From owner-freebsd-stable  Sun May  6 17: 1:32 2001
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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 01:01:26 +0100 (BST)
From: Andrew Gordon <arg@arg1.demon.co.uk>
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To: Alessandro de Manzano <adm@unixmania.net>
Cc: <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: 4.3-STABLE and VIA VT82C686A sound...
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On Sun, 6 May 2001, Alessandro de Manzano wrote:

> you mean you have this device :
>
> libero:(root)/root# cat /dev/sndstat
> FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm) May  1 2001 14:11:58
> Installed devices:
> pcm0: <VIA VT82C686A> at io 0xcc00 irq 5 (1p/1r channels duplex)
>
> and
>
> libero:(root)/root# dmesg | grep pcm
> pcm0: <VIA VT82C686A> port 0xd400-0xd403,0xd000-0xd003,0xcc00-0xccff
> irq 5 at device 7.5 on pci0
>
> (FreeBSD 4.3-stable of May, 1st)
>
> and works correctly ?

It all depends what you mean by "correctly".  And the above message is not
enough to identify your sound hardware: the VIA 82C686 is effectively just
a DMA engine, and the features you get depend on the AC97 chip attached to
it.

In particular, some motherboards only support a very limited range of
sampling rates: I have one 82C686 motherboard here that supports only
48000Hz (and I have others that support multiple rates).

These machines often come with Windows drivers that mimic the behaviour of
a 'real' soundcard - ie. they use software to convert the sample rate of
the input to the sample rate supported by the hardware.

The FreeBSD driver just gives an error if you try to select a speed not
supported by the hardware.  This doesn't stop you using other software to
solve the problem - for example "sox" (ports/audio/sox) will do sample
rate interpolation.

> I ask you because mine is not! :(
>
> If I try playing, example, a MP3 file with AMP 0.7.6 (it's in the
> ports) I only got errors "Unable to seq frequenct : 44100"
>
> The same with other MP3 players :(

Did you try mp3blaster?  Last time I tried it, it ignored the error from
the driver and just played the MP3 at the wrong speed.  This isn't
actually useful, but at least confirms the hardware is basically working.

> I tought such "AC'97" pseudo-audio devices were not (yet?) fully
> supported, but if your is working maybe I'm wrong ;)

"AC97" is not a full description of your hardware's capabilities.

Unfortunately, motherboard/soundcard manuals almost always contain only
marketing buzzwords and no useful information whatever.  Buying a
soundcard is a game of chance.


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