Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
 
> > Maybe. The sb.o initialization is a little too crude to get MPlayer
> > or mpg123 working on its own, but play will work. OPL3 won't work,
> > either. Does AWE32 work without DOS/isapnp initialization?
> 
> 
> I just cold booted (power off, power on) this computer with a 
> non-awe SB16 card in it.  For some reason there is no high DMA (5, 
> 6, or 7) available and hwinfo and linux don't see that they are 
> taken.  Maybe some computers simply don't have those.  (This is 
> also the computer where resizecons does not work right except with 
> Matrox).
> 
> If I run DOS diagnose /s (in autoexec.bat or from CLI) the speakers 
> start to hiss.  If I then insmod sb with settings, they stop 
> hissing.
> 
> If I cold boot and hit F5 to skip autoexec.bat (don't run diagnose) and
> insmod sb (dma=1, no high dma16 at all, 5 6 and 7 are not 
> available) I can STILL play wav files with play and mplayer.  I can 
> also play mp3 files with mplayer or mpg123.  I was also able to 
> play .wav files on the mad16 opti 931 card but I did not test 
> mplayer or mpg123 on it.

Now this is strange, as my non-AWE Vibra16 will give a DMA warning
and cause mpg123 and mplayer to fail. This is with grub. Perhaps
loadlin and raw DOS do something to the card? Or maybe this has
been fixed with the AWE Vibra16.

> Maybe these would sound better after initialization?  I can't here 
> a difference but this is downloaded internet radio.  Perhaps higher 
> sampling rates need initialization?  /proc/dma shows that 0 is 
> SoundBlaster8.
> What does high DMA do?

It appears to be for 16-bit audio.

> Would things sound better if low and high 
> were not the same DMA?

Perhaps, but only if your source is 16-bit audio, and you can tell
the difference between 16-bit and 8-bit (it is not very noticable
to me).

> Do you have the SB16 DOS diagnose program

No.

> and if not, would you 
> like a copy to test with?

No, thanks. ISA PnP is working fine for me.
 
> >> The scsi and ethernet card are not in use and have not grabbed any
> >> modules, same for parport, but IRQ3 is taken (serial port - the
> >> modem I am currently using, I presume) and IRQ9 by the sound card
> >> ever since I inserted its modules.  IRQ 14 and 15 are taken by ide0
> >> and ide1.  I have one hard drive.  Is ide1 the DVD-ROM drive (hdc)?
> >
> > Yes. hda and hdb are on ide0. hdc and hdd are on ide1 (master and
> > slave, respectively).
> 
> Could I free up an IRQ by not using ide1 (secondary controller)?

Yes.

> I was told that hard drive and CD-ROM drive should if possible be on 
> different controllers so they can transfer data faster

That is correct. If you move one to a different controller, it can
be master. When both are master, they go much faster.

> (or access 
> hd and DVD-ROM drive at the same time with two IRQs while playing 
> DVDs, or is mplayer in RAM already?).

Nope, not needed for MPlayer. Things will go fastest if you're not
using your hard drive while you're playing a movie and the DVD drive
is master (the hard drive doesn't need to be if it's not in heavy
use).

> Linux seems to ignore the BIOS.

This is because BIOSes can be very buggy and cause major problems.

> Hardware motion compensation frees up the cpu?

Yes, because it takes a long time for a CPU to do motion
compensation. Farming it out to the GPU is much faster and
lets the CPU work on other things.

The same thing happens with scaling. (which can also be moved
to the graphics card through the use of vidix or xvideo (xvideo
needs XFree86 4+ and proper X drivers. vidix is better))

> Does the large heat 
> sink and fan sit on top of some sort of graphics cpu?

Yes. These are usually known as GPUs.

> The fan is as large as a 486 cpu fan.

Notebook PC manufacturers are starting to put these mega graphics
cards in portable computers. You can imagine what that does for
heat and battery life.
 
> >> Not Xvesa.  But I thought xvidix did not require X11.
> >
> > VIDIX doesn't, per se. It can work with -vo vesa, too. But this
> > particular vidix driver seems to need some card initialization.
> > I've read somewhere that you can use the cvidix output driver
> > instead and bypass all of this. This seems to conflict with the
> > statement above.
> 
> I am very confused.  Should I try one of the above cards with 
> xvidix?

Any of the ATI cards (Radeon, Rage(128), Mach64) should work with
both -vo xvidix and -vo vesa:vidix. The nvidia may need a full-size
X server. But just in case, try -vo cvidix with the nvidia.
Everything else should work like an ATI card.

> > This DMA problem doesn't appear to be a conflict. It looks like
> > the drive itself doesn't like DMA. If I turn DMA on and try to
> > read anything from the disk in the drive, I get a DriveReady
> > SeekComplete error. The whole computer freezes. The keyboard
> > and mouse completely die, and I need to hard reset it. It does 
> > the exact same thing if I remove the two ISA cards.
> > I have plenty of free DMAs.
> 
> So did I, but it would not use them.  It seemed to want the same 
> DMA as the sound card (DMA 1).

The only DMA I have in use is 4 (cascade, whatever that is).

> Why do ISA sound cards need DMA but PCI cards don't, even in linux?

One reason is because ISA is slower than PCI.

> Maybe Ubuntu simply omitted ISA card support to fit into one CD.

That is very odd for a modern distribution.

> Any ideas why four CD-ROM drives would not work with linux in one 
> computer, and now the one that does work in linux won't work in 
> Windows? They all work in DOS.  We are still trying to update a X2 
> modem which insists on SE for the program.  20X, no jitter.

What does "not work" mean? Not detected at all? The IDE chipset may
be iffy.

.....

> A review said the MX420 Geforce2 was much faster than the 400, but 
> is AGP (the 400) faster than PCI (the 420)?

AGP is faster than PCI. But what are you using this for? For 3D, 420
is probably faster. For MPlayer, 400 is.

> Is MX with 64MB or Ti with 32MB likely to play DVDs better/faster?

No. Not significantly.

> I. e., is memory size or speed more important here?

Memory size has nothing to do with it, as long as the memory can
hold the DVD. (i.e. play it at all) GPU speed is not very
important for DVDs. All GPUs will help with DVD decoding just
as well, provided that they have motion-compensation assistance
and hardware scaling, with proper drivers.

David

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