Latest updates and fixes for sound

[Ariff Abdullah]

Summary:

-CURRENT:
* ICH driver cleanup (Pyun YongHyeon), MPSAFE (experimental) and fix
  for long standing buffering problem causing improper/truncated
  playback for  short/small files (Luigi Rizzo). AC97 backward
  compatible support  for ICH 6/7 (HDA with AC97 codec) also has been
  added. Support for Intel HDA (azalia) is not there yet, hopefully
  somewhere in near future.
* Joystick for es137x (Jean-Yves Lefort)
* Recording fixes for sb16 (Watanabe Kazuhiro)
* Fix unhandled interrupt for via8233, causing erratic behaviour or
  panic in some cases.

RELENG_5/RELENG_6:
* Everything from -CURRENT

Patches are available at http://people.freebsd.org/~ariff/ . Those
who upgrading from previous patches should start with a clean kernel
source, or simply do the reverse patching
(patch -R < snd_PREVIOUS.diff).

Trivia:
* Part of these fix and changes will make its way into -CURRENT
* Those who experiencing stuttering, crackling or jumpy playback
  should enable options PREEMPTION in kernel. Consider increasing
  default buffersize (hint.pcm.<unit>.buffersize) as a last resort.
* There is an unintended new feature call 'slave', which is to reduce
  playback contention. This is noticable for via8233 and skype users
  (with accute hearing). hint.pcm.<unit>.via_dxs_disabled can be
  considered obsolete, although the hint option still there. NOTE:
  you can disable slave feature through sysctl hw.snd.slave_enabled.
* For via8233, if you experiencing no sound at all, consider
disabling  either DXS or SGD channel:
    hint.pcm.<unit>.via_dxs_channels=value from 0 - 4
    hint.pcm.<unit>.via_sgd_channels=value 0 - 1
  Pick the best combination from of options. This has been reported
  by Sebastiaan van Erk <sebster at sebster.com> (see below)

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:20:39 +0100
Sebastiaan van Erk <sebster at sebster.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry I haven't gotten back to you yet, been a bit busy these last 
> couple of days!
> 
> I downloaded your patch and tested it today, and here is the result:
> 
> dxs	sgd	result
> 0       0       ok
> 0       1       ok
> 1       0       ok
> 1       1       silence, 2nd, badly distorted, triggers all to play
> 2       0       ok
> 2       1       silence, 3rd, badly distorted, triggers all to play
> 3       0       ok
> 3       1       silence, 4th, badly distorted, triggers all to play
> 4       0       ok
> 4       1       silence, 5th, badly distorted, triggers all to play
> 
> The silence, nth, badly distorted, triggers all to play means that
> the  it's silent until I run the nth mpg321 after which a distorted
> mix of  all of them comes out of the speakers. Then when I kill them
> one by one  the sound is still bad on all of them.
>
* Enabling WITNESS, INVARIANTS and DIAGNOSTICS will produce LOR during
  device open. I'm on my way to revamp the entire mutex and locking
  strategy especially to accomodate an entirely new feature call
  sndctl(1). With sndctl(1), hopefully we can remove large part of
  sysctl tweakings, since that only available for
  super-world-class-geek-user.
* For RELENG_5/6 user, you should copy src/sys/sys/soundcard.h to
  /usr/include/sys/soundcard.h so any newly compiled application
  (especially mplayer) can pick up the definition of 24/32bit sound
  format. You only need to do this if the entire update process is not
  part of build/installworld.

--
Ariff Abdullah
"ahli" MyBSD/FreeBSD

http://www.MyBSD.org.my (IPv6/IPv4)
http://staff.MyBSD.org.my (IPv6/IPv4)
http://tomoyo.MyBSD.org.my (IPv6/IPv4)