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[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

I now have Mplayer working perfectly offline with:

ISA pnp cards:

Two AWE64 cards.
A non-Vibra AWE32 card.
SB16 4180 card with Vibra 16C chip
SB16 2960
Four SB16 2940

The above cards work without isapnp if you first run DOS ctcu and ctcm.
They might also work without that if you run diagnose to figure out what 
the settings are.

Crystal CS4232 (soundcore, soundlow, uart401, ad1848, cs4232 io=0x220 
irq=5 dma=1 dma2=5, opl3 io=0x388)  Card is very very soft
Opti 931 (soundcore, soundlow, uart401, ad1848, gameport if kernel 2.4.31, 
mad16 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=0 mpu_io=0x300 mpu_irq=7).  The mpu stuff may not 
be needed but it keeps it from complaining.
Opti 929, 2 cards (same as above but irq=7 dma=0 or 1,  mpu_io=0x330 or 
300, mpu_irq=5)

There is a DOS opti program that you can use to change the above settings 
for io or irq in case they conflict with something else in your hardware. 
The 929 cards are nice ones with volume dials and lots of power.  The 931 
has a bad amp but line-out sounds okay.

The second DMA is not needed for mplayer, timidity, playmidi, or sox.
(Maybe for recording?)

ISA jumpered cards:
Vibra16 AWE32 card
SB16 2290
SB16 1740 (two of them)

PCI
(These cards have their own modules and also need gameport in 2.4.X due to a 
bug, as well as ac97_codec)
ES1370
ES1371

I have not yet tested two ESS Solo1 or the other two SBLive or something 
from CMI that claims 6 channels if you compile it yourself in the kernel.

Apparently two of the first four cards I checked were defective in some 
component used by mplayer for playing offline or the files webcast by half 
of the radio and TV sites.  I am still curious what hardware mplayer uses 
that the other sound programs do not use.

Two SB16 4170 cards don't work in DOS or linux - can't set any DMA - and 
one of them used to work, so things do go bad.  One Vibra, one Creative 
chip.  And the Crystal card is nearly inaudible even with powered speakers 
and 800% volume in Timidity, so even unpowered cards apparently lose their 
amplification sometimes.

To summarize, if mplayer is not working offline (or it works at some radio 
and TV sites but not others) yet sox, timidity, playmidi, mpg123 all work, 
try a different card.


On Sat, 4 Nov 2006, sindi keesan wrote:

> I have two AWE32 ISA cards (one pnp, one jumpered) where mplayer plays
> mp3, ogg, and wav files offline, and at least one of them plays all the
> radio and TV stations with sound.
>
> I have one pnp AWE32 and also one PCI SBLIVE card that will not play mp3,
> ogg, or wav files offline, or (the AWE32) the sound at some TV and radio
> sties.  The Italian GRP site plays sound, the Russian and Spanish sites do
> not.  Timidity, playmidi, mpg123 and sox (play) all work.  So does the
> sound in DOS (the diagnose program, anyway).
>
> The defective AWE32 card worked two days ago at all these sites.
> Presumably something went bad in the hardware.  The sound was cutting out
> the last day that it did work for TV.