From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Thu Mar  4 21:29:13 1999
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Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 20:29:57 +0000 (GMT)
From: Paco Andres Verdu <f.andres@usa.net>
To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: An ALSA driver for the Guillemot Maxisound soundcards
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Hi All,

 You can get the first alfa release of my ALSA driver for the Guillemot
Maxisound soundcards at <http://www.dragonet.es/~pandres/alsa-maxisound.gz>

 I've been using it on a daily basis for sometime and it works pretty well,
and although it's work in progress it can be useful for Maxisound owners.

 This file (alsa-maxisound.gz) is a patch against the latest ALSA cvs tree,
to compile it you should:

      - cd to the alsa-driver directory
      - type: zcat alsa-maxisound.gz | patch -p1
      - type: ./cvscompile
      
 To load the driver you should do:
 
      - cd utils
      - su
      - ./insert maxi
      
   Or you can install it as any other alsa driver, by letting kerneld load
the modules for you.

  WHAT DOES IT SUPPORT
  --------------------
  
   - Full codec support (thanks to Abramo Bagnara for the es18xx driver).
   - PCM playing through the codec ==> lower cpu usage than through the DSP
     at the cost of slightly reduced sound quality.
   - Full codec's mixer support (CD Audio, FM synthesizer, etc levels).
   - Support for the on board OPL-3 FM synthesizer
   - Support for many of the features of the DSP :
       - Surround (3D), echo, MIDI synthesizer and codec's output levels,
   - Support for the DSP's MIDI wavetable synthesizer
   - Untested (no midi equipment) support for the external MIDI port (can
     anybody test it?, it's rawmidi device #1).
   - Full isapnp support.
   
WHAT IT DOESN'T DO
------------------

  - At this time the driver doesn't load the firmware nor soundbanks. You
will need to use Gerd Rausch's driver (<http://www.anime.net/~sam9407/>) or
the st97 utils (file stlinux.zip somewhere at <http://st97.cyso.net>) for
this.

  - It doesn't support PCM playing through the DSP. 


KNOWN PROBLEMS/BUGS
-------------------

  - There is a memory leak somewhere (it seems to be in the maxiess1868.c
file), when the driver is uninstalled a 32 and 16 byte structures remain
allocated. I've been unable to track down the problem.

  - The driver needs the firmware and the soundbanks (if you want to use the
midi wavetable synthesizer) loaded before the driver is loaded.

  - There is a race condition between the DSP mixer and MIDI synthesizer (both
use the same ports).

  - The code needs a lot of clean up and rework, I'm rewriting it, but it'll
take some time. I'll be very busy next months so development will continue
slowly.

  Feel free to ask any questions/problems you have with this driver.
  
  
  Paco
 
 
 

                              Saludos

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paco Andrs Verd                                          f.andres@usa.net
Alicante (Spain)                                              



