So, as I mentioned in my other thread, I've got my A1 working again, and seems stable so far. However, I was reminded why I had swapped the SB128 card for the SB Live one.

The SB128 card has a crackling/static sound that gradually gets worse as I'm playing any music, either with AmigaAMP or TuneNet.

The SB Live card plays fine, but it screws up the PCI configuration, taking over a lot of stuff and keeping the NEC USB card from getting enough resources to load properly.

Looks like I need to get a different sound card.

I've been looking at NewEgg, but it's looking like there's not much to choose from there. I see a couple CMI8738 cards that are supported by AHI in OS4. Anyone have any experience with those? I've looked through the compatible hardware page on Intuitionbase, and it looks like it should work, anyway.

Any other suggestions? I know Envy24 chipset cards are the best choice, but they seem to be not available unless I want to get a used card from someone.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

Terratec Aureon 5.1 Fun and Sound Card summary

Good luck.

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@number6

Thanks, though I had seen that one from my earlier seaarches.

The biggest problem is there aren't too many cards out there made with those chipsets any more. At both NewEgg and Microcenter, there are only one or two cards available with the CMI8738 chipset. And searches for all the others come up empty.

Though I can get a CMI8738 card for about $10 to $11 at either place, so I might just get one and try it. I was kind of hoping some one might have another suggestion or place to get one from that won't cost much.

Last edited by DWolfman on 15-Aug-2014 at 06:23 PM.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

CMI8738 cards were sent out with every X1000 before the onboard audio drivers were finished.
My experience with them was good. No problems noticed at all.

That also means that there should be a few laying around unused now that the builtin audio driver has been released.. not that $10 is a deal breaker anyway.

_________________
question=(2b||!(2b))

@lylehaze

Good to hear that. Looks like I'll be stopping by Microcenter on the way home next payday. $10, and all I pay is sales tax and don't have to wait for it to be shipped.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

The SB Live is said to be bad this way and mess things up. However, today I've been testing an NEC USB2 card and found no problems. It replaced a VIA USB2 card where USB2 broke in software. But it took some shifting around as the VIA card was shorter and didn't interfere with the IDE cables on my 0680. Even so I tested it and yes indeed I get USB2 speeds without read errors or crashing.

@Hypex

Unfortunately for me, I found out over the weekend that it doesn't like my KVM.

It works for a few minutes, but then will hang the USB stack on the A1, in various ways depending on what I'm doing. So long as I don't have the KVM plugged in to the A1, I can plug devices in and use the USB just fine and for quite a while (left an external 2.5" enclosure with an old SSD plugged in for 24 hours once).

Anyway, since I've got it working, I'll want the CMI8738 to get good sound in place of the SB128 card. The SB Live worked great for sound, but it used up what looked like two or three interrupt lines and would not let the USB2 card properly initialize no matter which slots I plugged them in to.

So I'm hoping the CMI8738 card will work better in the same slot as the SB 128.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

Yes, I would stay away from any SB card on the XE. Any CMI8738 card should do fine, but do spend a buck extra and do not get the cheapest one. The X1000 came with the cheapest one and it sounds as crap as the built-in AC97 on some XEs. However, earlier I bought another CMI8738 card for a couple of bucks more to replace my SB Live and it sounds really good and have S/PDIF output. The difference is in the power supply to the CMI chip itself. The card should have a lot of capasitors (the small round cans).

Then of course there are the Terratecs.

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

I had the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Pci on my Xe and was working great

_________________
I love Amiga and new hope by AmigaNG
A 500 + ; CDTV; CD32;
PowerMac G5 Quad 8GB,SSD,SSHD,7800gtx,Radeon R5 230 2GB;
MacBook Pro Retina I7 2.3ghz;
#nomorea-eoninmyhome

@Deniil715

Think I found the one to get. The MicroCenter one is about $5 less than at NewEgg. A little more than the first one, and it doesn't have a gameport that I won't need.

Plus, even though it doesn't say it on either page, at the SIIG page it says it is a CMI8738 chipset.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

An idea for some entrepreneurial soul in the US: get hold of half a dozen such cards and bring them along to AmiWest to flog to Cyrus owners (and would-be owners).

_________________
cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

@tonyw

There are PCIex1 versions .
http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1856

www.discountelectronics.com/product?gclid=CMnW7eqKoMACFQxp7AodFXUAkw&product_id=19286&product_model=121

Quote:

tonyw wrote: @DWolfman An idea for some entrepreneurial soul in the US: get hold of half a dozen such cards and bring them along to AmiWest to flog to Cyrus owners (and would-be owners).

Last edited by Spectre660 on 19-Aug-2014 at 08:50 PM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 19-Aug-2014 at 08:50 PM.

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

So, I'm revisiting my old thread.

Seems there is something odd about the CMI8738 card I did get. Fairly frequently any sounds starts with "static" for a split second before the real sound comes through (whether it is the system "beep" I have in Sounds prefs, or music playing through AmigaAMP). The static actually sounds like what happens to an audio card when you point it to some random location in RAM, as it's not pure static (sometimes sounds like it has structure, like it's reading a data array in memory). And there is a good chance that the more frequent it happens, it then will cause all AHI sounds to just quit happening.

When that happens the only way I've found to recover is to reboot the A1. It is odd that no error messages ever appear, and it seems to have stopped up the works. When I then try to play music in AmigaAMP it shows it is playing, but nothing else happens (no timer, visualization, etc). What is odd is it doesn't lock up AmigaAMP, as I can stop playing and exit without issues.

It's not limited to AmigaAMP, it's just the easiest to describe what is going on. I went back to the SB128 card, which is fairly limiting. For one if something is playing on it (a sound, music, etc) nothing else can get the AHI units until that is done. The CMI8738 was able to let multiple programs play at the same time.

So maybe I'll need to look for another card again.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

In my XE g3 I used a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card without any noticable problems. My XE was one the the ones that had the onboard AC97 installed. After the fix for that became available I stopped using the Sound Blaster. Both sounded ok to me with little reason to prefer one over the other. I think that my XE was one of the better more reliable ones, perhaps that was why the Sound Blaster appeared to be "ok".

You might check this link from IntuitionBase...

http://www.intuitionbase.com/comphard.php?category=3

The Terratec sound cards seem to be highly recommended.

_________________
- BCP
AmigaOne X1000 & Amiga 4000

Amiga Response Crew Users Group
Indianapolis, IN USA

I recently had to buy a new soundcard for my A1-XE(G3)

I found the following works with the Envy24 driver

Vantec 7.1 Channel PCI Sound Card (UGT-S100)

http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/455

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=40&item_id=038857

Last edited by busytech on 09-Apr-2015 at 02:12 AM.

@DWolfman

Quote:

It's not limited to AmigaAMP, it's just the easiest to describe what is going on. I went back to the SB128 card, which is fairly limiting. For one if something is playing on it (a sound, music, etc) nothing else can get the AHI units until that is done. The CMI8738 was able to let multiple programs play at the same time.

This is an AHI setting that should be independent on the driver. The number of channels for each AHI unit should be more than one, and if possible, try to make programs use a unit0-3 instead of the Music Unit.

But to fix your CMI problem, try the KeepAHIOpen tool. Can't remember now if I ever put it online or not... I can send it to you.

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

You did put it online, found it here.

I'll switch back to the CMI card and try it with that.

Though I also found my nearby Microcenter store has the Vantec UGT-S100 card in stock as well. $20 isn't too bad, so I can give it a go too once I get paid again.

Last edited by DWolfman on 09-Apr-2015 at 10:33 PM.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

Well, back on the CMI8738 card, and all KeepAhiOpen does for me is make AmigaAMP say it cannot open the AHI interface.

Looks like I'll be getting that other card tomorrow on the way home to try out.

_________________
This posting, in it's entirety, is the opinion and/or statement of the author and does not reflect the views and/or position of this site.

@DWolfman

Use AmigaAMP_Prefs to adjust some AHI settings.

And myabe it helps, set in AHI prefs 'Music Unit' to use 'Unit 0:HiFi 16 bit stereo++' an then Unit0, 1, 2 and 3 to use your driver (in my case 'SM502:HiFi 16 bit setero').

@DWolfman

Quote:

DWolfman wrote: Well, back on the CMI8738 card, and all KeepAhiOpen does for me is make AmigaAMP say it cannot open the AHI interface.

In that case you have not enough channels configured in AHI for unit 0. You need to have more than 1 channel configured. Use 32 channels (max) on OS4. There is no reason not to. This has nothing to do with the sound card, it is an AHI configuration.

The purpose of KeepAHIOpen is that it will open one channel on unit 0 to make the soundcard stay in active mode, to prevent clicks and reset volume levels etc. To play other sounds, like in AmigaAMP, you need to have more channels configured so that AmigaAMP get one channel, then for system sounds to play at the same time you need another channel, then for video playback you need another, unless you want to quit the apps between each use. Just set all units to 32 channels.

Also make sure no program, like AmigaAMP uses the Music Unit. Noone should use the Music Unit on modern sound cards. Also configure the Music Unit in AHI to play on Unit 0 instead of CMI 16 HiFi++ or whatever. That way programs using the Music Unit will also benefit from shared sound with multiple channels at the same time. Odyssey multimedia player is one of them.

Last edited by Deniil715 on 16-Apr-2015 at 09:37 AM.
Last edited by Deniil715 on 16-Apr-2015 at 09:36 AM.

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.