Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 03 Sep 1999 11:50:46 -0400
From:      Tom Pusateri <pusateri@juniper.net>
To:        jdugan@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Jon Dugan)
Cc:        freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Recommendations for a sound card 
Message-ID:  <199909031550.LAA08981@extreme.jcmax.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "02 Sep 1999 16:41:02 GMT." <19990902114102.A5007@ncsa.uiuc.edu> 

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
We read recommendations that the Crystal Semiconductor chipsets
worked well so we bought a bunch of the Aopen AW37 Pro cards which
have a CS4235 on them. We never got them to work under FreeBSD
2.2.[5-8] or 3.[12]. I can tell you not to buy these.

We have a bunch of Dell machines with CS4236's on the motherboard
that work great under 2.2.[78] or 3.1 and 3.2.

I've had mixed success with Yamaha based boards as well.

One problem I see is that every PC seems to have a different bios
with different pnp problems. So its frustrating trying to
get them configured correctly. But once the configuration is
right, sometimes recording doesn't work (cs4325), other times I can get
mp3 files to play but not .au files (gus).

Another problem I see is that some great guy will get an audio
driver working for a card but when you try to buy the same model,
they don't make them anymore and you get a slightly different
version and it doesn't work the same.

The sound cards change so fast that new ones don't work yet and old
ones aren't available. By the time the drivers work for the new ones,
they have become the old ones and you can't get them anymore.

Needless to say, I've been frustrated by the whole PC audio thing.

I would love to find a card that worked for multicast apps.

Thanks,
Tom

In message <19990902114102.A5007@ncsa.uiuc.edu> you write:
>Hello,
>
>  I am looking for a high quality sound card that will work with the pcm
>  driver.  I will be using it for conferencing as well as mp3 playback.  I
>  looked the the GeoCrawler archives of -multimedia, but the most recent
>  recommendations were about a year old.
>
>  I'd like high quality (low noise, etc) and I need full-duplex for
>  conferencing.  I will be using vat/rat and vic.  We (NCSA) are doing a lot
>  with conferencing via multicast.  Most is done either from SGIs or Linux
>  boxes (and some *shudder* NT), but I'd love to be able to be able to say the
>  FreeBSD does it better.  Our group (the networking group) is all FreeBSD, so
>  from our side it will be FreeBSD.
>
>  One thing was clear -- don't buy a SoundBlaster.
>
>  It looks like full-duplex is well supported on WSS/MSS cards, but these
>  cards tend (in my experience) to be low quality cards. 
>
>  Can anyone recommend specific cards (ie, Manufacturer/Model pairs) that are
>  high quality and will support full-duplex well?
>
>  The manpage and /sys/i386/isa/snd/CARDS tells me that the Crystal and OPL-SA
>x
>  based cards are good choices, but I've had a hard time finding enough info
>  to glean whether or not they have a supported chipset.
>
>  I'd appreciate any help you can offer!
>
>  Thanks,
>
>Jon
>-- 
>Jon Dugan             |  Network Engineer, NCSA Network Development
>jdugan@ncsa.uiuc.edu  |  57C CAB, 605 E Springfield, Champaign, IL 61820
>217/244-7715          |  http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/people/jdugan
>
>
>To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
>with "unsubscribe freebsd-multimedia" in the body of the message


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-multimedia" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199909031550.LAA08981>