Re: [Openvortex-dev] Some strange problems using au8830

[Callum Lerwick]

> > The beast seems to work, but as time pass the sound become a little bit 
> > distorded or saturated. Is this a known problem ? Can I help in some way ?
>  
> I guess this is the same bug that I'm experiencing, only I have heavily
> distorted sound right from the start of playback..

I can confirm I got this a few times before the chipmunks were fixed, 
rarely though. Hasn't happened since the fix yet.

I haven't posted here before, I have an au8830, one of the white box 
cards that were quietly selling for $50, designed for Dell OEM IIRC, 
just before Aureal introduced their own retail cards starting at $100 
like everyone else. Rev 0xfe

> I've done some experimenting today with latest CVS and I'm happy to
> report at least the chip n dale bug (aka fastplay bug) is entirely gone.
> The distorted sound is still here though, the low sound level as well.

Yes, congradulations guys, I have yet to see any chipmunks with the 
latest CVS. I used to get them constantly.

In my case the volume levels are actually far louder. With the binary 
drivers I would leave the PCM at max, and adjust the master to taste. 
With the alsa drivers putting the PCM at max will distort really bad. 
Adjusting the master level doesn't affect it so its distorting before it 
hits the master mix. Haven't tested it exactly but it seems putting PCM 
much over 50% starts distorting. Putting the master at max doesn't seem 
to cause any problem. For reference, putting PCM at 65% and master at 
max seems to approximate the volume of the binary drivers at PCM 100% 
and master 100%. Also, the mixers seem to be logarithmic, rather than 
linear like the binary drivers. I'd prefer linear because it gives you 
better control.

I'm also noticing some tiny glitchyness starting playback, like someone 
else mentioned, a few barely noticeable msec of audio from a previous 
stream is getting played or something.

Also, is native ALSA stuff supposed to be working? OSS emulation works 
fine, but trying to use native ALSA doesn't work. Everything just barfs 
with a message like this:

$ alsamixer
alsamixer: function snd_mixer_load failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

I don't understand whats going on, I might have mismatching ALSA libs...