SGI: Hardware

Hi all!

Hope that someone more then me are trying to get sound out of there fuel with this sound card.

I bought one that have a break out box. So my first question is if that one will work at all?

It is not easy to mount the break out box because soundblaster made the front wider then the openings that the fuel is offering for CD, DVD.

Well, the soundcard itself I mounted and it workes rather OK.

hinv gives:

fuel 1% hinv
1 500 MHZ IP35 Processor
CPU: MIPS R14000 Processor Chip Revision: 2.3
FPU: MIPS R14010 Floating Point Chip Revision: 2.3
Main memory size: 1024 Mbytes
Instruction cache size: 32 Kbytes
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 2 Mbytes
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version QL12160, low voltage differential
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version QL12160, low voltage differential
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty2
IOC3 parallel port: plp1
Graphics board: V10
Integral Fast Ethernet: ef0, version 1, module 001c01, pci 4
Iris Audio Processor: version EMU revision A4, number 1
USB controller: type OHCI
fuel 2%

So my card is there as "Iris Audio Processor: version EMU revision A4, number 1"

I do get sound out, but what looks like a problem is the right/left setting. Or the way sound is routed.

When I with PureData I only get sound from one channel, if I chose both the strength goes down a bit and if I use the outher chanell no sound at all.

The same goes for xmmx, it play music, but when I use the balance slider it goes from strong audio it I have maximum at one side (sound is coming out of both loudspeekers) and then weeker in middle and no sound on opposite side.

I do not know what is going on here.

Is there setting that I need to do in IRIX?

Something with the hardware, some specially wire?


Any input would be most appreciated

All the best!

Regards,
/Christer
Uppsala, Sweden

Have you tried making those adjustments with the IRIX Audio Control Panel ?

I have looked and tried some with the Audio Control Panel, but not found anything there.

I don't think it is as easy as just a left/right level thing (or maybe it is) because of compleatly lack of signal in one channel and that sound from the other get out in both loudspeakers.

I will take a second look however.

Thank you.

I have been playing around with the "Audio Panel" and xmms.

- I ungrouped the sliders and if I set L to 0 then no sound at all.

- If R is on 0 and I take up L no sound, but if I just take R up to maybe 0.5, sound is on, like a switch.
Then I can controll the volume with L.

- Sound is coming from both speakers.

Maybe this is the way it works with this sound card and the Fuel, I do not know.

All the best!
/Christer

agkbill wrote: Maybe this is the way it works with this sound card and the Fuel, I do not know.

Good point - can (or have you) tested it in a PC?

The question of compatible sound cards is a little confusing. The Wiki page lists the Audigy 2 ZS, but in my Fuel hinv thread I was pointed at the older Audigy cards and warned off the Audigy 2s. The Fuel (IP35) Hardware Aggregator indicates either the Audigy or Audigy 2 ZS should work, but notes that the 2 ZS requires IRIX 6.5.25 or higher, and specifies part number "SB00090" for the older Audigy card.

schultzj indicated that an Audigy 2 ZS worked in his Fuel; I believe recondas has had success with an Audigy. (I haven't had a chance to install mine yet.)

[And yes, I'm thinking about how to update the Fuel wiki page on the larger question of compatible peripherals - pretty sure Regan, fu, et al had some discussion about that recently.]

smj wrote: [And yes, I'm thinking about how to update the Fuel wiki page on the larger question of compatible peripherals - pretty sure Regan, fu, et al had some discussion about that recently.]

No so much me, I have never even seen a Fuel so I took information from the forums or elsewhere. My SGI experience has been pretty much what is in my signature line, except for a bit of commercial work on 8 CPU Power Challenges and a similar machine on postgrad work at university. Oh a bit of poking around in F111 code (in Ada) on a Crimson. So knock yourself correcting anything I've merely propagated across.

R.

smj wrote: I was pointed at the older Audigy cards and warned off the Audigy 2s. The Fuel (IP35) Hardware Aggregator indicates either the Audigy or Audigy 2 ZS should work, but notes that the 2 ZS requires IRIX 6.5.25 or higher, and specifies part number "SB00090" for the older Audigy card. I believe recondas has had success with an Audigy.

Only with the aforementioned Audigy(1) SB0090, and then not much beyond shuffling it in-and-out of a Fuel just to confirm that it made an appearance in an hinv (already had a mAudio in there).

Thanks for all comments,

I have not tested in a PC, and I will not be able to. The one I have (as well as the fuel) are located in soundproof boxes and on top of that all PCI slots are occupied.

My hope with this one was to use together with break out box and get stereo.

Well mono will do with my PureData stuff.

Best regards,
/Christer

I guess it should not work in only mono. On Ian's page under fuel things I found that he sell the Audigy2. He writes "Add 35 to include an Audigy2 PCI Audio Card (not as good a quality sound as the Rev 7.1, but does the job)."

Maybe there are different types of Audigy2 cards around.

I bought the card from a PC owner and according to him the card was working just fine, including the break out box.

/Christer

Looks like very few have experience from sound cards on there SGI machines.

But it make sense, it is not for nothing the G is for Graphics

That was the reason I got my fuel as well, for the vintage graphics. But with a connection to audio.

I have PureData (Pd) with GEM up and running. GEM is working great with the graphics and my ide was to used Pd to get soma sounds.

All the best!
/Christer

I've tested both the Audigy2 and Audigy cards on a Fuel, and can say that the Audigy2 cards 'almost work'. Their biggest annoyance is when watching videos the audio unsyncs annoyingly, and basically just doesn't work quite right. In a pinch, for basic sound, it'd be OK but not perfect.

The regular Audigy work fine however. I suspect the Audigy2 is not quite 100% back compatible with the older Audigy parts, and in both cases IRIX is trying to only talk Audigy to both with the same driver.

I just looked here, the boards are the SB0090 boards and ignore the error on bootup in the logfile. They work perfect. There is also a version that does not have the firewire port that should also work, but I've never seen one.

recondas wrote:

smj wrote: I was pointed at the older Audigy cards and warned off the Audigy 2s. The Fuel (IP35) Hardware Aggregator indicates either the Audigy or Audigy 2 ZS should work, but notes that the 2 ZS requires IRIX 6.5.25 or higher, and specifies part number "SB0090" for the older Audigy card. I believe recondas has had success with an Audigy.

Only with the aforementioned Audigy(1) SB0090, and then not much beyond shuffling it in-and-out of a Fuel just to confirm that it made an appearance in an hinv (already had a mAudio in there).

As a follow-up for future reference, Soundblaster Audigy (1), part number SB0090 does work correctly in a Fuel (and probably the rest of the IP35 family as well). In my tests the SB0090 produced stereo output that could be controlled from within Audio applications or the IRIX Audio Control Panel.

The SB0090 is a first generation Audigy board. The sample I have is a two-board set; a PCI board with the audio jacks and a firewire port on the bulkhead, and a ribbon-cable connected daughter board that provides midi/game and firewire ports on an additional PCI bulkhead. The complete Audigy SB0090 two-board set uses only one PCI slot, though if used the bulkhead on the daughter board would block another. To my knowledge an IRIX driver for the SB0090's firewire, midi or game ports doesn't exist, so the daughter board was omitted during my installation.

The SB0090 appears in an hinv -vm (IRIX 6.5.30) and produces three entries in the table of PCI devices Where vendor code 0x1102 is Creative Technology LTD (makers of the SB Audigy), device code 0x0004 is the Audigy (EMU) Audio Processor, device code 0x7003 is the Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port, and 0x4001is the Audigy IEEE1394a Firewire Controller.

Probably because the SB0090's firewire, game and midi ports aren't supported by IRIX (and the firewire, game and midi ports communicate through the same PCI slot), the SB0090 does generate a non-fatal error message when IRIX loads Other than consuming seven lines in the syslog, the error seems to be harmless. The audio-related portions of the Audigy SB0090 work as expected once IRIX is loaded, without problems or additional error messages.

Additional info concerning the Audigy/IRIX EMU Audio Device can be found in the alResources man page ).