Multistreaming Playback using Front Panel Headphone with realtek codec

[Dragon32]

Hi,

I have a Gigabyte board (Model GA-P55A-UD3) with an ALC888 audio chipset and I am trying to get separate audio streams to the headphones and speakers but with no success.

After doing some digging I came across this:

Advanced Linux Sound System development

Has anybody had any luck in getting multistreaming going for the ALC888 (or similar) on Suse 11.4 ?

Any pointers to put me on the right would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

[oldcpu]

Typically sound in GNU/Linux is setup specifically to NOT to provide this level of control (if one is using the same sound card/device), as the added controls will confuse users.

This is easily possible if one is using USB headphones (plugged into a USB port) and Speakers plugged into an audio jack. But not so if one is trying to use one audio jack for speakers (say back jack) and a different audio jack for headset (say front jack) .

If you type the following you can see what hardware devices are currently configured on your PC:

aplay -l

where that is a lower case 'L'

For example on my PC, I get:

oldcpu@corei7:~> aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD198x Digital [AD198x Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

which corresponds to hw:0,0 (analog audio) and hw:0,1 (digital audio).

I do not have digital audio setup. My hardware is an AD1989B codec (different from your ALC888). The model options for the ALC888 are :

ALC882/883/885/888/889
======================
  3stack-dig	3-jack with SPDIF I/O
  6stack-dig	6-jack digital with SPDIF I/O
  arima		Arima W820Di1
  targa		Targa T8, MSI-1049 T8
  asus-a7j	ASUS A7J
  asus-a7m	ASUS A7M
  macpro	MacPro support
  mb5		Macbook 5,1
  macmini3	Macmini 3,1
  mba21		Macbook Air 2,1
  mbp3		Macbook Pro rev3
  imac24	iMac 24'' with jack detection
  imac91	iMac 9,1
  w2jc		ASUS W2JC
  3stack-2ch-dig	3-jack with SPDIF I/O (ALC883)
  alc883-6stack-dig	6-jack digital with SPDIF I/O (ALC883)
  3stack-6ch    3-jack 6-channel
  3stack-6ch-dig 3-jack 6-channel with SPDIF I/O
  6stack-dig-demo  6-jack digital for Intel demo board
  acer		Acer laptops (Travelmate 3012WTMi, Aspire 5600, etc)
  acer-aspire	Acer Aspire 9810
  acer-aspire-4930g Acer Aspire 4930G
  acer-aspire-6530g Acer Aspire 6530G
  acer-aspire-7730g Acer Aspire 7730G
  acer-aspire-8930g Acer Aspire 8930G
  medion	Medion Laptops
  medion-md2	Medion MD2
  targa-dig	Targa/MSI
  targa-2ch-dig	Targa/MSI with 2-channel
  targa-8ch-dig Targa/MSI with 8-channel (MSI GX620)
  laptop-eapd   3-jack with SPDIF I/O and EAPD (Clevo M540JE, M550JE)
  lenovo-101e	Lenovo 101E
  lenovo-nb0763	Lenovo NB0763
  lenovo-ms7195-dig Lenovo MS7195
  lenovo-sky	Lenovo Sky
  haier-w66	Haier W66
  3stack-hp	HP machines with 3stack (Lucknow, Samba boards)
  6stack-dell	Dell machines with 6stack (Inspiron 530)
  mitac		Mitac 8252D
  clevo-m540r	Clevo M540R (6ch + digital)
  clevo-m720	Clevo M720 laptop series
  fujitsu-pi2515 Fujitsu AMILO Pi2515
  fujitsu-xa3530 Fujitsu AMILO XA3530
  3stack-6ch-intel Intel DG33* boards
  intel-alc889a	Intel IbexPeak with ALC889A
  intel-x58	Intel DX58 with ALC889
  asus-p5q	ASUS P5Q-EM boards
  mb31		MacBook 3,1
  sony-vaio-tt  Sony VAIO TT
  auto		auto-config reading BIOS (default)

but to go through and test each one at a time where the probability your configuration is already optimal, to me is more an academic than a practical exercise. It makes far more sense to me, if this is a requirement, to simply purchase a separate set of USB headphones, which will mean separate kernel modules will be loaded for the different sound devices, and after which this should be a trivial exercise.

[Dragon32]

Hi Old CPU,

thanks for the reply.

I'm already up to this stage using USB as I already have one for my laptop to use with Mixxx, it would just be nice if we could have parity with the windows driver. I believe it is being worked on in ALSA (please correct me if I'm wrong) but is in the development stage.

PS happy new year to all Suse users.

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: default [C-Media USB Headphone Set  ], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

[oldcpu]

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: default [C-Media USB Headphone Set  ], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

From that is clear your hardware audio devices are:

• hw:0,0 (analog audio)
• hw:0,1 (digital audio)
• hw:1,3 (HDMI - device-3)
• hw:1,7 (HDMI - device-7)
• hw:1,8 (HDMI- device-8)
• hw:1,9 (HDMI- device-9)
• hw:3,0 (USB audio).

Its rather strange there is no card-2, and that makes me speculate you have a separate USB record device, possibly a USB webcam or a standalone USB mic.

Install pulse audio volume control (pavucontrol) and you should be able to easily re-direct different sound to your speakers than to your USB headphone on an application level, using that control application.

To get an idea as to what I am referring to, take a look at my recent blog post: Pulseaudio Basics for openSUSE with pavucontrol - Blogs

[Dragon32]

Hi Old CPU,

Yes you are quite right about the webcam, however I think you are missing what I am saying. USB headphones are working fine and it has been my solution for a while, I would just like to use both available HW analogue devices (ie twin analogue) on the ALC888 but from reading Raymond Yau's posts over at ALSA development this is not yet available but is being worked on, hopefully in 1.0.25 (or whatever the next version is) we will see this feature.

Thanks for the help.

Regards

Dragon 32

[oldcpu]

.........I would just like to use both available HW analogue devices (ie twin analogue) on the ALC888 but from reading Raymond Yau's posts over at ALSA development this is not yet available but is being worked on, hopefully in 1.0.25 (or whatever the next version is) we will see this feature.

IMHO it is far better to be pro-active, than sit around waiting for an update that may or may not show up in the next version. And also, its possible there is an rpm fix you can install right now but you will need to be proactive to learn about it. The way to do that is to write a bug report and IMHO you should write a bug report. There is guidance here: openSUSE:Submitting bug reports - openSUSE and you can use your openSUSE forum user name and password to log on to bugzilla. Write the bug report against component 'sound'. Attach to the bug report the text file alsa-info.txt you get from running:

/usr/sbin/alsa-info.sh --no-upload

ensure your bug report is complete as the SuSE-GmbH packager (who is also an alsa sound driver developer) will not read a forum thread. Monitor the bug report every couple of days, and if you see a NEED INFO flag then reply to the SuSE-GmbH packagers questions, and after you answer the query be certain to CLEAR the NEED INFO flag. Thats important, else the packager will miss the fact you replied to the question.

Note I wrote a guide here on how to update alsa using rpms from the SuSE-GmbH packager's repository: SDB:Alsa-update - openSUSE

[conram]

To the op

I am using using a simultaneous output HDMI and internal analog surround high definition audio controller using pulse in opensuse 11.4 and opensuse 12.1
After the installation of opensuse I only have the sound coming from the internal analog surround high definition audio controller.
My trick to make both play simultaneously is to edit the /etc/pulse/default.pa and add my HDMI device.

It looks like this:

### Load HDMI device
load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:1,7
load-module module-combine sink_name=combined
set-default-sink combined

Where device=hw:1,7 is my HDMI

Yours maybe if I'm not mistaken is card 3: default [C-Media USB Headphone Set ], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
so you can substitute mine to something like

load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:3,0
load-module module-combine sink_name=combined
set-default-sink combined

Note:
With opensuse 12.1, my experience was the changes will not take effect until you reboot the system.
I am using xfce and I noticed that, while pulseaudio is enabled by default, pulsaudio is not installed on my system. Check that pulseaudio is installed.
install the pavucontrol and maybe you need to install also the pulseaudio-modulex11 ( This package provides the components needed to automatically start the PulseAudio sound server on X11 startup.)

After re-starting your system you have to configure your sound in pavucontrol
The simultaneous audio output will also appear in the pavucontrol option. If this doesn't show-up try to play music or play a you tube video and take a look at the pavucontrol

I am not sure if the above will work but you can try. Or maybe do some search with similar or modified configuration with pulseaudio.

Edit:
I think I misunderstood the problem. Sorry not very good in english.
Please clarify the device you want to stream simultaneously.

[Dragon32]

Hi Old CPU,

Tried updating ALSA about 4 weeks ago , but as yet no second mixer support - incidently this broke Mixxx's ability to detect input (jack issue I think ?) so rolled back and all ok. I see 1.0.25 has been released with a whole new raft of changes so when I get a chance to play with it I'll post my results here.

Thanks Dragon32.