

Particularly, in terms of interrupt response times I'm being told that 
AMD cpu's suck serious hind tit compared to the intel chips.

Thats a pretty serious charge so let me relate a similar usage example 
here. I have an XP1400 athlon running emc out in my workshop.  Because 
this is machine control, in real time, the fastest irq in the system 
determines how fast things can physically run when the motors are 
steppers.  I'm noticing some gui lagging when this irq interval is set 
for 45 microseconds, and the box is virtually frozen at 42 
microseconds, so I normally run it at 50, this application using the 
rtai/adeos kernel kit.  Another emc user has a 733 pentium, half speed 
in other words, but his controller is happy as a clam with this same 
irq thread set for a 25 microsecond interval.

And of course I've always been a fan of the underdog, so all my cpu's 
here are either AMD or moto's, with some of the moto's being replaced 
by hitachi's with a compatible but much expanded instruction set which 
can double the machines speed without adjusting the clock, which is 
locked by the video on those machines.  Apparently the intel chips can 
do a faster IRQ response.

I do have one mobo with a P-II on it, but at 166 mhz, that doesn't have 
the cojones to run emc without using much more expensive kilobuck an 
axis servo motors as the machine driver.  So its decorating one corner 
of a basement workbench seriously in need of a bulldozer to clean it 
up.

And if the mobo in the shop machine dies, I may replace it with an intel 
just for comparison, although at 50 u-s, it can attempt to run the 
motors fast enough to stall out and stop.  Its fast enough as is but 
could do finer grained speed control at the higher speeds if that 
thread could be cranked up.  Now I hear them stepping at discrete 
speeds rather than varying smoothly at the higher speeds.  But it makes 
metal chips fly, which is the desired result. :-)

>Thank you again for your answer.
>
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
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