Because of using more clear and same time more functional codec parser
new driver is able to handle more codecs, use them better then before and
without most of previous quirks. All of tested codecs itself manage playback,
record, input mixing and monitoring quite fine. In all of investigated
trouble cases problem was found or in nonstandard codec usage or incorrect
codec configuration made by BIOS. Most of that cases could be fixed using
device hints, some of which are already included to the driver.
New driver supports multiple codecs per HDA bus, multiple audio function
groups per codec and multiple logical sound devices per audio function group.
So don't worry when you get several PCM devices instead of one, it is normal.
It is usual situation with powerful codecs to provide, for example, 3 PCM
devices: one for 7.1 playback and main recording, one for headset and one
for digital SPDIF I/O.
New driver implements Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) much better then
previous one. Most information about recommended codec usage now taken from
the codec configuration registers initialized by BIOS. User may alter that
configuration using device hints to reconfigure logical audio devices to
his needs in a very broad range up to the limits of the codec functionality.
New driver supports digital PCM playback and AC3 pass-through. I am not sure
about completeness of this implementation, but I have several success stories
including my own. Vchans subsystem does not support AC3 pass-through so it
had to be disabled for that devices at this moment.
New driver is ready for multichannel playback, but until our OSS is unable
to use this it will just duplicate same stereo stream into all channel
pairs.
New driver supports suspend/resume. I am unable to really test this part
myself, but I have got several success stories.
Driver has very informative verbose boot messages. So if you have any
questions or problems - enable and read them first.
Discussed on: freebsd-multimedia@
Tested by: many
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