Audigy 2 NX sound [FIXED]

matrixhax0r · n00b Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 63

Hello eveyone. I got one of those Audigy 2 NX USB "sound cards". I got the drivers and thing all working plus I can hear sound and stuff (7.1 yay!).
The gentoo wiki on usb sound was really helpfull.

There seems to be a problem with xmms though. There's a crackling problem that makes everything sound really bad. I've looked around google and it seems like people have tried to fix it by upsampling? (/etc/asound.conf) and downsampling by configuring the mpg123 plugin. None of them seem to work. The weird part is that mplayer can play the exact same files flawlessly which makes me wonder. My mplayer and xmms are both configured to use ALSA. I also noticed that anything playing thourgh ESD has the same problem as ALSA.

Any ideas fellas?

[edit]
Okay. here's how I got mine working:

First off, I am using NTPL 2.6 kernel. I did one of those Stage 1 on a Stage 3 tarball installs. The 2.6 kernel part "might" matter.
I turned on EHCI, Full speed transactions, UHCI, USB Storage and USB HID. ParticulariIy disabled "USB audio support" in the USB section because that is a driver for USB speakers and I don't want it messing with my sound driver.
Then I compiled sound support into the kernel. I compiled ALSA, Sequencer support, OSS Mixer API, OSS PCM API, RTC Timer support as modules. Uh, I was "forced" to compile OSS Squencer API into the kernel. I made a module Emul10k1 under PCI devices (I'm pretty sure it's not doing anything though). I made a module USB Audio/MIDI driver under USB devices.

Then I modified my make.conf to have ALSA_CARDS="usb-audio"
Emerge some alsa programs:

Arainach · l33t Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

Try turning your PCM down in your equalizer. Back when I was on onboard sound with PCM at 100% I would get distortion. With my Audigy 2 ZS, the problem seems to be gone, but it's worth a shot.
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matrixhax0r · n00b Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 63

Thanks for the tip. It didn't really work tho.
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Guinpen · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 393

matrixhax0r, would it be possible to explain in larger detail what you did to make the card work in Linux? I have the exact same card and I've been trying to make it work for ages with no success. I do get crackling sound under XMMS, and in addition it's only over the two front speakers. Funnily, I haven't tried a different program, but I will do so. How did you get 7.1 to work? Are the channels independent or just replicated? What about USB1 vs USB2 or 192/24 vs 48/16? Any advice, tricks, links, or other type of info will be greatly appreciated.

Timitsch · Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 11:27 am Post subject:

i'd also be intrested in a "how-to" for the audigy. havent been able to get it running in gentoo.

Guinpen · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 393

I have a 7.1 system connected to that card. Under Linux, I get sound over the two fron speakers (not the center) and the subwoofer. The sound quality is much lower than in Windows, but is acceptable under one condition - the output must be sampled in 48000 Hz, not 44100. Since all mp3 files I have are in 41000 Hz format, I need a software app that will convert the input while playing it and sample it already in 48000 Hz to the soundcard. Can XMMS do this?

matrixhax0r · n00b Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 63

OMFG! It works! All I had to do was XMMS->Options->Output Plugin->ALSA->Configure->Audio device->default. Now if I figure out how to do this with esd.

I'm such a nerd. I'm gonna be listening to HL 2 music all day
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We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.

palatin · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:28 pm Post subject:

I just got an audigy 2 nx, and followed your advices. While I can have sound on 2 speakers (out of 4), I found some strange and annoying problems :
- Stopping the soundcard while my computer being on totally blocks my keyboard, unless I stop the alsasound service before. (I had to ssh and stop it in order to get my keyboard back).
- The same actions kills my Xfce panel.

I noticed some more things :
- Despite being an usb-2 soundcard, plungging it on an usb-2 compliant plug makes it being used as an usb-1 device. Is this the same for you ?
- I don't get why only 2 speakers actually work. (The other 2 work using the headphones place however).
- Why did you advice installing the emu10k1 modules ? they are not loaded on boot, because the usb-sound driver is used.
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fumo~

raylpc · Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject:

I have one question, how much power does the audigy 2 nx draw?

micmac · l33t Joined: 28 Nov 2003 Posts: 996

Root Moose · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 29 Jan 2004 Posts: 112

I got the Audigy 2 NX working using the advice in the first post above. I had to follow the kernel compiling instructions explicitly as above for it to work - including the emu10k1 module. Without it the audigy will not work - but it never gets loaded anyway...strange.

r@m

Guinpen · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 393

That's strange.. mine works (with limited features) with the usb-audio module, and does not need emu101k; in fact I couldn't ge tit to work with emu101k but without usb-audio. By te way, how can I get ANY surround out of this thing?