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Topic: Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers (Read 525867 times) previous topic - next topic
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Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #200
the underlying reason for this is that the kernel mixer of vista isn't bitperfect anymore unlike its predecessors from XP and 2000. In vista either kernel streaming (non-WaveRT version) or wasapi (both WaveRT/non-WaveRT versions) is thus required to get bitperfect PCM sound and thus supported.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #201
the underlying reason for this is that the kernel mixer of vista isn't bitperfect anymore unlike its predecessors from XP and 2000. In vista either kernel streaming (non-WaveRT version) or wasapi (both WaveRT/non-WaveRT versions) is thus required to get bitperfect PCM sound and thus supported.


Thanks for the quick reply, so as I'm running XP I can just use your drivers and there's no need for the kernel streaming plugins to be used as well.

One other quick question if you don't mind, I'm running some HTPC software called Meedio to playback all my media - when I first playback one of my MP3s my Amplifier lights up 44.1KHZ PCM fine (and sounds SO MUCH BETTER than the original drivers), I then go and play say a DivX video it lights 96KHZ and go back to music and it stays at 96KHZ - it still sounds pretty good to me even like this but presumably something is upsampling my music to 96KHZ which will be compromising the quality I guess - any ideas on this or is it solely down to the Meedio s/w?

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #202
you've described basically one of the ways in which the sample rate of the kmixer is selected - you can either shutdown and restart the application in order to force the kmixer to reset or disallow higher sample rates.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #203
OK, so even using your drivers its not always possible to eliminate kmixer then?

I guess the divx file is 96KHz hence why it plays like that (which you would want ; playback same as source), but you really want the application to then switch back to 44.1KHz for MP3 - if I disallowed 96KHz in your provided control panel than that would mean kmixer would have to downsample the divx back to 44.1KHz ?

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #204
OK, so even using your drivers its not always possible to eliminate kmixer then?


there's a directshow filter called 'reclock' which can bypass the kmixer - I haven't tried it since mplayerc / foobar2000 suffice for my needs.

if the application re-initializes the soundcard between stopping one media file and playing another one, there shouldn't be a problem with resampling unless some other application is blocking the kmixer.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #205
Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

I believe I've got around the issue by invoking Windows Media Player to play my audio and Meedio to play video - everything seems to switch sample rate correctly on my Amp then.

Out of interest if I blocked everything in the control panel except 44.1KHz, would this affect when I play DVDs with DD/DTS 5.1 Soundtracks at all (ie passthru)?

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #206
Problem with the current release...  Previously I was using 1.08 I think and I don't remember it happening.  This is in XP.

Whenever I resume my desktop from hibernation it forgets the volume slider and mute settings.  The volume is turned all the way to the maximum and some analog input is not muted.  So I get a really loud, high-pitched buzzing noise from my headphones that are always plugged in.  As soon as I touch the slider it remembers where it was at, and as soon as I touch a mute checkbox it remembers that as well.  The graphic for the slider and checkboxes are correct in the volume control panel thing, just not the actual volume/checkboxes.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #207
I see no responses have been logged since the middle of last month, so I hope this will not go unanswered.

I want to know if there is any way to get the echo effect that is normally applied by the manufacturer drivers with your homebrew. I purchased this card primarily for it's echo effect. I run karaoke (i know, i know...) from my HTPC. I currently have to run two sound cards in my setup one for bit-perfect (a realtek integrated) and a Xtreme sound 7.1 for echo on the mic. Usage... I disable Realtek, when I want to use the Cmedia for analog purposes.

I would like to have one card for all solutions. Can I somehow run the manufacturer mixer and get echo to work with your driver?


Thanks for all your help. This solution would bring my HTPC/karaoke dream to fruition.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #208
Whenever I resume my desktop from hibernation it forgets the volume slider and mute settings.  The volume is turned all the way to the maximum and some analog input is not muted.  So I get a really loud, high-pitched buzzing noise from my headphones that are always plugged in.  As soon as I touch the slider it remembers where it was at, and as soon as I touch a mute checkbox it remembers that as well.  The graphic for the slider and checkboxes are correct in the volume control panel thing, just not the actual volume/checkboxes.

Mhh, I've had the hope to have these things working... I'll take a look at it.

Quote
I would like to have one card for all solutions. Can I somehow run the manufacturer mixer and get echo to work with your driver?

No, but this really ought to be done in user mode and not in a driver. There's most likely software out there which is able to do this kind of processing much better than C-Media's driver.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #209

Whenever I resume my desktop from hibernation it forgets the volume slider and mute settings.  The volume is turned all the way to the maximum and some analog input is not muted.  So I get a really loud, high-pitched buzzing noise from my headphones that are always plugged in.  As soon as I touch the slider it remembers where it was at, and as soon as I touch a mute checkbox it remembers that as well.  The graphic for the slider and checkboxes are correct in the volume control panel thing, just not the actual volume/checkboxes.

Mhh, I've had the hope to have these things working... I'll take a look at it.

Quote
I would like to have one card for all solutions. Can I somehow run the manufacturer mixer and get echo to work with your driver?

No, but this really ought to be done in user mode and not in a driver. There's most likely software out there which is able to do this kind of processing much better than C-Media's driver.


Any suggestions on software to do this besides Xear 3d?


Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #211
Great!  Probably won't be able to test it out until Sunday or Monday though.

I'll thank you in advance in case it works, and if not I'll be sure to let you know.


Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #213
Hi guys, did alot of reading but must have missed it.
I have a cmi8738 card with spdif bracket. I have hooked up coaxial out to my pioneer home threatre system.
How come I cant get seperate channels. its like stereo in all speakers. system plays stand alone DVDs sweet.

Im using homebrew drivers. Media player classic with ac3 filter, when switched to passthrough, no single channels. I have a ac3 audio test "front right" "centre" etc still coming from other speakers.

With pass through can I change the volume etc? I have my projector screen in front of my sound system
is there a mixer to adjust..?

with 2 channels music videos I get the same in all speakers , which I think is good its more ac3.

cheers

aj

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #214
Hi guys, did alot of reading but must have missed it.
I have a cmi8738 card with spdif bracket. I have hooked up coaxial out to my pioneer home threatre system.
How come I cant get seperate channels. its like stereo in all speakers. system plays stand alone DVDs sweet.

Im using homebrew drivers. Media player classic with ac3 filter, when switched to passthrough, no single channels. I have a ac3 audio test "front right" "centre" etc still coming from other speakers.

With pass through can I change the volume etc? I have my projector screen in front of my sound system
is there a mixer to adjust..?

with 2 channels music videos I get the same in all speakers , which I think is good its more ac3.

cheers

aj





anyone know??


whoo hoo

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #215
Vidman,

-Make sure only spdif is hooked up to decoder/amplifier, so there's no analog route
-My receiver has a stereo mode, converting all multichannel input to just stereo. check yours!
-make sure your player software has something like "spdif passthrough" enabled. try different players.
-Does your receiver have DTS/AC3 indicator that lights up?

What happens on this AC3 test file?
http://dither123.dyndns.org/alladinAC3.flac
It's AC3 data, in wav container, ran through lossless codec.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #216
Vidman,

-Make sure only spdif is hooked up to decoder/amplifier, so there's no analog route
-My receiver has a stereo mode, converting all multichannel input to just stereo. check yours!
-make sure your player software has something like "spdif passthrough" enabled. try different players.
-Does your receiver have DTS/AC3 indicator that lights up?

What happens on this AC3 test file?
http://dither123.dyndns.org/alladinAC3.flac
It's AC3 data, in wav container, ran through lossless codec.




will try this, will get back

cheers for reply..

v

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #217
Hi,

I installed the drivers and tried to get them to work, but I came upon some problems. The digital output works fine when I play MP3 files in winamp and stereo sounded movies in VLC. When I try to play a movie in VLC which has AC3 sound, my Logitech Z-5400 recognizes it as Digital audio but it stutters very badly ! What did I do wrong ?
In the configuration screen I set channel configuration to 2.0 otherwise it doesn't work at all. Did I forget something ? I only tried VLC to play the video file. When I use media player it doesn't recognize the AC3 audio at all and just plays it in stereo.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #218
I installed the drivers and tried to get them to work, but I came upon some problems. The digital output works fine when I play MP3 files in winamp and stereo sounded movies in VLC. When I try to play a movie in VLC which has AC3 sound, my Logitech Z-5400 recognizes it as Digital audio but it stutters very badly ! What did I do wrong ?


nothing - ac3/dts passthrough in vlc is somewhat broken. A good alternative is media player classic in conjunction with ffdshow.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #219
Yeah it works perfectly now ! I have to crank up the volume a lot on my speakerset but that's not so bad. It works  Thanks !

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #220
Hi all

I tried to use dogbert's drivers instead of the offcial ones for my Terratec Aureon 5.1 PCI card (the official driver didn't allow me to get SPDIF output at all). With the open source driver, I can get SPDIF passthough, but only 2 channels

Any advice to get some real 5.1 ?

Regards

Julien

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #221
Hi Dogbert,

a question and a request

my analog channel configuration is set to 5.1 but now I can't set the config to stereo anymore. When I select stereo and press apply the config jumps back to 5.1 (running non wavert 1.17 on vista x86). Is this a (known) bug?

and...

Is it possible to add an option to route the line-in to spdif? At the moment I use Audacity to record and monitor the sound, that works but its not very efficient. This feature would really help in setting up my split surround set.


thanks!

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #222
Any advice to get some real 5.1 ?

Only stereo PCM and compressed multichannel audio data (dts/AC3) can be transmitted over the SPDIF port. As a consequence, "regular" multi-channel PCM data from games and so on can only be output through the analog jacks because my driver avoids any kind of signal processing in order to be bitperfect.
So unless preencoded dts/ac3 data from a DVD / AVI / ... is passed through, stereo PCM is the only supported format for the SPDIF port.


my analog channel configuration is set to 5.1 but now I can't set the config to stereo anymore. When I select stereo and press apply the config jumps back to 5.1 (running non wavert 1.17 on vista x86). Is this a (known) bug?

Microsoft decided to deprecate the API which is responsible for changing the channel configuration in Vista. The reason for this was to force the IHVs ("independent hardware vendors") to develop software embedded in Vista's sound applet instead of delivering their own tools.
I'm not going to support this crapfest anytime soon because I want to keep my driver backward compatible to XP / 2k.

Quote
Is it possible to add an option to route the line-in to spdif? At the moment I use Audacity to record and monitor the sound, that works but its not very efficient. This feature would really help in setting up my split surround set.

mh.. I don't think the hardware supports this, but I might be wrong. I'll take a look at it when I've got a bit more free time.

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #223
hello guys, first of all i´d like to thank dogbert for these great drivers!

many issues have been fixed (install in the beginning ) and passthrough works great for me! *thumbs up*

the only thing im constantly fighting with is the microfone.
With your drivers i cant get voice tools like ventrilo working properly.
when i start ventrilo it says: "Failed to open input device. Another program might have it open already"
If i set up direct sound input i get an "createcapturebuffer error" and if i try the regular CMI8738/8768 Wave device input i get an "open input wave device failed" error.


im using the latest driver, but tried the 1.1.7 ones too.

what can i do?

thx in advance

Homebrew CMI 8738 drivers

Reply #224
Hi,
there is no "request feature tread", so I decided to post here: Well, passthrough is excellent and is exactely what we were looking for. One nice additional feature would be a "monitor output, a.k.a. second zone" on analog ports, if it is possible at all...
Many thanks.