[ut2004] ALSA or OSS

[Gian Paolo Mureddu]

Bill Fraser wrote:

>The Creative cards work great. I've got an SB Live (emu10k1 chip) and
>it works flawlessly. With relatively minimal configuration I can get
>XMMS and UT2004 (and any number of other programs for that matter) to
>share the sound via Alsa very nicely. If it's a big issue for you, go
>out and buy one of the mid-range Creative cards.
>
Definitely the best supported soundcards are Creative Labs... Plus their 
ALSA support is superb! Ironically the ALSA project started out to bring 
support for the GUS [Gravis Ultra Sound] sound cards and look what it is 
now... The Sound defacto standtard for Linux!! Yay!!

> They're not very expensive (~$30 on NewEgg), and they fit the bill quite nicely for the
>purpose. Driver support is excellent; my only complaint is that the
>mixer settings for input are a little broken.
>
>  
>
What exact model is your card? What driver do you need in ALSA (if you 
know)? I ask this, because recent models (AudigyLS, SB-Live 24-bit, and 
possibly Audigy 2 Value) have relatively good output support but still 
lack input support, that is being worked out.

Another thing to note is that even thought he capabilities of the Sound 
Blaster Live and Audigy families is to output and mix 32 sound channels 
in hardware, in practice (due to driver issue) they can only output and 
HW mix up to 21 streams (not bad, huh?). There's a recent patch that 
aims to fully use the card... I only hope this will be one of the first 
steps taken to have true HW sound rendering in Linux (who knows, maybe 
OpenAL will become the defacto 3D Sound API in Linux with HW renderers)...

With regards of other hardware (Intel, nVidia, Envy24, etc) It'd be 
swell if manufacturers handed the required information to the developers 
of the ALSA project ot broaden an deepen HW support for these cards. 
Especially nForce hardware that seems to be so ubiquitous... Or migrate 
their closed drivers to ALSA-lib altogether... That's their decision, 
but in the mean time, their customers are the ones paying the 
consequences...

Anyway, my 2¢
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