NVIDA now has full hardware mixing support under Linux

imptech · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2003 Posts: 30

You'll find that your results with ALSA and dmix will be mixed. Some apps will work beautifully, others crappily, and some won't work at all. Many games will simply ignore the plugin, so nothing else will be able to play sound while the game is running. UT2004 does this, for one. Depending on what apps you use dmix can be a workable solution, but mostly its a pain in the ass. Nowhere near as good as real hardware mixing.

Rohan · n00b Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 6

ugh... i just switched to gentoo on my main computer from windows and didnt even think about hardware mixing...... now i might go back... anyways ill send the email

rotux · n00b Joined: 23 Dec 2003 Posts: 72

Its not that bad, if you really need more apps to play sound at the same time, you still can use a software mixer like arts. Would be cool if nvidia released better drivers though

Shiven · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:10 am Post subject:

heh, may be a little after this thread was created... still better late than never

sent.

bidz · n00b Joined: 08 Jun 2002 Posts: 54 Location: Norway

A little late.. Email sent. This is one annoying thing about Nforce2/Soundstorm chips.
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dalek · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2004 9:59 am Post subject:

Well I fixed my sound problems. I got a sound blaster card, disabled the crappy on board thing, recompiled the kernel with ALSA drivers. I now have sound, more than one at a time by the way.

You waited to long for this one NVIDIA. You loose.

I, being disabled, saved up my money while they dragged their butts. I feel better now.

Later

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MighMoS · Guru Joined: 24 Apr 2003 Posts: 416 Location: @ ~

*third email sent*
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Kevin72594 · Guru Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 307

sent my first, there are more coming though

BlueByte · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 08 Apr 2004 Posts: 87

good thing i saved my three crappy sound blaster lives

anyway, i sent a mail

Shiryou · Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 10:03 pm Post subject:

THis has been a major sticking point for me so there we go. Sent

madmango · Guru Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Posts: 507 Location: PA, USA

I don't know if you guys have heard this anywhere, but I could've sworn that I read that nvidia wasn't going to develop drivers for soundstorm in linux. They're basically getting away from hardware mixing all together. The nforce3 doesn't have an APU at all; nvidia said that since vendors won't pay more for hardware mixing they don't have a reason to include it.

I really hope this isn't true. I think that onboard sound has gotten such a bad rap that many people automatically buy an audigy or summat, and don't even pay attention to the onboard, which means that vendors don't care about apus.

Time to throw that sblive 5.1 digital back in. Maybe I'll go buy a live drive now.
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Bungopolis · Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2004 12:40 am Post subject:

Can someone clarify exactly what the situation is now? We need a general HOWTO on sound mixing under linux!

I have an NForce2 soundstorm and am disapointed to hear that I cant do hardware mixing.

What are the software workarounds, how do they compare to hardware mixing in terms of use, quality, and performance?

I have an old SBLive! Value lying around -- would this card give me hardware mixing?

What are the best supported sound cards for linux in terms of hardware mixing?

FFred · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2004 Posts: 23 Location: Paris, France

Apparently, and unless my high speed superpowers made me miss something, the thread only mention nForce2.

What's the situation on nForce3 chipsets ?

From what I've seen probing at the guts of the machine, it's still the same sound architecture so it would appear that nothing has changed. Or has it ?

Should I write as well ?

nForce is after all *the* recommended architecture for AMD64 cpus. And Linux is probably the only OS to really support them at this point.

Maybe writing to AMD too would be a good idea ?

Bungopolis · Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2004 9:15 am Post subject:

Unfortunately (or not) NVIDIA decided to dump soundstorm with the nForce3 series -- there are no nForce3 boards with soundstorm -- so it's a bit of a non-issue. Apparantly they ran out of space because soundstorm was a single-chip solution. The other theory is that they did it to increase demand for their upcoming standalone sound boards (see this article).

Maybe this sheds some light on why they aren't bothering to write adequate drivers for Linux?

On the other hand, they have announced soundstorm will be integrated with the upcoming nForce4 series, so it's hard to tell what's really going on (see this article).

ketjow · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 10:17 am Post subject:

Sent the mail

codergeek42 · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:28 pm Post subject:

Hmm...was planning on buying an Asus A7N8X-E Dlx Mobo for a new computer I'm building...

/me sends an email...
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Bungopolis · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:45 pm Post subject:

I have that board codergeek, everything is great on it in linux and well supported, except hardware mixing. So I just installed an SB Live! Value card from 5 years ago, and its fine.

Then again I only need basic front channel analogue output.

codergeek42 · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:50 pm Post subject:

Bungopolis · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:14 pm Post subject:

Just looking around the forums, the Audigy 2 seems well supported with the ALSA Audigy driver, see the ALSA sound card matrix as well.

codergeek42 · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:23 pm Post subject:

codergeek42 · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:12 pm Post subject:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.0-0283

Bungopolis · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:18 pm Post subject:

Brilliant!

I think we can finally declare this thread a success!

codergeek42 · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:24 pm Post subject:

/me hopes this will work with ALSA ...
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Sastraxi · Apprentice Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 258

Just waiting for the day..

I say now we email them again -- not to boycott, but to congratulate

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codergeek42 · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:36 pm Post subject: