Asus Xonar Essense STX

[indb]

Greetings from Russia

I have Asus Xonar STX sound card and freshly installed FreeBSD 8.1 amd64 system. I download an OSS 4.2 2003 driver for my system and install it with the help of manual included in driver package. Everything was done without errors or any other problems. There are some information about my card.

cat /dev/sndstat
FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm: 64bit 2009061500/amd64)
Installed devices:

soundon
kernel: oss_cmi878x0: <Asus Xonar (unknown)> port 0xe800-0xe8ff irq 18 at device 4.0 on pci8

osstest
Sound subsystem and version: OSS 4.2 (b 2003/201010051828) (0x00040100)
Platform: FreeBSD/amd64 8.1-RELEASE-p1 #0: Tue Oct 5 18:37:26 MSD 2010

*** Scanning sound adapter #-1 ***
/dev/oss/oss_cmi878x0/pcm0 (audio engine 0): Asus Xonar (unknown) (MultiChannel)
- Performing audio playback test...
<left> OK <right> OK <stereo> OK <measured srate 48012.00 Hz (0.03%)>
/dev/oss/oss_cmi878x0/pcm1 (audio engine 6): Asus Xonar (unknown) (SPDIF)
- Performing audio playback test...
<left> OK <right> OK <stereo> OK <measured srate 48005.00 Hz (0.01%)>

*** All tests completed OK ***

ossmix
Selected mixer 0/CMedia CMI8788
Known controls are:
pcm [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 48:4Cool
rear [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 59:59)
center [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 54:54)
side [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 52:52)
ext.monitor.analog ON|OFF (currently OFF)
ext.monitor.spdif ON|OFF (currently OFF)
ext.monitor.inputsrc <Line|Mic> (currently Line)
ext.routing.speaker-spread ON|OFF (currently OFF)
ext.routing.spdif-loopback ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.enable ON|OFF (currently ON)
spdif-out.adc/dac ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.pro <Consumer|Professional> (currently Consumer)
spdif-out.audio <Audio|Data> (currently Audio)
spdif-out.copy ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.pre-emph ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.rate <44.1KHz|48KHz|32KHz|88.2KHz|96KHz|64KHz|176.4KHz|192KHz> (currently 48KHz)
spdif-out.vbit ON|OFF (currently OFF)
vmix0-enable ON|OFF (currently ON)
vmix0-rate <decimal value> (currently 48000) (Read-only)
vmix0-channels <Stereo|Multich> (currently Stereo)
vmix0-src <High|OFF> (currently Fast)
vmix0-outvol <monovol> (currently 13.6 dB)
vmix0-invol <monovol> (currently 15.2 dB)
vmix0.pcm1 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.8:12.8 dB)
vmix0.pcm2 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.3:12.3 dB)
vmix0.pcm3 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.3:12.3 dB)
vmix0.pcm4 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.3:12.3 dB)


pciconf -lv
oss_cmi878x0@pci0:8:4:0: class=0x040100 card=0x835c1043 chip=0x878813f6 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'C-Media Electronics Inc.'
device = 'C-Media Oxygen HD (CMI8788/PCI-8CH)'
class = multimedia
subclass = audio

The problem is that I can't hear any noise or sound from the speakers or headphones which attached to my card (and I need to say that in Windows system everything works fine). I also have onboard sound card (VIA), but I disable it in BIOS.

All applications (audacious, mplayer, etc) simulate normal work, but there is no sound I can hear.

Can you help with this problem? I really stuck and don't know what to do!

Thanks in advance and sorry for my english.

[cesium]

IIRC, STX support exists in the mercurial rep, but not in 2003. I suggest building OSS from source. You'll probably have to nuke the contributions/ dir before running configure, since it breaks build now, but otherwise it works fine.

[indb]

THANKS A LOT!!
now it works!

and if you let me just one last questition - how can I change output from speakers to headphones?

thank you once again!

[cesium]

Not sure... Can you paste output of 'ossmix -a' here? Probably one of the controls there is responsible for this.

[indb]

ok

Code: Select all

Selected mixer 0/CMedia CMI8788
Known controls are:
vol [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 46:46)
ext.monitor.analog ON|OFF (currently ON)
ext.monitor.spdif ON|OFF (currently OFF)
ext.monitor.inputsrc <Line|Mic> (currently Line)
ext.routing.speaker-spread ON|OFF (currently ON)
ext.routing.spdif-loopback ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.enable ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.adc/dac ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.pro <Consumer|Professional> (currently Consumer)
spdif-out.audio <Audio|Data> (currently Audio)
spdif-out.copy ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.pre-emph ON|OFF (currently OFF)
spdif-out.rate <44.1KHz|48KHz|32KHz|88.2KHz|96KHz|64KHz|176.4KHz|192KHz> (currently 192KHz)
spdif-out.vbit ON|OFF (currently OFF)
vmix0-enable ON|OFF (currently ON)
vmix0-rate <decimal value> (currently 48000) (Read-only)
vmix0-channels <Stereo|Multich> (currently Stereo)
vmix0-src <High|OFF> (currently Fast)
vmix0-outvol <monovol> (currently 14.1 dB)
vmix0-invol <monovol> (currently 15.2 dB)
vmix0.pcm1 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 11.7:11.7 dB)
vmix0.pcm2 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.3:12.3 dB)
vmix0.pcm3 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 12.3:12.3 dB)
vmix0.pcm4 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 11.7:11.7 dB)

Selected mixer 1/AC97 Input Mixer (CMI9780)
Known controls are:
vol [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 49:49)
vol.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
pcm [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 53:53)
speaker <monovol> (currently 0)
line [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 47:47)
line.rec ON|OFF (currently ON)
mic <monovol> (currently 0)
mic.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
cd [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 54:54)
cd.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
igain [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 50:50)
aux1 [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 35:35)
aux1.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
phone [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 35:35)
phone.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
mono <monovol> (currently 75)
mono.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
video [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 0:0)
video.rec ON|OFF (currently OFF)
rear [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 75:75)
center [<leftvol>:<rightvol>] (currently 75:75)

ossxmix

[cesium]

Sorry for neglecting this... I am not sure though what's the answer. Ideas:

A) Does "osstest" output eventually via the headphones? Maybe it's a different pcm output node (not sure if OSS does this on the STX)?
B) What happens if speaker-spread is turned off? Maybe it will help. Or possibly nothing will output then...

[indb]

Does "osstest" output eventually via the headphones?

No, It doesn't. I have tried choosing in Audacious v2.4 all available sound output devices (/dev/dsp, /dev/dsp0, /dev/dsp1), but speakers works only with /dev/dsp, /dev/dsp0 or if I choose the MultiChannel from the combo box in the player settings. Headphones stays silent (Beyerdynamic).

In Stereo Mode (in OSS mixer) sound is uncontrolable from ossxmix itseft (STX is a Stereo Card), only MultiChannel allows to control the sound loudness from the mixer and starts to show output signal level in pcm1 and vmix0-outvu.

And more, yesterday I put my system down without any sign of kernel dump or application's .core files when set vmix0-enable checkbox and choose MultiChannel in ossxmix instead of Stereo. System just hang and reboot itseft, but I think it's was just an unrepeatable accident.

What happens if speaker-spread is turned off?

Speaker-spread just as analog output do nothing for me. I could check them up or could drop - nothing changes, speakers plays normal in both cases, but headphones are deadly silent. (Should I do 'soundoff; soundon' after changed my settings?)

Also I noticed that sound is very quiet, even If I turn all sliders up on maximum (about half quieter than in Windows) and Audacious volume control reacting with huge lag.

Thanks for your attention to my problem!

PS. If it can help somehow here is my PC config
FreeBSD amd64 8.1-p1 release (custom kernel: device sound turned off, other sound options are absent)
Asus M4N98TD EVO (nForce 980a)
AMD Phenom X6 1055T
Kingstone DDR3 1333 8 Gb RAM (memtest check passed)
MSI GeForce 8600GTS
Asus Xonar Essense STX
Intel Network 1000GT Pro
3 x HDD Seagate massive on 4Tb
850Watt OCZ Power Supply + APC BackUp

[cladisch]

how can I change output from speakers to headphones?

With the current OSS driver, not without changing the source code.
Try changing 0x111 to 0x183 in the GPIO_DATA initialization; see http://opensound.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/opensound/opensound/file/69a3000f3616/kernel/drv/oss_cmi878x/oss_cmi878x.c#l2504.

Or ask somebody to write proper mixer controls for these bits.
(Or use ALSA. )

[indb]

thanks for the hint, I'll try as soon as I can

ALSA for BSD....??????

[indb]

cladisch
I wanna say thanks, because your advice really help me to put sound thru headphones and it is LOUD, like it should be.
So, THANK YOU!

Now I've got two drivers - one for the speakers and one the headphones, so I can write a little script and change devices as needed.
While building a driver I found a small syntax mistake at ossdetect.c at line 151, but I fixed it.

Great help from great people!

[indb]

My struggle comes to an end (I hope )

[edit by cesium: discussed on PM. We have come up with a convenient patch to allow this. Thanks cladish for pointing us in the right direction]

So, now I've got 2 drivers (as I wrote before) and I made a script to change between them

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

# first we need to unload OSS
soundoff >/dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
    echo "can't stop sound driver, close all audio apps and try again"
    exit 1
fi

# for more safety
kldunload osscore.ko >/dev/null 2>&1
kldunload oss_cmi878x.ko >/dev/null 2>&1

# choosing change direction
if test -d "/usr/lib/oss"; then
    if test -d "/usr/lib/oss_h"; then         # changing from speakers to headphones
   mv "/usr/lib/oss" "/usr/lib/oss_s"
   mv "/usr/lib/oss_h" "/usr/lib/oss"
    elif test -d "/usr/lib/oss_s"; then         # changing from headphones to speakers
   mv "/usr/lib/oss" "/usr/lib/oss_h"
   mv "/usr/lib/oss_s" "/usr/lib/oss"
    fi   
fi

# loading sound driver back
soundon >/dev/null 2>&1

# nothing seems to work - why?
exit 0

if I'm using speakers and change to headphones - everything works fine, but if I change from headphones to speakers - it never works (headphones still the output device for Xonar). The driver will be changed only after I reboot my machine.

Can somebody tell how correctly unload the oss in this case?

Thank you!

[PDVJAM]

is there any possibility to run asus xonar DG under BSD 8.1?
i try with mercurial - no sound from headphones, but:

osstest
Sound subsystem and version: OSS 4.2 (b 2004/201101120856) (0x00040100)
Platform: FreeBSD/i386 8.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE #1: Mon Jul 26 11:08:09 EEST 2010 root@xxx:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC

*** Scanning sound adapter #-1 ***
/dev/oss/oss_cmi878x0/pcm0 (audio engine 0): Asus Xonar (unknown) (MultiChannel)
- Performing audio playback test...
<left> OK <right> OK <stereo> OK <measured srate 48012.00 Hz (0.03%)>
/dev/oss/oss_cmi878x0/pcm1 (audio engine 6): Asus Xonar (unknown) (SPDIF)
- Performing audio playback test...
<left> OK <right> OK <stereo> OK <measured srate 48000.00 Hz (0.00%)>

and

pciconf -lv
oss_cmi878x0@pci0:6:0:0: class=0x040100 card=0x84671043 chip=0x878813f6 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vendor = 'C-Media Electronics Inc.'
device = 'C-Media Oxygen HD (CMI8788/PCI-8CH)'
class = multimedia
subclass = audio

[derivativo]

Hello everyone!

I would like to know your feedback on the Asus Xonar Essence STX under FreeBSD.

Is the driver stable now?
How is the output sound quality? And input? How does it compare to Microsoft Windows drivers?
Does a 44 ohms impedance headphone (SHURE SRH840) need an amp?

I'm looking forward to buy this card but can't find any solid data about whether it stills works or not under FreeBSD.

I'm running version 8.2-STABLE (amd64) as of Tue Nov 1 18:09:42 BRST 2011.

Thanks in advance!


edit: forgot to inform processor architecture.