From owner-freebsd-multimedia Mon Mar 16 12:22:15 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA12055 for freebsd-multimedia-outgoing; Mon, 16 Mar 1998 12:22:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-20.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.27]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id MAA12020 for ; Mon, 16 Mar 1998 12:22:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from searle+lon@longacre.demon.co.uk) Received: from longacre.demon.co.uk ([158.152.156.24]) by post.mail.demon.net id ac2020219; 16 Mar 98 20:21 GMT From: Michael Searle Message-ID: To: freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: pcaudio volume References: <350A5CCF.732@singapore.com> <19980315103557.24927@ct.picker.com> <19980316061420.40449@ct.picker.com> Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 20:20:15 GMT X-Mailer: Offlite 0.09 / Termite Internet for Acorn RISC OS Sender: owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Randall Hopper wrote: > Richard Goh: |Randall Hopper: |>Goh: |> |controller snd0 |> |device pca0 > ...... |> | |> |When I cat an audio file to pcaudio, the volume is so > low it is drowned |> |by the fan. |> |>Was a particular sound file > you've played ever louder on the same machine |>with the same fan > installed? | |It was never ever louder, had to put my ears near to the > speakers to hear |the music (yamato.au, that's.au etc). Tried it on two > different PCs with |the same result. I can hear the au files perfectly > well on my Macintosh |so they are not corrupted or anything like that. | > |Is there a way to set the volume or any documentation on this. I have > |tried the handbook, faq and the archives without much luck. > I'm going to hazard a guess there isn't. > As I recall from my old DOS days, the original PC audio hardware was > really primitive. It only had a single bit to twiddle for the speaker. > 0 = move the cone in; 1 = move the cone out (or vice versa). No control > to vary the degree to which the cone is moved in and out. The speaker > was/is real tiny anyway, so low frequencies didn't fare well. > So you could generate simple tones by adjusting the rate you twiddled > this bit, but generating complex harmony or reproducing recorded files > was not done originally. [I still remember the first game out there > that did the latter (MeanStreets) to play prerecorded files and how cool > that was at the time.] > 'course, this anemic original design was one of the reason for the > success of the original Sound Blasters. I don't think it's quite that simple. There's 3 different ways to produce different bleeps, which can be used separately or in combination. You still can't get anything more than a bleep though. YMMV though as this is from an Amstrad PC-semicompatible - this may be a Feature. -- Michael Searle - csubl@csv.warwick.ac.uk To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-multimedia" in the body of the message