*BSD News Article 26598


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
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From: hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr)
Subject: Re: Soundblaster
Message-ID: <hastyCK9tr8.GC7@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <1994Jan24.042853.3793@sun490.fdu.edu> <2i6a2n$5m1@fw.novatel.ca>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 04:28:20 GMT
Lines: 60

In article <2i6a2n$5m1@fw.novatel.ca> hpeyerl@sidney (Herb Peyerl) writes:
>Brian Domenick (brian@sun490.fdu.edu) wrote:
>
>: 	Does anyone know the location of a driver for the
>: soundblaster card under NetBSD V.9 ?
>
>NetBSD-current has a soundblaster driver.  It seems to work rather 
>well.
>
>Other people have played with the snd_drv stuff (including myself)
>and found it to work.  My own experience with it was "messy", "buggy", 
>and "kludgey".  The advantage that the snd_drv stuff has is that it
>supports more cards than the one in NetBSD-current.
>
Hmm...

You forgot that the snd_drv works across multiple-operation systems.
Also, the adagio package provides for midi playback with the snd_drv
something that the SBPRO driver lacks.

The SBPRO or most low-end FM synthesis based sound
cards simply don't match up to wave table synthesis in terms of quality
playback. 

Gravis Ultra Sound (GUS) card uses wave table synthesis and is supported
by the snd_drv. Also, the GUS can put out Dolby surround or 3D sound.
The latter is bit more difficult with the SBPRO and surround processing
uses a lot more CPU with the SBPRO than with a GUS.

The GUS' SDK is free and available at:  
	archive.epas.utoronto.ca:/pub/pc/ultrasound/...

So the issue of bugs and "messy" code will go away on time.
snd_drv version 2.3  is more stable than the rest of the snd_drv
versions out there. When I get chance I will send the driver
to the freebsd core team.


In terms of preference of overall sound quality I rank:
1) GUS
2) PAS16	
3) SBPRO

Both the GUS and the SBPRO record using 8bit and the PAS16 can
use 16bit.

A good point for the SBPRO is that is great for playing games because
nearly every DOS games supports the SBPRO.

Last but not least I tried out the SBPRO and  PAS16 both I returned to
the store and kept my GUS.

	Hope this helps,
	Amancio

-- 
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Amancio Hasty,  Consultant |
Home: (415) 495-3046       |  
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