From alsa-user-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Sat Jan 23 01:03:17 1999
Received: from bunny.shuttle.de (bunny.shuttle.de [193.174.247.132])
	by marvin.jcu.cz (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id AAA10960
	for <alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz>; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:59:41 +0100
Received: (from raoul@localhost)
	by bunny.shuttle.de (8.9.2/8.9.2) id AAA01353
	for alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:59:38 +0100 (MET)
Message-ID: <19990123005937.A1251@bunny.shuttle.de>
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:59:37 +0100
From: Raoul Borenius <borenius@shuttle.de>
To: alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: GUS MAX (was ALSA and GUS MAX, on kernel 2.0.34 / Debian 2.0)
References: <19990105141426.A9981@gotss.ml.org> <XFMail.990106162811.scode_ufp@usa.net> <19990107131344.B1317@gotss.ml.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
In-Reply-To: <19990107131344.B1317@gotss.ml.org>; from Kerry Hoath on Thu, Jan 07, 1999 at 01:13:44PM +1100
Reply-To: alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz
Sender: alsa-user-owner@alsa.jcu.cz
Precedence: list

Hi ALSA-Users,

I'm sorry I'm asking this on the ALSA-list because it's not a direct
ALSA-Problem but there seems to be some GUS-MAX-Users on the list and maybe
someone can help me out:

Using the recommended (at least in the GUS-MAX-Manual) 16-bit-DMA-channels
(5 for playback and 6 for recording) doesn't work at all with Linux. There
is just no sound and programs like wavplay seem to try endlessly to play the
soundfile and have to be aborted with ^C. The interrupt-count for the
GUS (I'm using irq 5) is not increased. As far as I understand that means
the card isn't transferring any data to RAM.

I've  tried with OSS-Lite, OSS-Full Version 3.7.1z-981125, ultra-2.71b and
ultra-2.99a-devel4 (great stuff, thanks a lot Jaroslav!!). Didn't try ALSA
yet, maybe that's the problem ;-) but I heard midi doesntt work yet and
I love xdoom with music...

When using DMA 1 and 3 sound works perfectly.

Almost the same problem exists with Windows 95 and the Gravis-Driver:
Sound works with DMA 1, system hangs (you have to reset ;-) after trying
DMA 5, 6 or 7.

I first thought my old 486-VL-board didn't handle the 16-bit-DMAs correctly
but with my brand new ASUS P2B-DS there is the same problem.

The odd thing: when initializing the GUS with ULTRINIT.EXE in plain DOS
the 16-bit-DMAs 5 and 6 seem to work fine, no problem with sound in
Doom or other DOS-games.

Does that make sense to anybody?

But maybe that's not so much to worry about because so far there hasn't been
any downsides to using the 8-bit-DMAs. I just read that the 16-bit-ones are
faster in transferring data, which sounds pretty obvious.

And then I think these DMAs should work or do the mainboard-companies not
care about proper ISA-support on their boards any more? Well maybe there
never was something like a proper ISA-Design...

Thanks in advance for any hints

Raoul

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Raoul Gunnar Borenius		Deutsches Forschungsnetz e.V.
 WiNShuttle			Lindensprstr.32, 70176 Stuttgart
 Phone  : +49 711 63314-206	FAX: +49 711 63314-133
 E-Mail : borenius@shuttle.de	http://www.shuttle.de
 PGP-Key: finger -l raoul@shuttle.de
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------


On Thu, Jan 07, 1999 at 01:13:44PM +1100, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> I don't understand low-level sound programming but here is what basically 
> happens:
> An application dumps a buffer of digital audio to be played. The driver says,
> "Start a DMA transferr and tell me when the transferr is finished or to a
> certain point".
> Guess how that happens? The soundcard triggers an interrupt that is picked
> up by the pc. Basically the soundcard says,
> "I've finished... eyes this way... attention to me" <smile>
> 
> Check your /proc/pci and make sure nothing is using IRQ5. If a PCI device
> grabs it, the ISA cards will appear never to generate interrupts. Symptoms
> of this are looping sound fragments, and messages to kernel log.
> 
> Regards, Kerry.
> On Wed, Jan 06, 1999 at 04:28:11PM +0100, Peter Schuller wrote:
> > > This is an interesting situation, I am running Debian 2.0 and my 2 gusmax
> > > cards operate flawlessly. Was the /proc/interrupts snapshot taken after you
> > > had played sounds?
> > 
> > Yes it was. After at least a few sessions of Q2 :)
> > 
> > > It's a longshot but I noticed that the interrupt count
> > > on IRQ5 was zero. Does this count increase when you play sound?
> > 
> > Apperantly not. Just to be sure, I just entered Q2 again, made some noice and
> > checked it again. Still 0. And it didn't help to try one of those applications
> > in which I have problems. Still 0.
> > 
> > But is it really supposed to increase? I don't know much about hardware, but
> > isn't the interrupts there to make it possible for the soundcard so speak to
> > the comp., so to speak? Isn't the DMA channel used when playing sounds, i.e.
> > when passing data on TO the soundcard?
> > 
> > Ah well, that is probably 100% incorrect...
> > 
> > > My first
> > > hunch is if the sound loops it is an interrupt conflict. I know I had to
> > > go into the CMOS setup, PCI/Plug 'n' play, set resources assigned by manual
> > > and set IRQ5 (the one that has the gusmax on it) to Legacy ISA.
> > 
> > Well first of all, as I said, it worked fine before, using the same HW, ICQ and
> > DMA. And secondly, my comp. is an old P133, so the BIOS doesn't have that kind
> > of settings yet, so I can't try chaning that. It does have PnP though, but the
> > MAX doesn't support it, so I guess that can't be the problem?
> > 
> > And btw, I am not setting the DMA/IRQ manually. It's autodetected. I just do
> > "modprobe snd-gusmax".
> > 
> > Anyway, thanks a lot!
> > 
> > / Peter Schuller
> > ----------------
> > E-Mail: scode_ufp@usa.net
> > Web: http://hem.passagen.se/petersch
> > 
> > ------
> > To unsubscribe from <alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz> mailing list send message
> > 'unsubscribe' in the body of message to <alsa-user-request@alsa.jcu.cz>.
> > 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Kerry Hoath:
> kerry@gotss.ml.org or khoath@lis.net.au
> ICQ UIN: 8226547
> 
> ------
> To unsubscribe from <alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz> mailing list send message
> 'unsubscribe' in the body of message to <alsa-user-request@alsa.jcu.cz>.

