Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 18:22:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: Robert Ramey <ramey@rrsd.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Media GX question Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.990707180821.23943b-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <19990708010437.C7295249E6@acme.sb.west.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 7 Jul 1999, Robert Ramey wrote: > I saw your post in the FreeBSD Mailing list about the MediaGX. > > I am currently trying to get the the speakfree package to work on this > system. > > I have been able to get the system to play *.au files out the speakers > using cat monkey.au >/dev/audio but when I run the program sfspeaker & the > program quits is signal 11 - SIGSEGV Segmentation Fault - I believe. The > same program doesn't exhibit that behavior on another system so I suspect > the mediaGX. do you have a soundblaster card? If you are using the sound support of the mediaGX then things get tricky.. they don't really have a sound ship, just a codec, and they trap all accesses to teh ports a sound card would use, and emulate them in the SMI bios extensions. (SMI is active even when UNIX is running.. it's a whole new level of bios (yech). > > a) Do you have any suggestions about this? Unfortunatly the only sound we have is via a separate sound chip. (what is speakfree?) > b) Do you know if any of the CYRIX options in the LINT system kernel build > configuration file should be invoked? If so which ones? I'd be surprised.. we don't turn on anything special. > c) Where do you get your info on the MediaGX. The cyrix/national web site > is very superficial in my opinion. Although the current system uses a > 266mhz chip - I am very wary that that number is a useful basis of > comparison. I am currious how the on board video using system dram slows > this down. It looks like this system doesn't have any on chip cache. Do > you have any information on this subject. We use a MediaGX in our product so we see the specs. their website is password protected.. even those docs however are a bit sketchy.. > d) We are evaluatiing the usage of a mediaGX motherboard for an "emmbedded" > product. with a Cx5530? Works ok, but..... try run 115Kbit/sec input on com1 while doing disk IO. see if you lose sio interrupts. > e) So far I have managed to get FreeBSD working on this system quite > satisfactorily. I only have 800x600 video working so far but thats good > enough for now. This is the first problem that I have encountered in > which I suspect the mediaGX itself. > f) Does the implementation of media GX sound support full duplex? Does the > FreeBSD SB sound driver support this? The MediaGX does sound in software > g) Did you write your own BIOS or what. My understanding of FreeBSD is > that the BIOS is not used except for settup the the cpu at boot time and > for a few specialized functions such as automatic powermanagement. yes we used one from "General Software". It doesn't support the SMI stuff. (SMI is "System Management Interrupt". It kicks into a special vector (not touched by any OS because it's not standard) that emulates whatever caused the trap. you can make it trap on sound card addresses etc. this allows the SMI VMA (virtual machine Architecture) to emulate the soundcard even though it aint there. Oh yeah power management stuff kicks an SMI as well. Generally FreeBSD doesn't use the BIOS except to boot.. correct.. (which is why we didn't bother that the GS BIOS doesnt support it. (I think Intel now have SMI as well (yech)) We have a soundblaster (copy) chip on our board (when we want sound). > > Thankyou for your help. > > Robert Ramey > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.3.95.990707180821.23943b-100000>