SoundBlaster AudioPCI 64D Questions

kmb asks: "I recently bought a Gateway PC with an integrated Creative Labs Sound Blaster AudioPCI 64D sound card. Apparently Gateway is the only vendor to use this particular card and also apparently it differs in some sometimes significant ways from the other SB AudioPCI 64 cards. I've looked at a few web pages, but this is my first time trying to do anything with a PC sound card and besides which, most of the info I've seen is Windows-specific. I'm running RedHat 6.0 and ended up installing the ALSA-project sound drivers because I wasn't having much success with the OSS drivers. I've gotten some apps to record, but the card still isn't acting the way I expect it to. (For instance, I'd really like to get Slab 3.0 working, but even though I can see the VU meter picking up the sound input, when I go to record I get nada.) So, does anyone have configuration and/or driver tips or specs or anything about this particular card?"

Specs for ES1370, ES1371

[mvw]

Dear penguin,

• have a look over at Walter Lord's excellent Ensoniq Audio PCI page

  http://www.netexcite.com/audiopci/inde x.html [netexcite.com]

• BTW: Walter offers the 8MB wavesets for Windows too.

  http://www.netexcite.com/audio pci/audiopcilinks.html [netexcite.com]

  How I wish that we could use this under Linux/FreeBSD - has anyone decoded the format?

• Then we got Michael Hyman's list of resources

  http://www.op.net/~mikeh/ensoniq.html [op.net]

• The Linux driver from Thomas Sailer is here:

  http://www.ife.ee.ethz.ch/~sa iler/linux/pciaudio.html [ee.ethz.ch]

• And on this daemonic site

  ftp://ftp.lf.net/pub/users/Joachi m.Kuebart/es1370 [lf.net]

  Jochen Kuebart stores up his early FreeBSD driver (which is integrated in 4.0-CURRENT) and put specs online (they used to be on Ensoniq's site).

Another note:
The original Ensoniq Audio PCI seems to be closest compatible to the SB 128PCI, the PCI 64 uses a lower quality codec if remember right. ES1371 based cards might come with different codecs that comply to some Intel spec (you will notice when you read the specs).

And I saw reports about ES1373 based cards - but I have no clue how this differs to the ES1370, ES1371 - and heck, where is the ES1372? :-)

I hope this gives you something to go along.

Microphone support in es1370 ?

[nd]

This is somewhat related. I have an AudioPCI (es1370) card that appears to work fine under linux (native drivers as of kernel 2.2 even). However, I can't get input (via microphone) to work at all. It works fine under Windows, so it's not a hardware problem. I've tried various methods of reading from /dev/dsp and /dev/audio, but to no avail. I contacted the author of the drivers (Thomas Sailor I believe), and he had a patch that he thought would fix it, but it didn't seem to help.

Any ideas?

Re:Microphone support in es1370 ?

[nd]

No, this is not the case. Nothing was muted, I checked everything. I sincerely doubt it's anything so obvious.

One option.

[jfunk]

If you get to the end of your rope and can't find a free solution 4Front [http] has been very responsive to these things. If you email them and their driver provides what you need, you can buy their driver.

I bought it for Montego support and their tech support is awesome. I got an email back within 10 minutes when I asked about the fast play speed (It's a beta driver) and I was given a temporary workaround. I also get new versions until 2002.