cs46xx 5.1 sound... myth or fact?

[hackerError]

Ive heard people say they have gotten 5.1 sound out of the cs 46xx cards
Ive heard people say that cs code wasnt ever available to linux for drivers
whats the truth... if anyone had 5.1 sound on these cards please write a howto, or just explain what you did and I'll write one!
_________________
Before you insult someone, it is often best to walk a mile in their shoes.

That way when you insult them you're already a mile away and have their shoes.

[monotux]

I suppose you can make it work using alsa - but I can't tell you for sure.
I only have a 4.1 system, although I use it as a 2.1
_________________
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

[hackerError]

okay, I have NO IDEA what I did today, but by messing around I got teh new ability in XMMS to use the REAR or FRONT or CENTER speaker... but not all at once, but at least I now know I can use them... how can I do them all at once? GRR!
_________________
Before you insult someone, it is often best to walk a mile in their shoes.

That way when you insult them you're already a mile away and have their shoes.

[Wbdsgnr]

How did you get it to work? I have a fortissimo 7.1 card, with only four speakers working, so it would be great of i could get 5.1 sound It always has been a myth to me, but maybe there is a solution?

[scoon]

hey there, I hope that this helps. I have a turtle beach card that uses the cs46xx chips and I have 5.1 sound working with xmms. The one thing I have not been able to figure out is how to get 5.1 to work with console games like quake. Here is the quike rundown and then I will post my .asoundrc file:

1. get the alsa plugin for xmms

2. check the user defined and set the mixer device to pcm, mixer card to 0 (assuming that you only have one card that you are working with).

3. just under the user defined text box put SURROUND_51 in the text field. That value comes from the .asoundrc that I will post shortly.

FYI: I read and read and read the asla web page with some success and did about 5000 pounds of google searches and found some stuff that was close. After a bit of fiddling and tweaking, I got 5.1 sound to work with xmms. Good luck and here is the ~/.asoundrc file:

########## file start ######################



# front channel
pcm.FRONT {
type hw
card 0
device 0
}

ctl.FRONT {
type hw
card 0
}


# rear channel
pcm.REAR {
type hw
card 0
device 1
}


# center_lfe channel
pcm.CENTER_LFE {
type hw
card 0
device 3
}

pcm.SURROUND_51 {
type plug
slave.pcm COMBINE
route_policy default
ttable.0.0 1
ttable.1.1 1
ttable.0.2 1
ttable.1.3 1
ttable.0.4 1
ttable.1.5 1
}


pcm.COMBINE {
type multi
slaves [
{
pcm FRONT
channels 2
}
{
pcm REAR
channels 2
}
{
pcm CENTER_LFE
channels 2
}
]
bindings [
{ slave 0 channel 0 }
{ slave 0 channel 1 }
{ slave 1 channel 0 }
{ slave 1 channel 1 }
{ slave 2 channel 0 }
{ slave 2 channel 1 }
]
}


########### file end ####################

I hope this helps and let me know how this works out for all.

[tristure]

@wbdsgnr : you wrote that you have a fortissimo 7.1 card. Is it a Fortissimo III 7.1??
If so, let me just ask you a little question (slightly off topic sorry). Do the cs46xx sound drivers work properly with it? It's been two months that I've been trying, and I still get a very bad sound (saturation, cracklings...) ; I have to turn the volume down (75% master and 75% PCM) to get a decent quality, but then the volume is so low that it's ridiculous. Have you had a similar problem??
I've tried several versions of alsa, and none seems to work properly.

Thanks!

[Wbdsgnr]

[Wbdsgnr]

It works I compiled the new kernel (2.6-test10) didn't compile oss, nor alsa in it, only sound support. Then I downloaded the new alsa (pre3) and now in xmms, I get the center to work trough that asoundrc file. Thanks a lot Now only surround for mplayer and games So I can watch my movies in surround

[ARC2300]

THANKS SCOON!!!!

Shweet!! Finally. I can use my Klipsch 5.1's fully.

Although. . .question. . .what can I do about the lag to the back speakers?? Just curious.

[scoon]

ARC2300: believe it or not, I don't know. In fact, I don't even have 5.1 speakers yet. I just plugged in 3 sets of headphones to make certain that each plug was outputting sound.

sorry,

any tweaks that you can make to get surround to work better, PLEASE let me know.


thank you........

[flyingbird]

i have a turtle beach also. i put your asound.rc in place of my asound.state (mm-sources test 9) and xmms comes up with the standard 3 part error about something blocking it or sound card not being specified correctly.

that config files works for the fronts if i take out SURROUND_51 from the user defined box.

i'm dont really want to recompile my kernel without alsa. anyway to get it to work with alsa in kernel (0.9.7 i think).

thanks

[ARC2300]

[T-Bird]

Has anyone gotten this to work?

I did the file deal and put it into the 'user-defined' text box. Actually I'm not sure what you mean by the user-defined text box???

I'd really like to get my klipsch 4.1's and Hurcules Guillemot Gametheater XP working... . Can anyone be more help with this?

[scoon]

[T-Bird]

[Dolio]

Hello there.

I've gotten my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz to do 4.1 off and on. I did the same thing as scoon in my .asoundrc, except for SURROUND_51 it looked like:

pcm.SURROUND_51 {
type plug
slave {
pcm COMBINE
channels 6
}

route_policy default
ttable.0.0 1
ttable.1.1 1
ttable.0.2 1
ttable.1.3 1
ttable.0.4 0.5
ttable.1.4 0.5
ttable.0.5 0.5
ttable.1.5 0.5
}

Not sure what difference that makes.

Also: instead of pcm.SURROUND_51, if you do pcm.!default, alsa will use that device as the default device so arts (and I'd assume xmms) uses the 5.1 device whenever the default device is used.

However, I disabled this option, because at times the front speakers would fall out of sync with the rear ones (I only have 4.1 speakers, so I couldn't tell you about whether 5.1 actually works). I'm not sure what causes this.

As for Audigies, they're a much safer bet on Linux. Crystal Sound won't release the specs of their chip, so the driver support is much worse than for the Audigy chipset (which works pretty nicely, I hear).

Hope some of this helps.
_________________
They don't have a good bathroom to do coke in.

[T-Bird]

Well maybe I can look into one of those cards when I start morphing the box into full blown gentoo.