First user's report of new Intel HD Audio (Azalia) driver by geennaam

@All

Got a new PCIe sound card as the author of the driver (geennaam) suggests Sound Blaster Audigy FX. That one cost in my local shop 50$

The process of installing card and installing drivers was problem-less in my x5000, and everything works as expected. I noted everything in the video:



The real hardcore "Testing" part starts from 3:55.

There are few photos of ones who in interest. All links are clickable for full size.

Box and card:



Front and back (can be seen that Model Number is SB1570):



Inside of x5000 and AHI settings:



The only issue I have (and I do not know if it issues with the driver, or with aeon's ahi-prefs) - when I hit "play test sound" 2 first times, that didn't works, and only start to works from the third time.

On the video, that issue can be seen from 3:00 till 3:30. In those 30 seconds can be seen that I hit one-time play sound in Unit 0: no sound. Then in Music Unit: no sound, then back again to Unit 0: and then sound here. Once I save it all, sound always here on startup, all good. So that why I think it can be something as well in the AHI prefs too.

Good. Now let’s see who’ll be the first with Sam460ex/cr to test.

Nice video, and good to see the first review of this new soundcard with the use of this driver.

Hope your SAM system will enjoy the soundblaster live now

@kas1e

Well done!! Thanks for the Video.

I'll look into the sound prefs issue if I can reproduce that. I normally use the individual speaker buttons in order to test each individual channel.
But I did notice that between 3:02 and 3:16 the output volume was muted in Sound prefs. And in that case it is normal that you don't hear sound when you press the test sound button. Between 3:16 and 3:32, the output volume was set to 0.0dB. But there seems to be a lag of about two seconds before you can hear the beep the first time.

I do not know if sound prefs generates the sound or if it plays an audio file. In the first case I can imagine that this lag is caused by generating the 7.1 beep.

@kas1e

Nice. Plenty of things going on in the OS4 world lately.

Nice!

Does the driver work with the original OS4 AHI prefs and other related components?

Best regards,

Niels

@Nbache
Of course.
AHI prefs is the only single "replacement" component from Enhancer I use (but I also tested with the original one too, all fine).

Can't wait for someone to test the new driver on the old Sam440!

I'm testing the new driver on a Sam460cr, with both a Sound Blaster Audigy FX (the same card as Roman) and a CM8828 with CM9982 codec, but both cards don't work, on the serial console there is this message:

HD audio card failed to init

Is there a debug version of the driver to gather more info on why it failed to init?

@m3x

Unfortunately I have no sam460 to test this myself.

But I will send you a version with debug output tomorrow (monday) morning through amigans.net pm.

Maybe I can try reproduce it with a pci to pcie bridge on my sam440. But I don't have one either so this takes a while.

Support for more hardware is always welcome.

@m3x

Debug version in PM.

Just to repport that I've successfully tested the Aureon 7.1 PCIe on my X5000/20.

Thank you very much geennaam!

@geennaam
Quote:

Do you have any success with making it works on sam460? Just thinking about using it in my sam460 too, because the PCI slot is busy with the SATA card. If you still in progress and maybe need some more help with debugging it, I am in :)

@kas1e

I have been able to reproduce the issue with my sam440 flex + PCI->PCIe adapter. Turned out to be a cache handling difference between the e5500 and ppc440. The issue has been solved and the next version of the driver should also work on a sam460.


To those with a sam440: I've used this adapter to make a hd audio card work in my sam440 flex.

@geennaam

Damn your fast
Great work @geennaam

I've uploaded a new version (6.7) to os4depot with the following changes:

6.7: (25 Apr 2021)
- Bug fixes (Recording source Selection)
- Added support for SAM440*/460 boards
- Added 24bit recording
- Added profiles for faster driver loading (most noticeable with a Sound Blaster FX)
- Added HD audio front panel support.

*)The sam440ep-flex doesn't have PCIe ports. But the driver was successfully tested with low profile HD audio cards and the Startech PCI1PEX1 PCI-> PCIe x1 adapter.

@geennamm
Thumbs up! Can test on sam460 only 28 April, but I sure all will be fine :)

ps. can you share your PayPal acc, want to donate a bit just to show that your work pretty much apprecated

@kas1e

Thanks for the offer. There's really no need to send me money.
That my work is appreciated is more than enough for me to continue working on things like these.

@geennamm
Great work on the driver. Just installed the latest version and noticed there is no longer a delay at bootup playing the startup tune with the soundblaster card in my X5000.