updated USB audio drivers (heading for 10.245)

[Lars]

I have now made a lot of updates to the USB audio drivers (USBAUDIO and USBAUD2). I have fixed some bugs, implemented balance control, implemented gain control and changed the volume setting to logarithmic scaling (because that better meets the human`s way of hearing). I also updated USBAUDIF so that a gain setting request is properly passed to the audio drivers (for example, WEPM.EXE, the default OS/2 audio edtor, supports gain setting).

Who would like to test ? I can post here of send privately. Once they are ok, I'd build a new USB driver package and upload to Hobbes (as always).

Regards,
Lars

[David McKenna]

 Count me in, Lars! You know I have a Behringer UMC202HD I can test with. I vote to post it here so it is widely available for testing.

Regards,

[Paul Smedley]

Yes please - I'll test it on my new mini-pc

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Lars

Thanks for the efforts. There is no problem posting it here on the forum for people to test and give you feedback.

Regards.

[Lars]

Find attached.

Please do a proper audio driver installation ("minstall /*"). Do not just copy over files. Please note that after an audio driver installation, you will need to reset the default audio/ampmix device to your liking (either manually in MMPM2.INI or via my "Multimedia Setup" Extension).

If it does not work for you, just open a ticket at "trac.netlabs.org/usb".

As already mentioned, in order to use USB audio devices on a USB3 (XHCI) port, it needs an update from AN. There is an experimental USB stack build here:
https://www.arcanoae.com/resources/downloadables/experimental-builds/

[Paul Smedley]

Thanks Lars - I'll test once a set of headphones with a 3.5mm socket arrive. I'm sure I must have a pair somewhere, but couldn't find them when I went looking this morning...

[David McKenna]

Thanks Lars! For playback, SVN2400 works well using either USB2 or USB3 port, system sounds, PM123 and Youtube all work. Haven't figured out how to record yet... when I try creating a 'new' file using WEPM, I get an error saying 'unable to open file.wav' and it creates a 0 byte file. Any hints how to record a file?

Regards,

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi David

On January of 2021, I was testing a USB mic to record audio. (I just tell you date, to let you know I'm not very fresh with the procedure).

I remember I used DTAPE and put some specific settings.

For the USB device I used PCM, 44100 Hz and 48000 Hz, 16 bits, Mono, Line in.
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/images/1/1e/Dtape_record_setup.png

Remember that on DTAPE you need to create or open the file first, before recording, if I recall correctly.

Regards

[David McKenna]

 Thanks Martin! DTape works to record with my Behringer unit, but only on a USB2 port. On USB3 ports it does not get a signal from the unit to the program. Maybe a limitation of the base USB3 driver (which expires in 3 days...)?

Regards,

[Lars]

Thanks Lars! For playback, SVN2400 works well using either USB2 or USB3 port, system sounds, PM123 and Youtube all work. Haven't figured out how to record yet... when I try creating a 'new' file using WEPM, I get an error saying 'unable to open file.wav' and it creates a 0 byte file. Any hints how to record a file?

Regards,

WEPM.EXE is a lousy tool. You have to call it with some temporary file name for recording purposes (say: "tmp.wav", preferrably on a RAM drive or so) from a commandline (or via a customized program object).
If you do that it will create that temporary file with that name when it opens. You can then set all the recording settings and record. Once you stop recording, you can do a "Save copy as" to save to a file that you actually want to keep and then leave the tool with "discard" (to basically drop the temporary file).

[Lars]

Thanks Martin! DTape works to record with my Behringer unit, but only on a USB2 port. On USB3 ports it does not get a signal from the unit to the program. Maybe a limitation of the base USB3 driver (which expires in 3 days...)?

Regards,

Yes, it's a limitation of the XHCI (USB3) host controller driver USBXHCD.SYS that still does not support isochronous in transfers (that is: recording ...).

[Paul Smedley]

I tried testing this on my miniPC - however I was too slow and the updated USB3 driver from AN has expired

[Dave Yeo]

You can set the date back, best in BIOS, and reboot, and then set the time correctly or ask David for a new package
Dave

[Paul Smedley]

Hey Dave,

You can set the date back, best in BIOS, and reboot, and then set the time correctly or ask David for a new package

My God! Why didn't I think of this trick I have a few things going on in my personal life that are distracting me, but I re-tested this morning and was able to get sound out of a set of headphones with this driver installed. The other thing I didnt check when I was testing the other day with the default USB drivers from the latest AOS 5.1 test build, was ensuring the USB device was the default audio device, rather than uniaud <sigh> so I can't authoritatively say the new USB drivers were a requirement, but given the audio chip is attached to via USB3, I suspect it is.

[Lars]

I am confused. Are you saying that you have built-in speakers or speakers/headphones attached to a connector other than USB that you think still attach to USB internally?
I certainly cannot test that, I only test devices that have a USB connector and can be plugged into a USB port. And for these devices, the audio chip is inside the device and not inside the computer.