Status of VIA Envy24 audio controller

[Konstantin Dimitrov]

not only developers are important, for example, the first step of adding
support for specific Envy24-based card is to know how I2S codec control
interface pins are wired to Envy24 GPIO pins and it is not typical
developer's job - reversing the wiring between I2S codec and Envy24 chip
using only digital multimeter.
with AV710 i'm stuck on this stage, but AV710 like SE-90PCI uses VIA
reference design, so VIA can help and provide, not only datasheets for all
Envy24 chips, but also some information about their reference design, but if
they are willing to do that, they probably will provide open-source drivers
for the cards with reference design, so the only option left is using
digital multimeter on our Envy24-based cards and try to reverse the wiring
(same apply for boards, that don't use VIA reference design).

On 7/16/06, Laurent Courty <lrntct at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Le dimanche 16 juillet 2006 19:11, vous avez écrit:
> > On 7/16/06, Laurent Courty <lrntct at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > It's great to see people working on envy24 support. Thanks a lot
> hackers
> > > ! I'm thinking about buying an Onkyo SE-90PCI board.
> > > Do you think if it's possible to make it work on FreeBSD ? It seem to
> use
> > > the
> > > VT1720T (Envy24MT). As I see on Nikolas' web site, no datasheet is
> > > currently
> > > available for this chip. How can I help ? Should I ask VIA for
> datasheet
> > > ?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Laurent
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > freebsd-multimedia at freebsd.org mailing list
> > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-multimedia
> > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "
> > > freebsd-multimedia-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
> >
> > nothing is impossible, but ...
> > looks like it is time to discuss VIA reference design, because both
> > Chaintech AV710 (there are many similar versions of that board from
> other
> > manufacturer like OOAOO SQ710II) and Onkyo SE-90PCI seems to use
> reference
> > design.
> > according to that picture:
> >
> > http://xkodi.svobodno.com/xkodi/se90pci_3.jpg
> >
> > SE-90PCI uses VT1720T + WM8716 + 49.152 MHz crystal on VT1720T XIN2 pin.
> > i made list of VIA reference design with their corresponding EEPROM
> > content:
> >
> >
> http://xkodi.svobodno.com/envy24/envy24_ref_e2proms/envy24_ref_e2proms.html
> >
> > first revision of Chaintech AV710 uses Envy24PT (VT1720PT) and later
> > revision uses Envy24HT-S (VT1721) and that is possible, because all
> > Envy24GT/PT/MT/HT-S are subset of Envy24HT in term of features (and
> pins),
> > so SE-90PCI is number 5 in the list, Chaintech AV710 is number 7.
> >
> > datasheet are available only for Envy24PT and Envy24HT (and Envy24 but
> it
> > is very different chip) and comparing them it is possible to guess (but
> we
> > can't be sure) for example how Envy24HT-S works, but Envy24MT has
> different
> > package, so maybe very different pin assignment and it is very unlikely
> VIA
> > to provide datasheets, because i have already asked them, when i buy my
> > first Envy24-based card.
> >
> > two days ago accidentally i found Chaintech AV710 and bought it, because
> it
> > is very cheap - 10 times cheaper than my Terratec DMX 6fire, as i said
> it
> > is number 7 in the list of VIA reference design, so it uses VT1721 +
> VT1616
> > + WM8728 + 24.576 MHz crystal on XIN2 pin.
> > VT1616 is AC97 codec, but WM8728 is I2S codec very similar to WM8716
> used
> > in SE-90PCI.
> >
> > i'm trying to find out how the board works with WM8728, because WM8728
> has
> > 3 control modes:
> > 1. hardware
> > 2. software:
> > 2.1. 3-wire SPI-compatible
> > 2.2 . 2-wire
> >
> > also i'm assuming that pin assignment of Envy24HT-S is same as Envy24PT
> > (there is no datasheet available for Envy24HT-S) and i'm very puzzled,
> > because till now i can't find the LATI2S pin of WM8728 to be wired to
> any
> > of VT1721 GPIO pins, so it can't be in SPI mode and i'm starting to
> think
> > it is in hardware or 2-wire mode, but i'm not sure. also i can't
> understand
> > from WM8728 datasheet how 2-wire mode works. all other Envy24-based
> boards,
> > that have support till now under FreeBSD use SPI mode.
> >
> > WM8716 has 2 control modes:
> > 1. hardware
> > 2. 3-wire SPI-compatible
> >
> > both cards uses same VIA (very buggy) driver under Windows, both codecs
> > have hardware mode, so maybe it makes sense that hardware mode is used
> and
> > that the codec is initialized in hardware, because then no specific
> driver
> > code is required.
> >
> > on AV710 board DIN pin of WM8728 is wired to Envy24HT-S PSDOUT[1] pin,
> so
> > according to Envy24PT datasheet, "biDirectional PCI Stereo Pairs DMA
> > Playback" is used instead of "Multi-Channel Interleaved DMA Playback".
> > currently we have code only for "Multi-Channel Interleaved DMA Playback"
>
> > and at the moment i'm not sure how hard or how easy is "biDirectional
> PCI
> > Stereo Pairs DMA Playback" support to be added.
> >
> > i'm expecting SE-90PCI to have same design - DIN pin of WM8716 to be
> wired
> > to Envy24MT PSDOUT[1] pin.
> >
> > so for Chaintech AV710 and SE-90PCI a lot of new code is reqiured and
> also
> > to find out how WM8728/WM8716 are controlled, not to mention Envy24MT
> pin
> > assignment.
> >
> > i'm not aware of someone except me currently trying to do something
> about
> > Envy24 support under FreeBSD and my main interest is to add support for
> my
> > two Terratec cards - "DMX 6fire" and "Aureon Space". i have already add
> > support for "DMX 6fire" and it is running using the patched version of
> > Katsurajima Naoto's code for Envy24+AK452x.
> >
> > i also have added support for Envy24HT+WM8770:
> >
> >
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-multimedia/2006-June/004347.html
> >
> > so my "Aureon Space" is also running, but the code is very messy, so i
> need
> > to refine it and also i'm planning to add support for Audiotrak Prodigy
> > 7.1, because it is very similar to "Aureon Space".
> >
> > it would be great if someone want to help with something, because
> current
> > code has some problems, there are very huge numbers of different
> > Envy24-based boards and making full Envy24 support under FreeBSD is very
> > huge task, so any help is appreciated.
>
> Thanks for your answer.
> I was thinking VIA was more "FLOSS friendly". But if I understand well,
> developers are more importants than datasheet here. Unfortunately I
> haven't
> any programming skills. So I can help in a very limited manner.
>
> Laurent
>