On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:47:37PM +0200, Zbigniew Baniewski wrote:
quoted text
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:36:51PM +0200, Alexandre Ratchov wrote:
> 
> >  - first, envy24 is a generic digital only chip; it's connected to
> >    up to 4 codecs that do the analog<->digital conversions and that
> >    hold the gain knobs. So to add support for a new cards we must
> >    add support for its codecs, and we need to know how these codecs
> >    are wired to the envy24 chip, how gpio pins are used, etc... 
> >    (this may require docs from the sound card manufacturer, not
> >    via)
> 
> That's I was afraid of.
> 

well, if both codecs and the digital chip are well documented, how
they are connected is not too hard to guess. There's an EEPROM that
gives hints.

quoted text
> > afaik, these cards are based on envy24ht, not envy24.
> 
> What do you think about (much cheaper) Chaintech AV-710? There's a version
> with envy24... perhaps someone's using this under OpenBSD?
> 
> http://icrontic.com/articles/chaintech_av710_71_audio_card_review
> http://techgage.com/article/chaintech_av-710_71_sound_card/
> http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/articles/show/654
>

according to the second link, it uses envy24HT so it will not work
with the current envy(4) driver. FYI envy24 is also known as VT1712
or ICE1712. Esi-julia and AV-710 seem to use the VT1721.

For a sound card (beside being supported) the most important is the
analog part, that will determine the sound quality, the esi julia
seems quite promising in this respect.

Nevertheless, if i one day I get one, I'll happily work on the "HT"
driver ;)

-- Alexandre