Sound card drivers

[Andrew P.]

Andrew P. wrote this in December 2004:
> I grepped sysctl list and found hw.snd.pcm0.spdif_enabled
> switch, but when I change it 0->1, the sound disappears
> (both analog and digital outputs are silent). I tried
> to play with other hw.snd switches, changed mixer levels
> and recsrc, searched the net for a few hours - but nothing
> came up. People hack into sound drivers in cases like mine,
> but I'm too lame for that yet.
> 
> Anyways, after loading snd_driver dmesg says
> pcm0: <VIA VT8237> ...
> pcm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
> pcm0: <Avance Logic ALC658 AC97 Codec>
> 
> Motherboard manual says it's a "Realtek ALC658 CODEC (UAJ)"
> and the chip itself says "Realtek". Has anybody tried to
> make spdif out work on this mother?

Hi!

I just wanted to let you guys know that OSS drivers worked
great for me. Now I can use my hardware spdif/ac3/dts decoder
and watch my favorite movies with breath-taking sound - under
my favorite OS. I guess I'm staying with FreeBSD for good.

Note that OSS is free for home use now. I'd say we should
draw some attention of the FreeBSD community to this fine
solution - as it adds support for tens of pieces of sound hardware.

Andrew P.

P.S.: I've always known that mplayer was a great tool, but
it turns out you can't ever overestimate it. I tried 30-50
video players for windows - and had some problems with
each and everyone of them (lack of caching, decoding
problems, DirectX issues, you name it...) I change to
FreeBSD, try the first player on my mind (mplayer) -
and instead of much anticipated issues ("c'mon, DivX
and DTS playback on Unix? Give it up!") - I get instant
and flawless playback. I'm touched :-)