Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 19:02:50 -0400 From: Doug Lee <dgl@dlee.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Long-standing sound driver issues Message-ID: <20050513230250.GC11408@kirk.dlee.org>
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I'll try this on FreeBSD-Questions first, then FreeBSD-Stable if I don't get an answer here; not sure which is best. I run FreeBSD-Stable (4.10) with two sound cards: a SoundBlaster AWE64 and a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. I use two because I can't get full duplex with one. I've always had several problems with sound on FreeBSD, and I'm wondering if there's a solution or anything I can do to help promote or create one. 1. In several 4.x versions (can't remember which was the first), sounds tend not to finish playing before they stop. Tested with play (from Sox) and wavplay ports. rplay does finish sounds but doesn't play as many formats. The sound card used for this is a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. 2. I can't record sound in stereo: If I try, I get mono at best and a mess at worst. I record with a SoundBlaster AWE64. 3. Monaural recording works but often requires me to edit the sound file header (wav) to flip the high- and low-order bytes of the sample rate. Rec from Sox gets this part right though. 4. If I use the sysctls for allowing virtual channels, problem 1 goes away, but I get fuzzy-sounding results. I never asked this before because I've always found ways around these issues and figured it was relatively rare to use FreeBSD for sound anyway, but it would really be nice to take advantage of some of the capabilities of these cards under FreeBSD. Thanks much for any help. Please Cc replies. -- Doug Lee dgl@dlee.org http://www.dlee.org BART Group doug@bartsite.com http://www.bartsite.com "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then...find the way." - Abraham Lincoln
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