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Audio driver for Realtek HD Audio Hardware? [Testing thread]


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@deomsh

Of course Watler should have every credit for originally writing the driver, initially for Windows 3.1, but as far as I'm concerned your skill was in porting the Windows 3.1 driver to Windows 98, writing the INF file which made the installation easy to do.
Also of course doing the necessary analysis and work to produce the Hdaicout.hda file that worked with my hardware!
I wouldn't have even known where to start with any of that!
There are so many brilliant and talented people here on this forum, I sometimes feel that I'm not worthy. However if my problems and their resolutions can help others in the future I'm delighted with that.
As I mentioned earlier I had a similar problem getting a driver for my onboard Ethernet port to work on Windows 98, which resulted in a thread even longer than this one!
That also used a driver designed for a much earlier operating system (DOS in that case, Windows 3.1 in this case) and it also proved that "where there's a will, there's a way", especially here on MSFN!
Yet again, I salute you all!
:worship:

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@deomsh

Just a quick question.
I'm making a zip file up containing all the necessary files for this in case I ever need to reinstall it again from scratch, with an installation instruction note.
The documentation for the driver refers to a file called "activate.exe", which doesn't appear to exist.
The file in the "Activate" folder is called "Hdarun.exe".
Is that the same file?
I'm not actually running it, I assume that it's not needed?
Also, do I need the HDA2.MAP file, or is that also part of the source code?
:dubbio:

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@Dave-H: Thanks for your kind words, but without your patience and perseverance there would have been no success, although we are not finished yet in my opinion. You still didn't tell if you can play Digital Audio without HDARUN (so Mytimer=1). Also I am still working on a ALC883 version of HDAICOUT.HDA i'de like to have tested.

About files: you need to save HDA2.DLL, OEMSETUP.INF, HDATSR.EXE, WAVEOUT.EXE, HDARUN.EXE (indeed in folder activate), the README's and for more convenient install my GENHDA16.INF. Further for your system working versions of HDACFG.INI and HDAICOUT.HDA of cause. :crazy:



 

Edited by deomsh
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Thanks.
I don't think I've got HDARUN.EXE actually running now.
Mytimer is set to "1" in hdacfg.ini.
Is it actually what the driver readme files refer to as "activate.exe"?
Was its name changed perhaps?
:dubbio:

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@Dave-h: I think you're right about activate.exe, maybe the name of a file with same funtion in one of Watler's other Audio drivers. But I don't know for sure. It doesn't seems important to me. Watler explicit mentioned HDARUN.EXE if a Multimedia Timer is needed, as in Win3.x Standard mode. 

Don't use HDARUN in Win9.x if possible, can give really bad crashes. That's my concern because you first had to use it as a sort of "Lender of last resort". HDARUN must be started manually after each startup, you will be aware if you are using it.

Edited by deomsh
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On 4/14/2019 at 11:13 AM, deomsh said:

I didn't ment to offend you. I am not an expert either, I only tried to say that using "facts" from experiences with other drivers like AC'97 doesn't say anything to me.

You didn't answer my question if you could give the HDA controller an EXCLUSIVE IRQ. If that's possible on your system and you have still choppy audio, I would tend to agree that IRQ's are not a (possible) problem.

I did try all possible IRQ values, it always sounds the same. Again, changing it is only possible on Windows 95, on Windows 98 I'm stuck with 11. I don't know how to tell whether IRQ is exclusive or not. I also tried HDAICOUT.HDA that comes with the driver, nothing changed.

On 4/14/2019 at 11:13 AM, deomsh said:

It would of interest too try MS-DOS HDA players, like I suggested Dave-H, but with respect to choppy audio.

I tried Mpxplay, but only got silence.

On 4/14/2019 at 11:13 AM, deomsh said:

About volume setting for your virtual STAC9921 codec: I have red somewhere that it's not fully implemented in VirtualBox. If you have some spare time I'd like to see the codec graph.

khmnQFB.png

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@UCyborg: Thanks a lot. At first sight STAC9921 seems to be fully implemented in Virtualbox. Is it possible to attach the saved xml, so a can take a closer look? Mine is 389KB (File -> Save Working Codec as -> STAC9921.xml). 

Did you test Mpxplay is pure MS-DOS?

 

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I tried the new file, and it seems to work fine.
Strangely, the quality on some of the system sounds seems a bit rough now, but I don't know if that's worse with the new file or not.
Playing music tracks, both MP3 and WAV, sounds fine though.
I'll have to try and do a comparison.
I'm definitely not using HDARUN, which doesn't sound like a good idea from what you were saying!
:dubbio:

EDIT: I tried reverting to the older hdaicout.hda, and the sound quality is exactly the same.
It's mainly the system sounds like the ringing tones and chimes which sound rough.
One thing I have noticed is that with the old file there are two "pops" from the speakers as the desktop loads, with the new one there's only one!
:)

Edited by Dave-H
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@Dave-H: Thanks for testing. Any difference with your Sound Mapper?

Less "pops" is an interesting observation, I will try on my ALC662 system.

BTW: please attach HDAICIN.TXT after booting my last version of HDAICOUT.HDA, so I can see which Verbs of the almost 200 Verbs are truly needed.

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@DAVE-H: Thanks.

As far I can see only four lines in HDAICOUT.HDA are needed for your Supermicro X7DAL-E+ server board. My assumption is that Pin widget 014 is hardwired to your Output Jack (according the data sheet that should be 'normal', but Motherboard manufacturers sometimes have other idea's).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HDAICOUT.HDA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Begin
$2017FF00; CODEC RESET Function group 2
$2017FF00; CODEC RESET DOUBLE !
$21470740;AC_VERB_SET_PIN_WIDGET_CONTROL;out_enable
$2143B000;AC_VERB_SET_AMP_GAIN_MUTE;unmute_output
End
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This version of  HDAICOUT.HDA will ONLY work with following settings in HDACFG.INI: OutputWidget=$02 and VolumeWidget=$0C. They should be already there in your  HDACFG.INI. Maintaining SleepingWidget=$02 will do no harm.

For convenience I attach above  HDAICOUT.HDA as version 201, including a small Easter Egg. You will find it if you read the last part of the file.

Dave-H_ALC883_Hdaicout.hda.201

BTW: this version is NOT designed for all possible ALC883 codec implementations!
 

Edited by deomsh
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Thanks again, works great and I even think the quality is a bit better now!
Also the analogue CD sound works perfectly!
:thumbup
Just one request, I would actually find it more useful if the Line In audio worked rather than the CD audio, if that's possible, as I have an old analogue DV video capture card connected to the line input, and it would be good to be able to hear the sound from that again. That would be much more useful to me than the CD sound.
Cheers, Dave.
:)

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@ Deomsh & Dave-H. I've been following your work here and finally got some time to give HDA a try on my Dell Inspiron 9400.  It has Sigmatel 9200 audio.  I followed pg1 of this topic instructions.  The driver loaded and I could see HDA in the multimedia sound options however I got a BSOD with an "application error" when desktop loaded but was able to continue-no  sounds heard.  I then copied  HDAICOUT.HDA to my Windows directory and on reboot heard 2 pop sounds- but still got the BSOD. Then I added the  minfilecache,maxfilecache=8192 and rebooted.  No more BSOD and the Welcome sound played at full volume. I grinned like a kid at Christmas at this point. That's all I have time for today, but thanks for all your hard work.  I'll try to look into the volume control another time as I read you got that working.   

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