.: (the almighty) 32-bit MS-DOS digital sound library for Open Watcom C++ :.

currently in a alpha state, work in progress

current features:

• broad sound device support (from tiny PC Honker, Covox and Sound Blaster cards to HD Audio codecs, see below for the full list)
• easy API (comparable to other audio libraries, like PortAudio)
• IRQ0 free! (except for Covox and PC Speaker, of course)
• high compatibility with various DOS environments, from pure DOS to Windows 9x, including sound card emulators like SBEMU.
• comes with a couple of examples (background .wav and MP2 players)
• still not quite stable :)

--wbcbz7 16.o8.2o22 - 21.o2.2o24

Building

You need Open Watcom Compiler version 1.9 or newer (might work with earlier, untested) and Netwide Assembler (any recent version should work)

• Install Open Watcom, make sure 32-bit DOS target platform is installed. Cross compilation is supported as well, in fact, I'm building sndlib with Win32 tools (Win64 from OW2.x should work fine).
• Install NASM.
• Make sure PATH variable contains paths to both Watcom tools and NASM.

Then, simply run wmake in sndlib folder. For building sample applications, switch to corresponding directory, then run wmake here.

Linking with target executable

At this moment, there are no separate include file for target applications, so you have to add sndlib folder to compiler include path (use wpp386's -I=<include_path> option).

At the linking stage, add library [pathToLibrary]/sndlib.lib to your wlink script. You can also generate the script during wmake - see examples for more info :)

Quick Start (for those who just want to get the sound up :)

1. First, make sure you have all sndlib include files in your include path, and sndlib.h is included anywhere the soundlib stuff is used. you know :)

2. Initialize sndlib:

   uint32_t rtn = sndlibInit();
   if (rtn != SND_ERR_OK) {
       // parse error code and do the cleanup
   }

3. Query and detect available sound devices

   	// somewhere..
   	SoundDevice *dev; // pointer to sound device object
   
   	rtn = sndlibCreateDevice(&dev, autosetup ? SND_CREATE_DEVICE_AUTO_DETECT : SND_CREATE_DEVICE_MANUAL_SELECT);
       if (rtn == SND_ERR_USEREXIT) {
           printf("user exit\n");
           // do the cleanup
       }
       if (rtn != SND_ERR_OK) {
           // parse error code and do the cleanup
       }
   
   	// device is created and opened

   During sndlibCreateDevice(), sndlib detects every sound device present, then, if SND_CREATE_DEVICE_MANUAL_SELECT flag is set, promts the user to select the device (example):

    select available sound device: 
    0 - Sound Blaster 16 (DSP v.4.05)
    1 - Sound Blaster 2.0 (DSP v.4.05)
    2 - Stereo-On-1 LPT DAC (port 0x278)
    3 - Dual Covox DAC (port 0x378/0x278)
    4 - Covox LPT DAC (port 0x278)
    5 - PC Speaker (PWM)
    ------------------------------------------
    press [0 - 5] to select device, [ESC] to exit... 
   

   If used pressed the Esc key, SND_ERR_USEREXIT is returned. SND_ERR_OK means device is successfully selected and detected, and appropriate device object at dev is created, and from now you have to work with that object.

   if sndlibCreateDevice() called with SND_CREATE_DEVICE_AUTO_SELECT flag, the best available device is selected automatically.

4. Init sound device:

   rtn = dev->init();
   if (rtn != SND_ERR_OK) {
       // parse the error and do the cleanup
   }

5. Open the device:

   soundFormatConverterInfo converterInfo;
   
   rtn = dev->open(sampleRate, format, bufferSamples, flags, callback, userPtr, &converterInfo);
   if (rtn != SND_ERR_OK) {
   	// parse the error and do the cleanup
   }
   

   sampleRate is the source audio sample rate in samples per second, i.e 44100 means 44100 Hz, or samples per second.

   format is a combination of bits defining the sound format of source data (see sndfmt.h, short description below):

   SND_FMT_INT8     - 8  bits per sample  
   SND_FMT_INT16    - 16 bits per sample, little-endian
   SND_FMT_MONO     - 1 channel mono samples
   SND_FMT_STEREO   - 2 channels stereo samples
   SND_FMT_SIGNED   - signed data format
   SND_FMT_UNSIGNED - unsigned data format
   

   examples:

   SND_FMT_INT8  | SND_FMT_STEREO | SND_FMT_UNSIGNED; // 8 bit unsigned stereo
   SND_FMT_INT16 | SND_FMT_MONO   | SND_FMT_SIGNED;   // 16 bit signed mono
   

   bufferSamples defines length of primary sound buffer in samples, i.e. 1024 means each primary (aka DMA) buffer holds 1024 audio samples. Optimal values are 1024-2048 samples, more than 4096 samples could cause issues under multitasking environments like Windows, and require system DMA buffer tweaks, and lesser values increase interrupt frequency. Values less than 256 increase interrupt overhead and can cause position tracking issues with problematic devices.

   callback points to callback procedure, more on it later :)

   userPtr holds arbitrary user pointer - you can use it as this for your sound wrapper class, or point to any data you would have to access in the callback.

   converterInfo stores all the necessary sound format info:

   struct soundFormatConverterInfo {
       soundFormat             format;             // target    sound format
       soundFormatConverter    proc;               // converter procedure pointer
       uint32_t                parm;               // passed in edx while calling proc
       uint32_t                parm2;              // passed in ebx while calling proc
       uint32_t                bytesPerSample;     // bytes per each sample
       uint32_t                sourceSampleRate;   // requested sample rate
       uint32_t                sampleRate;         // actual    sample rate
   };
   

   • converterInfo.bytesPerSample holds byte count per each sample, i.e 16bit stereo sample is 4 bytes (first 2 bytes for left channel, second 2 bytes for right), 8bit mono sample is 1 byte.
   • converterInfo.sampleRate is the actual sample rate the sound device is playing sound data back. example are SB 1.x/2.x/Pro cards rounding sample rate to nearest time constant, like 22050 Hz is rounded to 22222 Hz, and 44100 Hz would play at 43478 Hz. in contrast, SB16, WSS and HD Audio play audio at exact sample rate, like 44100 Hz being exact 44100 Hz.

6. Speaking of callback, the signature is:

   soundDeviceCallbackResult callback(void* userPtr, void* buffer, uint32_t bufferSamples, soundFormatConverterInfo *fmt, uint64_t bufferPos);
   

   buffer points to target sound buffer of fmt->format format, with bufferSamples length in samples. bufferPos holds current stream position in samples since start, and userPtr and fmt are the same as in step 5.

   short callback example:

    // structure holding info about source audio data
    struct SoundInfo {
        uint8_t  *srcBuffer;
        uint32_t bytesPerSample; 
    };
   
    soundDeviceCallbackResult callback(void* userPtr, void* buffer, uint32_t bufferSamples, soundFormatConverterInfo *fmt, uint64_t bufferPos);
    {
        // cast userPtr to something, i.e, pointer to SoundInfo
        SoundInfo* soundInfo = (SoundInfo*)userPtr;
               
        // copy data to DMA buffer, with format conversion
        fmt->proc(buffer, soundInfo->srcBuffer, bufferSamples, fmt->parm, fmt->parm2);
               
        // adjust sourceBufferPtr
        soundInfo->srcBuffer += (bufferSamples * soundInfo->bytesPerSample);
               
        // done, return success
        return callbackOk;   
    }

   The callback is called periodically at each IRQ, on the separate protected mode stack with SS==DS, with interrupts enabled, including sound device IRQ.

   Since it's called in the interrupt, make sure you're not messing with DOS or BIOS functions, don't call or access anything non-reentrant (static variables inside callback are evil!), and make sure you are able to finish all rendering within one interrupt (if not, there is a good chance that another nested callback being called while servicing the first, screwing things up!). If possible, render/decompress/mix and convert sound to intermediate buffer in the main thread, and use callback to copy audio blocks from your mixed buffers to DMA buffer.

   If you need to use FPU/MMX registers, save FPU state at callback start, then restore before exit. See examples/mp2play sources for more info.

7. Well, after this short interlude, we have everything to finally make some noise :)

   rtn = dev->start();
   if (rtn != SND_ERR_OK) {
   	// parst the error
   }

   If everything is correct, sound should come out, and callback is periodically called to feed the device with new sound data.

8. Getting playing position is as simple as calling dev->getPos(), which returns int64_t number of samples played since start of stream. Dividing by converterInfo.sampleRate yields current position in seconds, and so on. Pause the stream with dev->pause(), and resume it with dev->resume(). dev->stop() cause sound stream to stop, and you have to call dev->start() again to restart the stream from the beginning.

   NOTE: at this moment, HDA driver can report playing position incorrectly, either lagging for one-two sound buffers or periodically jump back or forth.

9. When you are done, call dev->close() to close sound device, dev->done() to free any intermediate buffers or mappings associated with the device, and finally delete the object itself:

   sndlibDestroyDevice(dev);
   

   Finally, close sound library by calling sndlibDone().

Additional stuff

In addition to common sound playback features, sndlib provides additional services for the use, namely DPMI and IRQ handling wrappers, and a tiny PCI device/configuration space interface. See irq.h, dpmi.h and tinypci.h for more info.

Supported sound devices

a. non-DMA devices

implemented by reprogramming IRQ0 at sample rate, then installing custom bi-modal (separate real and protected mode) handler for pushing raw PCM samples to sound device at the sample rate.

• pros: no ISA DMA/bus mastering mess, available on almost every PC (even modern one)
• cons: questionable sound quality (IRQ0 jitter, low bit depth, generally mono only), practically doesn't work in multitasking environments (Windows 3.x/9x/NT+ DOS box limits IRQ0 frequency to 1024 Hz, others will probably refuse to work at all)

1. PC Speaker (PWM aka RealSound)

• sample rates: up to 48 kHz, though anything above 20 kHz sounds grungy and dirty

• sample bit depth: 5..7 bits, less for higher sample rates due to PWM nature

• sample channels: mono only

• HW resources: i8254 timer 2 in mode 0 (interrupt on terminal count) + port 0x61 for speaker control

  extremely prone to IRQ0 jitter/latency, any CPU mode switches during DOS/BIOS calls obviously result in occasional crackling and whining, giving a scratched vinyl record-like appearance. someone can find that aesthetic, but most of you would quickly dump it for a better sound device :)

  although timer values written to the i8254 are 8-bit, they need to be rescaled by the conversion table depending on the stream sample rate; created upon open(), and passed to conversion routine as parm2

2. Covox Speech Thing aka LPT DAC

• sample rates: up to 48 kHz and beyond

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned, "real" bit depth depends on DAC linearity and other factors

• sample channels: mono only

• HW resources: one 8-bit I/O port, scanned from BIOS Data Area LPT1/2/3

  the definite sound device choice back in the late-80s/early-90s for those who weren't able to afford a soundcard but have a dozen of resistors, soldering equipment and a bit of free time :) advanced variants include discrete DACs in place of R-2R ladder, stereo capability, audio sampling, etc...

  sounds considerably better that PC Speaker (one might note it even performs better than early SB cards!), less prone to IRQ0 jitter; decent choice for laptops

  by default, detect() scans BIOS Data Area for available LPT ports, and if there are any, picks the last one in the list (i.e. if you have LPT1 at 0x378 and LPT2 at 0x278, it'll pick 0x278); aside for that, no I/O read/write checks are applied (write-only ports would work fine). as a sidenote, supporting "custom" Covox at non-standard port detection is no more than writing it's base port to the BDA LPT list

3. Dual Covox DAC

• sample rates: up to 48 kHz and beyond

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned, "real" bit depth depends on DAC linearity and other factors

• sample channels: stereo only (!)

• HW resources: two 8-bit I/O ports, scanned from BIOS Data Area LPT1/2/3

  same as single Covox, except that the first port is used for left channel DAC, and the second one for the right. detect() picks two last ports in the BDA LPT list (i.e in case of LPT1=0x378, LPT2=0x278, LPT3=0x3BC ports 0x278 (left) and 0x3BC (right) will be picked).

4. Stereo-On-1 LPT DAC

• sample rates: up to 48 kHz and beyond

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned, "real" bit depth depends on DAC linearity and other factors

• sample channels: mono/stereo

• HW resources: one "true" LPT port, scanned from BIOS Data Area LPT1/2/3

  basically two DACs attached to single LPT port, with DAC data strobed by LPT control signals: STROBE (pin 1, bit 0 of control port inverted) for left channel and LINE FEED (pin 14, bit 1 of control port inverted) for right channel.

  generally speaking, there are three distinctive Stereo-On-1 DAC types:

  • latch-based ('373 + parallel DAC) - data latched while strobe is low
  • D-flop-based ('374 + parallel DAC) - data latched on strobe' positive edge
  • TLC7528-like - single strobe (pin 1), 0 - latch left channel data, 1 - latch right channel data

  sndlib supports two different Stereo-On-1 protocols: slower but compatible MODPLAY (6 OUTs per stereo sample, default), and faster FT2 protocol (4 OUTs); switched by IOCTL before init() call.

  FT2 is generally compatible with all types of devices, using pin14 as inverted pin1, however for latch-based and '7528 devices it can result to inter-channel leaks for a brief amount of time. R-2R or multiplying DACs handle this fine, with slight stereo narrowing, but PWM/sigma-delta based devices could experience bad aliasing artifacts. MODPLAY protocol activates strobe only when valid data is put on the data port, hence eliminating artifacts at expense of two more OUTs.

  For mono formats, Stereo-On-1 is switched to mono mode, with both strobes activated, behaving exactly like mono Covox. Unfortunately, this will work perfectly only with latch-based devices ('7528-like would have sound in right channel only and '374-based devices would not output any sound)

  detect() relies on the fact that pins 9 (D7) and 11 (bit 7 of status port inverted) on Stereo-On-1 are bridged together. During detection, LPT ports are scanned from the BDA LPT list backwards; for each port, if bit 7 of status port equals inverted bit 7 of data port, then Stereo-On-1 is assumed to be detected.

...future plans (likely to not being implemented)

• Adlib (too quiet, non-linear, slow IO response, won't implement it)
• Disney Sound Source (low ~9kHz sample rate + tricky FIFO)
• Sound Blaster non-DMA (is it really worth it?)

b. ISA DMA devices

pioneered by the original Sound Blaster back in 1989, becoming the de-facto standard for PCM sound under DOS, challenged by numerous clones and rivals.

most ISA sound cards use one ISA DMA channel for sample transfers (in auto-init mode) and one IRQ channel to notify CPU on buffer playback completion. notable exception is SB16 which employ two DMA channels (one 8-bit and other 16-bit, although it also supports 16-bit playback over 8-bit DMA channel)

1. Sound Blaster 1.x/2.x/Pro

• sample rates:

  • 4..22 kHz - SB 1.x and 2.00 (non-highspeed), and SB Pro stereo
  • 4..44 kHz - SB 2.01+ and Pro mono

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned

• sample channels: mono only for 1.x/2.x, mono/stereo for Pro

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one DMA channel

  nuff said :) supported or emulated by almost every ISA sound card, as well as by certain PCI cards.

  SB 2.x/Pro support auto-init playback via normal (up to 22 kHz mono/11 kHz stereo), or so-called highspeed (anything above) modes. Note that in highspeed mode, pause()/resume() will not work reliably, because DSP reset is required to stop playback, and "resume DMA" DSP command seems to be ignored for highspeed modes.

  SB 1.x is supported via single-cycle mode, which requires restarting playback every IRQ call, with the audible click between buffers.

  NOTE: SB cards prior to SB16 use very coarse 1 MHz timing reference (originated from i8051 internal timer), divided by "time constant", so sample rates above ~32 kHz mono/16 kHz stereo will sound a bit out of tune (i.e, 22050 Hz is rounded to 22222 Hz, and 44100 Hz would play at 43478 Hz). Check convinfo->sampleRate field after open() call to retrieve actual sample rate.

  detect() first reads settings from BLASTER variable, then:

  • if IO base address is unknown, common IO ranges (0x220...0x280) are probed for DSP presence. if DSP reset success, current IO base address is saved
  • if IRQ is unknown, "trigger IRQ" DSP command is issued and each possible IRQ is tested. Note that it can result in false positives if other cards (network/SCSI/whatever) are installed in the system.
  • if DMA is unknown, for each DMA channel, short silent buffer in single-cycle mode is played back. if DMA counter for given channel is changed, then this DMA channel is assumed to be used by the SB.

2. Sound Blaster 16

• sample rates: 5..44 kHz

• sample bit depth: 8/16 bits unsigned/signed

• sample channels: mono/stereo

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one or two DMA channels

  supported by original SB16/AWE32/64, certain ISA cards (like ALS100) and SBLive! emulation.

  16-bit playback over 8-bit DMA channel is suported.

  detect() first reads settings from BLASTER variable, then:

  • if IO base address is unknown, common IO ranges (0x220...0x280) are probed for DSP presence. if DSP reset success, current IO base address is saved
  • if IRQ/DMA is unknown, current IRQ/DMA settings are read from mixer registers 0x80/81.
  • the rest is done as for SB 2.x/Pro driver

3. Gravis Ultrasound (GF1)

• sample rates: practically any, limited in sndlib to 4..48 kHz range

• sample bit depth: 8/16 bits unsigned/signed

• sample channels: mono (stereo needs hacks, see below)

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one DMA channel

  (ab)using the GF1 wavetable synthesizer to play streaming audio. Since GF1 allows audio data to be uploaded via DMA (with optional sign conversion), this works as seamless and transparent as it could be, although there is enough troubles and quirks to work around with.

  mono playback seems to work more or less well under DOSBox, stereo is yet to be implemented. Since GF1 can't play interleaved stereo samples, and the DMA unit can't de-interleave them during upload, it has to be done by the CPU, plus some sort of IRQ-driven queue for DMA upload needs to be implemented (we don't wait to stall the entire system while uploading data :). Another option is to use so-called 2.0 pitch trick (documented in GUS SDK) + the fact GF1 can't handle more than 14 channels at 44100 Hz, so it's possible to tweak playback rate to the list of fixed rates in the 19-44 kHz range.

  Either way, this driver is recommended to be used on classic GUS or GUS Ace only, MAX/PnP should work better with WSS driver (still not tested on those cards)

  detect() reads settings from ULTRASND variable. Since IRQ/DMA setting registers (2xB) seem to be write-only on classic GUS, they can't be used for detection, and manual probing is not implemented yet, so you MUST have valid ULTRASND variable or pass valid IRQ/DMA settings in deviceInfo structure, else device initialization will fail.

4. Windows Sound System, GUS MAX/PnP

• sample rates: fixed set of rates, generally in 8..48 kHz range

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned, 16 bits signed

• sample channels: mono/stereo

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one DMA channel

  an alternative PCM audio standard based on AD1848/CS4231 codec, supported by ISA chips from Crystal, Yamaha, OPTi and several other vendors; Gravis Ultrasound MAX and AMD Interwave (GUS PnP, etc) cards also include WSS-compatible codec at non-standard IO base, albeit support is UNTESTED!.

  detect() works as following:

  • first, ULTRA16 variable is read (format is ULTRA16=iobase,dma,irq,1,0). example: ULTRA16=530,3,10,1,0 select WSS at IO base 0x534 (first 4 IO ports are for WSS semi-PnP capability), IRQ 10, DMA 3. ULTRA16=534,3,10,1,0 is equivalent. for GUS MAX/PnP: ULTRA16=32C,3,10,1,0 select WSS at IO base 0x32C, IRQ 10, DMA 3, additionally testing for GUS presence at 0x220 (0x32C - 0x10C).
  • then, if ULTRASND variable is available, unknown resources are extracted from it.
  • if IO base is still unknown, common WSS and GUS IO ranges are probed.
  • if DMA is unknown, for each DMA channel, short silent buffer is played back. if DMA counter for given channel is changed, then this DMA channel is assumed to be used by the sound card.
  • if IRQ is unknown, short buffer is played back again, then each possible IRQ is tested. Note that it can result in false positives if other cards (network/SCSI/whatever) are installed in the system.

5. ESS AudioDrive

• sample rates: 4..48 kHz

• sample bit depth: 8/16 bits unsigned/signed

• sample channels: mono/stereo

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one DMA channel

  supported by ESS AudioDrive family. 48 kHz is a bit out of tune on pre-ES1869 cards. PCI cards (Solo-1) are probably not supported.

  ISA DMA Demand transfer mode can be enabled by IOCTL before init() call, untested!

  detect() first reads settings from BLASTER variable, then:

  • if IO base address is unknown, common IO ranges (0x220...0x280) are probed for DSP presence. if DSP reset success, current IO base address is saved
  • if IRQ/DMA is unknown, current IRQ/DMA settings are read from ESS enhanced registers.
  • the rest is done as for SB 2.x/Pro driver

6.Pro Audio Spectrum / PAS+ / PAS16

• sample rates: 4..48 kHz

• sample bit depth: 8 bits unsigned, 16 bits signed

• sample channels: mono/stereo

• HW resources: one I/O range, one IRQ, one DMA channel

  absolutely untested, implemented by careful(-less) documentation/source reading :)

  detect() first probes common PAS IO ranges, then, if IRQ/DMA are unknown, calls MVSOUND.SYS driver to get IRQ/DMA settings. if MVSOUND.SYS is not loaded, you MUST pass valid IRQ/DMA settings in deviceInfo structure, else device initialization will fail.

...future plans

• original Gravis Ultrasound via GF1 onboard RAM work in progress
• anyway idk, current ISA driver support covers perhaps 95% of all ISA sound cards :)

c. PCI devices

most PCI devices uses PCI Bus Master for playing back/recording audio from the system memory, which, in case of DOS, complicates things a bit.

First, if paging is enabled (VCPI/DPMI hosts are known for this), then physical addresses are no longer correspond to linear ones. ISA drivers rely on transparent handling of ISA DMA controller registers (which trigger virtual memory manager' automatic memory remapping), but as we are talking directly with the PCI device, this hook will never trigger. Moreover, DPMI doesn't support reverse memory mapping functions (mapping linear memory to one or several physical regions), we have to revert to other APIs like Virtual DMA Services, whose are, alas, doesn't work reliably for extended (>1MB) memory. Another known universal workaround is to allocate XMS memory, lock it and map physical XMS block address to linear via DPMI function 0x800. Alternatively, you can run in raw/XMS environment, with paging disabled and 1:1 address mapping :)

sndlib workarounds this by allocating sound buffer and necessary descriptors in low memory; in single-tasking systems this seems to work fine.

Second, memory coherency issues are becoming important. PCI systems handle this fine, but in some environments (like PCIe systems), we have to handle unusual stuff like PCIe traffic classes, snooping, etc.

Third, there are sound card emulators for pure DOS, like SBEMU, which perform real-time emulation of legacy audio devices like AdLib or Sound Blaster 16 via PCI sound hardware. sndlib, by its nature, works directly with sound hardware, and this may interfere with normal operation of emulator. To work around these issues, sndlib tries to detect if such emulator is present in memory, and skips probing for PCI sound cards.

tl;dr: should work under raw/XMS environments, and probably VCPI (paging enabled) as well. Native DOS DPMI clients like CWSDPMI/HDPMI32 are also fine, whereas multitaskers like Windows would fail.

1. High Definition Audio

• sample rates: depends on HDA codec capability, at least 44 and 48 kHz

• sample bit depth: 16 bits signed (24/32 bits are not supported by sndlib)

• sample channels: mono/stereo (sndlib supports max. 2 channels)

• HW resources: one PCI device, one MMIO range

  supported by almost every PC since late-00s, HDA controller interface is standardized well, HDA codec are entirely different story with it's flexible architecture, making universal driver a PITA to implement.

  detect() scans PCI configuration space for HDA devices (class 04.03.00), then filters by following rules:

  • if device is not available, BAR is empty or points to I/O space - skip it entirely.
  • if HDA device is PCI function 1..7 and first function is VGA-compatible controller, then this HDA controller is filtered out.
  • additionally, several HDA controllers (Intel Haswell/Broadwell HDMI) are blacklisted by PCI vendor/device ID.
  • then, check if WALLCLK register (BAR0 offset 0x30, dword) is constantly incrementing, as on HDA controllers
  • then, try to reset HDA controller and check if codecs are present.

  by default, audio is routed to every pin with connectivity field set to other than None and designated as Line Out, SPDIF Out and Headphone Out (see HDA spec for further info). Internal amplifiers, EAPD pin and SPDIF transmitters are activated as well. If appropriate IOCTL is sent, then Speaker pins are also configured to output, if applicable.

  NOTE: unfortunately, while HDA controller spec is well defined and most controllers are conforming with it well, several quirks can result in faults such as frozen audio position, static and even occasional hangups. sndlib tries to work around these quirks, although success rate on non-Intel HDA controllers is dependent on many other factors.

  In case of troubles, run any DOS application that supports HD Audio (such as MPXPLAY), exit and restart sndlib application again. If it doesn't help, restart without CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT, and try again.

  Currently, this driver has been successfully tested on:

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3600 + Realtek ALC892 (ASRock B450M Pro4) - line out and front panel, also note HDA controller integrated on the CPU
  • Intel Z77 + Realtek ALC892 (ASUS P8Z77-V Pro) - both line out and front panel output, SPDIF works
  • Intel Core i5-4200U + Realtek ALC3225 (Acer E1-572G) - line out, mono doesn't work?
  • Intel H61 + Realtek ALC662 (Pegatron IPSMB-VH1) - line out and front panel, SPDIF untested
  • Intel HM10 + Realtek ALC662 (Intel D525MW) - line out