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http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/pressrelease.jsp?press_release_no=2088 would this be good news for the community? This is really mainly Linux-related, but i'm hoping that their mention of "technical documentation" will be good enough for Open to be able to support them... -jf -- In the meantime, here is your PSA: "It's so hard to write a graphics driver that open-sourcing it would not help." -- Andrew Fear, Software Product Manager, NVIDIA Corporation http://kerneltrap.org/node/7228
Developers don't need web sites. They need pdf files documenting the chips. Contrast Via's web site to the following: http://wikis.sun.com/display/FOSSdocs/Home It took us a very long time to get Sun to do this, and it was totally worth it. It is kind of strange to us to have Sun suddenly be the perfect example of openness. Pay close attention to how VIA is only talking about their newest flashiest chips, too.
a bit OT, but i just had the pleasure of meeting and ex-sun employee, working mostly on kernel stuff. i dont know how similar the opensolaris and solaris kernels are, but he said the solaris kernel code is a beauty to read, and simplicity and readibility are adhered to fanatically... that reminds me another dev community :o) as i read some of the sun employees blogs, i think there might be quite some similarities between the two dev cultures (hope this doesnt insult too much people), it's just that sun is a company... and that alone ties a lot of hands (as we all know)... -f -- suicidal twin kills sister by mistake!
Sun learnt a lot of lessons when it tried to merge sparc and x86 code bases together around the solaris 2.4 time, iirc. That's why things like zfs are endian neutral. OpenBSD started in the multi cpu world to begin with. -- http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk "This officer's men seem to follow him merely out of idle curiosity." -- Sandhurst officer cadet evaluation. "Securing an environment of Windows platforms from abuse - external or internal - is akin to trying to install sprinklers in a fireworks factory where smoking on the job is permitted." -- Gene Spafford learn french: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1G-3laJJP0&feature=related
i might be wrong, but i thought as of yet, not everything is endian neutral in openbsd (carp?) -f -- you don't have to be a cannibal to get fed up with people.
carp IS endian-neutral -- Henning Brauer, hb@bsws.de, henning@openbsd.org BS Web Services, http://bsws.de Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg & Amsterdam
So, perhaps the best audio-option would be something using VIA Envy24(HT) - which is reportedly better than Audigy(2)? Time to swap? -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
envy(4) already exists in -current (and will be in 4.3). doesn't support the HT version though. -- jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Yes, I noticed it's there - but does the driver support all of the available capabilities? The "VIA opening" won't be of any help in this particular case? -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
according to BUGS in envy(4), no. but emu(4) doesn't support all at least some datasheets are/have been available: http://envy24.svobodno.com/datasheets/ -- jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
I understand - but the mentioned "VIA opening" is suggesting, that perhaps completing the envy driver can be much easier, if VIA will release the docs; Creative Labs, unfortunately, still doesn't seem to be willing to. I'm not sure, nevertheless, if that envy24-related docs is enough; there are I think, I'll have to make a comparison with Audigy soon... ;) as I can see, there are even (semi?)professional cards built using Envy; like f.e. this one: http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/esi-juli@-en.shtml -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
oh it's more than that! Creative: the company that sues you for your drivers. And gets to decide which features it will want to enable its drivers for you, the consumer. How's that for a creative perspective on the rights of the customer! http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/03/29/046201.shtml -Jeff -- In the meantime, here is your PSA: "It's so hard to write a graphics driver that open-sourcing it would not help." -- Andrew Fear, Software Product Manager, NVIDIA Corporation http://kerneltrap.org/node/7228
besides the MIDI port and the world clock the envy24 chip support is quite complete. Unfortunately that doesn't mean that all envy-based cards are fully usable. - 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) - second, there are limitations in most audio apps and in our audio(4) device that makes envy24-based cards hard to use (eg. lack of 24/32-bit encoding or 10/12 channel support). IMO, this afaik, these cards are based on envy24ht, not envy24. -- Alexandre
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 -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
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 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
You're right: "if". ;) But found some more info about the other chips: Perhaps I misunderstood that test at "icrontic" - there was a comparison of the chips, and this was suggesting, that there are four versions of the card; probably wrong conclusion. The testers are publishing a bit contradictory informations: f.e. on the page: http://techgage.com/article/chaintech_av-710_71_sound_card First you'll find: "VIA ENVY 24PT", several verses down a remark: "The heart of the card is the Envy24 HT-S Chipset" - with a photo on the side. A photo of... ENVY 24PT. Immediately below - image of ENVY 24HT-S. :-O What a pity; the card has quite good reviews. OK, must look further... -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
Found it - looks good, but it's an expensive one :/ what do you think about that other chips? Are they supported presently? http://www.digit-life.com/articles/maudioaudiophile/ * main chip - multichannel PCI controller ENVY24 from IC Ensemble; * I2S stereo codec AKM AK4528VF with the 24bit/96kHz DAC and ADC; * CS8427 digital transceiver; Also: http://www25.big.jp/~jam/audiocard/audiophile/ -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
Maybe someone will find it useful: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/partners/partners_envy24.jsp -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
IIRC, someone reported that the Audiophile 2496 works on OpenBSD. By "works" i mean that it can record and play 24bit samples using 10/12 channels, as it should. Unfortunaltely few audio ports support such encodings. Recently jakemsr@ ported jack, afaik it's the only app that can use natively envy(4) devices. He also modified various audio apps to use jack, so such cards become more and more usable with usual apps. See: http://jakemsr.trancell.org/ -- Alexandre
oh, I have already removed some of the things that have been committed. in -current, xine-lib (and thus kaffeine, amarok and xine-ui), vlc, portaudio-svn (and thus audacity), audacious-plugins, aqualung, hydrogen and fluidsynth already have jack support. hopefully mplayer, arts and akode will have jack support soon (waiting on replies, hint, hint ;)). -- jakemsr@sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
I would to ask about the issue to be found under Linux - is it valid for OpenBSD's "audio" too? http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=93315 "The latest versions of ALSA which are included with Ubuntu Edgy, and I think Dapper Drake as well, will resample all audio to 48kHz if your soundcard does not support hardware mixing. This is also true if the driver doesn't support hardware mixing. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no support for hardware mixing with any of the Envy24 chips in Linux. The problem with this resampling is that by default ALSA uses a poor resampling algorithm to save CPU usage, and destroys the quality of everything played back. ALSA uses this software mixing and resampling in order to let more than one application play audio at the same time. I have found a solution to the audio quality issue however. [..]" -- pozdrawiam / regards Zbigniew Baniewski
the sample rate shouldn't be a problem; on OpenBSD all usual sample rates between 8kHz and 96kHz (multiples of 8kHz and 11.25kHz) should work. the "unusual" format used by envy (and other "pro" cards) is a problem for most apps though -- Alexandre
Good news. I will support VIA. Keep up the good works. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/%22VIA-Announces-Strategic-Open-Source-Driver-Development-Initia... Sent from the openbsd user - misc mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
I'm running dual mini-ITX Migrus C787-1.5G motherboards in a 1U case - both have the Via C7 1.5 GHz processor and a gig of RAM each. Aside from the issue of versions of OpenBSD up to 4.2 not liking the three-port gigabit ethernet daughter boards very much, the machines are just downright painfully slow. Slow like molasses, and the OS doesn't seem to matter as I have tried several OpenBSDs, both Enterprise and Desktop editions of Ubuntu 4.07 and 4.10, and even Windows XP Home, Pro, and Server 2003. Nothing speeds them up and even drawing a window using any manager is sometimes more than the things can handle. I can't help but think that the C7s aren't as i386-compatible as Via would have us believe, even though they were billed as great for home media center PCs that could handle encrypted and copy-protected media better than anything else with the build-in decryption hardware. I wasn't interested in this particular application - I needed something very small and minus towering heat sinks to fit in the 1U case. The ml was full of Soekris router throughput issues at the time, so I didn't consider them to be the best option. I bought them to be part of a 6U portable rack that served out VSAT non-military internet access to my unit when deployed, and while they did the job they about killed me with frustration in the process. I could be persuaded to part with one of the motherboards if someone in the project is interested in doing development work for this arch. JC
