kX Audio Driver (Sound Blaster Live! and Audigy series driver) OS X PPC porting project

[ITzTravelInTime]

I've been using the driver on my sawtooth g4 running leopard with a sound blaster audigy 2 zs and it's been working pretty good! any news on the output issue?

Yes, I have been working on some optimization for the output sample conversion code, so it’s more lightweight on the cpu and so things like playback at 192 kHz will use less cpu, and I am performing testing right now, it’s looking good so far, so the release will be out once I am done with that and with some code cleanup and Xcode project fixes.

 

[r34per]

cool cool, look forward to it! btw, is there any chance pcmci sound cards would be supported? I know creative makes a pcmcia audigy card among a few others on your compatible list

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

cool cool, look forward to it! btw, is there any chance pcmci sound cards would be supported? I know creative makes a pcmcia audigy card among a few others on your compatible list

Well it's listed in the windows driver and in the source code as far as i am aware it implemented in the mac driver too, but: The kx audio driver for OS X has been made as a pci only driver, so the os might not load it for pcmcia devices and then if it works, hot plug will not work since it's not implemented in the mac driver, so the card must be put there since the os starts up, removing it while the computer is running, will let the driver trigger a kernel panic, remember al of this will happen only if the driver loads with the pcmcia card.

All of this is untested since i don't own the hardware and so i can just provvide the warnings i gave you, of course if you already own the hardware and you want to do some tests you are welcome, but it's very likely that it will not work.

 

[adam25255]

Got larger HDD, installed Tiger Server and it works! (Before I installed driver, it was not visible just like in consumer feline, notice missing “Other input controller”-that yellow gameport)

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

Got larger HDD, installed Tiger Server and it works! (Before I installed driver, it was not visible just like in consumer feline, notice missing “Other input controller”-that yellow gameport)

Yes, i don't know why but normal tiger is either missing some stuff or using some more restricted software, perhaps the api needed by the driver was fully deployed only on leopard for consumers some some internal apple reason. BTW i had some problems with the new source code release but it's getting ready, i need to tweak some stuff with the xcode project but it's working now (i had problems with the new experimental playback code crashing, but it's fixed now).

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

Update: about the new driver build I was experiencing some playback issues that I finally managed to figure out: basically it was all caused by some wired memory issue with my g5 test machine that I fixed by using different memory sticks.

For now testing is under way but results looks promising, the playback quality and performance improvements are nice additions to this driver and I am exited to let you try them.

Btw I can recommend the audigy 2 zs as a great upgrade for both g4 and g5 computers, the sound blaster sounds way better than the mac’s audio (not to speak about the 8 channels at 192 khz support) And the built in FireWire port is supported by OS X too.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

After testing has been good across the board for me i have decided to finally release the new driver version.

Before downloading it please read the notes and the known issues from the release page on github, it contains some very importanti information about the driver.

So here is the new driver release page: https://github.com/ITzTravelInTime/kx-audio-driver/releases/tag/PPC_1.1

As always have fun and try the driver for yourself, i'd like to see you posting your macs rocking those sound cards here in this thread.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

So an interesting fact about the new release is that to have less cpu usage while playing back something on the sound card I have made a branchless sample clipping and conversion code (using an implementation of the abs function as a PowerPC instruction and some clever math) and I have also replaced the array access + some code to swap from big endian to little endian to just a single PowerPC cpu instruction that does both. This way I save overhead caused by branch predictions and I avoid using the shift function to for conversion from big to little endian.

This way I was able to shove away a few percentage of the cpu usage, but to make a more efficient solution I mus either make it in assembly or use the vector instructions. Things I might prefer to avoid to be honest, since those are not portable while I want to keep the driver as portable as I can, perhaps there is even some way of porting it to arm in the future since it doesn’t differ much from the PowerPC in some ways.

 

[DearthnVader]

This is a porting project to get the kx audio driver working on PPC macs running OS X Leopard.

The project is currently active on my github repo for my kx audio driver maintaining project, and it has it's dedicated branch, which you can find here: https://github.com/ITzTravelInTime/kx-audio-driver/tree/PPC_Experimental

For more info about the driver check the first post of this thread, which ciontains some detailed info about the modding project this port is based on: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/t...mod-sound-blaster-live-audigy-124rx-emu-edsp/

Also for now the project is focused on consumer level cards, but professional cards (from E-MU) could be supproted in the future, or may already work with current driver releases for powerpc (see the update posts).

UPDATE: The driver is now working and has been released, you can find the driver builds here: https://github.com/ITzTravelInTime/kx-audio-driver/releases/tag/PPC_1.1

What audio formats are supported?

I'm needing 2-ch 16bit 11khz, any chance we can get the driver to support it?

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

What audio formats are supported?

I'm needing 2-ch 16bit 11khz, any chance we can get the driver to support it?

Yeah they are both supported, on each sound it supports card the driver can do from 7khz up to 192 khz at 16 bits (and can do also 24 bits on some more recent cards like the sb audigy series), just get a compatible sound card, and install the driver, however the driver works best for 48khz since that's the actual native sample rate of the hardware, support for other sample rates is achieved by changing the playback speed and the pitch inside the driver code.

**NOTE** also that the driver is currently *BROKEN* when it comes to *INPUTS*, so i can recommend this just for playback and it's not tested for production environments.

For your needs i don't recommend getting an E-MU branded card since those can just do 44.1 and 48 khz natively (and have 192 khz support via speed+pitch change) and are not tested on powerpc.

So if you need an old school PCI card get either a sound blaster live or an audigy (those can also do also 24 bits, the live ones and other older ones are limited to 16 bits) and if you need a pcie card get the audigy rx.

 

[DearthnVader]

Yeah they are both supported, on each sound it supports card the driver can do from 7khz up to 192 khz at 16 bits (and can do also 24 bits on some more recent cards like the sb audigy series), just get a compatible sound card, and install the driver, however the driver works best for 48khz since that's the actual native sample rate of the hardware, support for other sample rates is achieved by changing the playback speed and the pitch inside the driver code.

**NOTE** also that the driver is currently *BROKEN* when it comes to *INPUTS*, so i can recommend this just for playback and it's not tested for production environments.

For your needs i don't recommend getting an E-MU branded card since those can just do 44.1 and 48 khz natively (and have 192 khz support via speed+pitch change) and are not tested on powerpc.

So if you need an old school PCI card get either a sound blaster live or an audigy (those can also do also 24 bits, the live ones and other older ones are limited to 16 bits) and if you need a pcie card get the audigy rx.

I have a G4 MDD on it's way to me, a long with a few QuickSilver G4's I already have.

There is a Quake 3 competition for retro computers that must be run with sound enabled and that's a big hit in performance on the Mac without SMP as Quake3 puts the sound subsystem on another core if I could enable SMP, but it violates the rules.

On the PC side most of the competitors have fixed the audio to 11khz for best speed gain. I think on the Mac the CPU is doing all the upsampling to the fixed speed of the Mac's built-in sound. I have a G5 that can do 33khz and it's quicker at that speed than 44khz or 48khz in FPS with sound enabled. My QS only does 44khz so I can't test to see if a can squeeze a few more FPS out of it by lowing the sample rate.

I did try my Firewire M-Audio box, but that really takes a hit with sound enabled, so device and drivers do matter.

I used this code before with an Intel Hackintosh and an Audigy 2 Gold PCI, so I'm somewhat familiar with the limitations in audio in. I only need it for this one task, to see if I can get a little more speed out of sound on Q3.

Can you recommend a good PCI card for this that will do 11khz with this driver?

Would this one work?

Creative Labs SB0240 Sound Blaster Audigy 2 PCI Sound Card Dell 0J0997 J0997 | eBay

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[ITzTravelInTime]

Well the driver has improved a lot since the old intel releases, but i have tested it with quake 3 using multiple sound cards on my g5 (including also ones providing official drivers) and i can't get quake 3 or doom 3 to output on those on os x, so you might be better just using the built in audio of the mdd set to the minimum sample rate in the system midi configuration app.

About the driver it's more cpu intensive compared to the system audio, so it will make performance worse, but it you want to use it for better sound quality for music or other programs that sound card you linked is great for this driver. Also as i said all sound cards support by this driver (except some of the e-mu branded ones) can do 11khz at 16 bits.

 

[DearthnVader]

Well the driver has improved a lot since the old intel releases, but i have tested it with quake 3 using multiple sound cards on my g5 (including also ones providing official drivers) and i can't get quake 3 or doom 3 to output on those on os x, so you might be better just using the built in audio of the mdd set to the minimum sample rate in the system midi configuration app.

About the driver it's more cpu intensive compared to the system audio, so it will make performance worse, but it you want to use it for better sound quality for music or other programs that sound card you linked is great for this driver. Also as i said all sound cards support by this driver (except some of the e-mu branded ones) can do 11khz at 16 bits.

Ok, thanks for letting me know.

I wonder if the drive is having issues with SDL audio, I know Q3 uses it and likely Doom 3 as well.

I suppose audio cards on the Mac are not really audio accelerators in the way that graphics cards accelerate video, sad state for the Mac I suppose. You would think a dedicated audio card could take some load off the CPU.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

I suppose audio cards on the Mac are not really audio accelerators in the way that graphics cards accelerate video, sad state for the Mac I suppose. You would think a dedicated audio card could take some load off the CPU.

Consider also that pci cards are way easier on the cpu than external cards due to the fact that they can use dma directly, so unlike usb devices for which the cpu has to constantly send packets over the bus.

For the audio drivers the system architecture in OS X is also way better than in windows, but it's made for DAC and ADC kind of devices, to support more advanced features of an hardware one should make a completely custom software stack (including api). For example if i want to have eax working i have to make a whole software stack for that for os x and i have also to make programs using it. About creative they were never really interested in mac platforms and so they just developed basic playback and recording drivers when they make mac drivers, and also the original developers of the kx audio driver didn't want to invest time into creating custom software to support some hardware features on os x, so that's why this driver is mostly for playback/recording only nowadays.

 

[DearthnVader]

Consider also that pci cards are way easier on the cpu than external cards due to the fact that they can use dma directly, so unlike usb devices for which the cpu has to constantly send packets over the bus.

For the audio drivers the system architecture in OS X is also way better than in windows, but it's made for DAC and ADC kind of devices, to support more advanced features of an hardware one should make a completely custom software stack (including api). For example if i want to have eax working i have to make a whole software stack for that for os x and i have also to make programs using it. About creative they were never really interested in mac platforms and so they just developed basic playback and recording drivers when they make mac drivers, and also the original developers of the kx audio driver didn't want to invest time into creating custom software to support some hardware features on os x, so that's why this driver is mostly for playback/recording only nowadays.

I found that Quake 3 uses OpenAL audio on OS X, I had forgotten about that, pretty sure Doom 3 uses it too. So likely you need to support OpenAL in your driver if you are not already.

Setting s_useOpenAL to 0 and Q3 uses SDL for audio under OS X, but the sound gets all choppy and is illegible.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

So i can confirm the driver works with professional cards on powerpc macs, i recently bought an e-mu 1010, and it have been working well, the only problem is that the driver doesn't really work well with sample rates which are not 48khz and so patch is needed for that, but for the rest i can confirm you can use the professional sound cards (compagible with the kx audio driver) also on powerpc using the existing release, only keep in mind the sample rate problem. Another issue i was having is that the audio is quite unbalanced, with very poor medium range frequencies, i dont know if it's a problem of my card or the driver itself. As always i will keep you updated, when new developments happen.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

So i have managed to get multiple sound cards supported by the driver to show up for usage, so the next update will feature that. Also i have improved quite a lot support for sample rates on professional sund cards, toghether with overall performance while playing something back.

Here are some screenshots from my high sierra test rig (things will apply to powerpc macs too).

The new driver will be released for you to test as soon as i can test everything on my g5.

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

So after a lot of pain getting the sound cards to be detected and the mac to run stable, i am glad to present you this absolute abomination of a G5, featuring 2 sound blaster live 5.1 cards and a sound blaster audigy 2zs, in what i cal. the Sound Blaster SLI, all running using my new experimental version of the kx audio driver for powerpc macs.

The new release will come as soon as i am done testing it, since i have to test the new sample clipping and conversion code which should improve cpu usage while playing back. For now enjoy those pictures of the setup i made.

BTW as soon as i can i will also test 4 sound cards at the same time running in my g4 quick silver since it has one extra pci slot (which should be pretty much as much slots as you can ever use for pci sound cards in a powerpc mac running tiger server or newer).

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

You're stubborn one . Good to know.
BTW, excuse me if I miss something - is your driver Universal Binary? (As for now, my Quad don;t works, so I think about a bit of Hackintoshing & got some of SB cards, Audigy2 ZS among them.)

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

You're stubborn one . Good to know.
BTW, excuse me if I miss something - is your driver Universal Binary? (As for now, my Quad don;t works, so I think about a bit of Hackintoshing & got some of SB cards, Audigy2 ZS among them.)

So for now i am only releasing the powerpc binaries, but i can easily compile the intel ones too, i even use them myself on my hackintoshes so i care about intel compatibility in the driver. unfortunately due to some quirks about symbols i can't make a universal binary for the driver with both powerpc and intel support, but from me is quite easy to just compile the binaries separately on snow leopard using xcode 3.2. So if you need it i can just post it. BTW the new version featuring support for multiple sound cards at the same time is coming.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

So if you need it i can just post it.

If I can ask, pls . is there some download resource?

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

So, good news everyone, i was able to make an Apple Silicon (ARM64) build of the driver using the work done for PowerPC with some minor additions, fo i am glad to present you the Apple Silicon porting project, that will hopefully keep our beloved sound blasters working on the latest macs for the next years.

Here is the forum thread:

kX Audio Driver (Sound blaster Live! and Audigy Series driver + EMU EDSP driver) macOS Apple Silicon (ARM64) porting project.

For PowerPC i will continue to work on it and will do my best to let the new features be used across all cpu architectures supported by the driver. As previously announced i will also publish a driver build for PowerPC and intel featuring support for using Multiple Sound Cards (that are supported by the driver) at the same time.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

hopefully keep our beloved sound blasters working on the latest macs for the next years.

Good to know that project is not abandoned. I wonder, however, what have to be done for adding SB card to AppleSilicon Macs?

 

[ITzTravelInTime]

Good to know that project is not abandoned. I wonder, however, what have to be done for adding SB card to AppleSilicon Macs?

You have to wait for apple to release a mac pro apple silicon with pcie.

 

[Amethyst1]

You have to wait for apple to release a mac pro apple silicon with pcie.

Would a Thunderbolt PCIe box not be enough?