From alsa-user-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Fri Feb 12 18:52:45 1999
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From: "Udo Giacomozzi" <udo_giacomozzi@rolmail.net>
To: <alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz>
Subject: Re: Recommendation for ALSA compat non-CreativeLabs PCI sound card?
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 18:50:59 +0100
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Ok, people! You have convinced me. (hope you are happy now ;-)
I think I will buy the SB 128 (supported by ALSA, isn't it?).
It has more or less the same features as the Live except the DSP and the
digital I/O.

Anyone wants to buy my Live?
(Hey! That was just a joke! ;-)

The only thing I dislike is the shared line in/out connector, but it's not
that critical.
One last question: The SB 128 loads the wavetable samples in the computer
RAM. Is that supportedby ALSA (i.e. does wavetable MIDI sound work under
ALSA?)

Thanks for your help
Udo Giacomozzi

--
* Email: udo_giacomozzi@rolmail.net
* UIN: 17745247   (@pager.mirabilis.com)

-----Original Message-----
From: James Gregory <pgregory@thepla.net>
To: alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz <alsa-user@alsa.jcu.cz>
Date: Friday, February 12, 1999 5:25 AM
Subject: Re: Recommendation for ALSA compat non-CreativeLabs PCI sound card?


>Absolutely certain. You can drive 4 outputs from the thing. I've used it on
my
>machine. It is supported on the ES1370 (the one I have). It is documented
in
>the OEM version of the manual, I don't know if it is in the commercial
package.
>Having a DSP chip is handy I admit, but I still think that a PII has got
plenty
>of power to mix and do effects etc. for as many channels as your normal
user is
>likely to want. To give you an example, on my PII-266, (asus m/b, 32mb ram,
>RedHat 5.2) I can play a midi file (can't remember which one it was) which
>required 64 channels (or so it said in its doco) using 5% of machines
>processing power on average. (According to top). That was with chorus and
>reverb enabled. 48khz mixing. Stereo. Now if I were to use all my machines
>processing power to mixing audio, a simple multiplication reveals that I
>could... in theory (I know there are other factors to be considered here)
mix
>1280 channels of audio. Decidely more than 256. As large as these numbers
seem,
>I don't think they are wildly inaccurate. Under windows, using the standard
>AudioPCI driver on the same machine, I can play using the 32 voice synth,
and
>according to the system monitor it uses less than 3% of my processor time.
DSP
>effects are fairly simple to write, they are just mathematical formulae
>performed on audio data. Not really rocket science, and using the right
>optimisations, I'm sure could be calculated by any PII with a tiny ammount
of
>processing power. I understand that you already have the sb Live! card, and
the
>DSP can take a load off your processor, and does make writing software
easier
>(provided there are drivers), if you want a cheap card to do quad-sound,
the
>audiopci is your card. it's about $100 in Australia (at least when I bought
it,
>ie when it first came out). To answer your question, I wouldn't hold your
>breath over linux drivers, Creative still have windows as their priority.
Fair
>enough considering that all the "serious" sound software only runs on
windows.
>As I understood it, the guy hired to do the coding of the driver had been
given
>the job of writing graphics drivers for the Creative 3D video cards first,
the
>audio driver was last (could be wrong, only skim read the message). And it
is
>almost certain that they will take a long long time to become usable stable
>drivers which you can run without fear of spontaneous crashes. Particularly
>with things like full duplex etc.
>
>Hope that helps.
>
>Jim.
>
>Udo Giacomozzi wrote:
>
>> >Don't know about DSP, but all of the creative labs pci cards have
>> quadriphony.
>> >Check out if it is actually a DSP chip, or just software. On the
audiopci
>> >manual I have it says "advanced wavetable synthesis engine" it is
important
>> to
>> >note that this does not translate to hardware wavetable synthesizer. On
the
>> >contrary, it is entirely software based. Unless the Live! card has got
>> >hardware midi, it's probably not worth waiting anyway. Just get an
audiopci
>> or
>> >and ess solo or something, and use timidity or another software midi
synth.
>> I
>>
>> Are you sure? As long as I know only SB Live has quadrphony. What's about
>> SB128?
>> However there is a real DSP chip onboard (EMU10K1, 1000 MIPS). It has a
>> hardware wavetable synthesizer (256 voices when using software
synthesizer
>> too, otherwise 196 I think).
>>
>> >would suggest that any fast (ie PII or higher) computer with any pci
card
>> >could be configured match the SB Live!'s features.
>>
>> I don't think so. The Live has quadriphony (I know only few cards that
can
>> do that) and a DSP chip (don't know any other non-professional soundcard
>> with DSP).
>> However I don't want to discute witch soundcard is better. I have this
one
>> already and I want use it.
>>
>> I have a SB 16 VIBRA-X too in my computer that works already with Linux.
>> Unfortunately this card can't do full duplex and I need this feature for
an
>> audio project I am currently working on. BTW, I don't neccessarily need
to
>> use the DSP chip under Linux, so I *know* I could use another quadriphony
>> full-duplex PCI sound card as well!
>>
>> To return to my first question: Does nobody know how long it will take
until
>> the first Linux driver is being released?
>>
>> And: Anyone can suggest me a cheap PCI sound card that can do
full-duplex?
>> (hope you are happy now) ;-)
>>
>> Regards
>> Udo Giacomozzi
>>
>> --
>> * Email: udo_giacomozzi@rolmail.net
>> * UIN: 17745247   (@pager.mirabilis.com)
>>
>> ------
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>
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