1
2OpenAL setup for general use (Linux)
3-------------------------------------
4As of the July 2004 release of OpenAL it is best to add at least the
5following line to your ~/.openalrc file on Linux because it wil find out
6what audio backend to use, starting with the most appropriate:
7
8(define devices '(native alsa sdl esd arts null))
9
10
11
12ALSA surround sound (5.1) setup
13-------------------------------------
14(taken from http://floam.ascorbic.com/how-to/alsa5.1)
15
16Make a ~/.openalrc, we are telling OpenAL that we want surround sound and
17we want to use ALSA instead of OSS.
18
19(define speaker-num 4)
20(define devices '(alsa))
21(define alsa-out-device "surround40:0,0")
22
23
24
25IRIX surround sound (5.1) setup
26-------------------------------------
27To add 4 channel surround sound on IRIX hardware that supports in
28directly you can just add the following line to your ~/.openalrc file:
29
30(define speaker-num 4)
31
32To add 4 channel surround sound to IRIX systems that have more than one
33stereo output you can add the following section to your ~/.openalrc file
34(for a typical O2 configuration):
35
36(define speaker-num 4)
37(define native-out-device "Analog Out")
38(define native-rear-out-device "Analog Out 2")
39
40or alternatively:
41
42(define speaker-num 4)
43(define native-out-device "A3.Speaker")
44(define native-rear-out-device "A3.LineOut2")
45
46
47
48(Note the following section is obsolete as of the July 2004 release of
49OpenAL, since your could command OpenAL to use ALSA or Arts directly)
50
51ALSA and Arts
52-------------------------------------
53
54I'm using kernel 2.6.5 with alsa, my sound module is snd-intel8x0. When I ran
55fgfs, I'd get quite 'choppy' sound (wasn't smooth, there'd be a couple of
56breaks in the sound every second or so). Running arts, and starting fgfs with
57"artsdsp fgfs" (from the artsdsp website: "When an application is run under
58artsdsp all accesses to the /dev/dsp audio device are intercepted and mapped
59into aRts API calls. While the device emulation is not perfect, most
60applications work this way, albeit with some degradation in performance and
61latency.") would improve the situation, but it seemed to still be choppy.
62
63This command:
64echo "fgfs 0 0 direct" >/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss
65
66(from the alsa kernel OSS emulation website:
67  "The direct option is used, as mentioned above, to bypass the automatic
68   conversion and useful for MMAP-applications")
69
70made my sound work beautifully when fgfs was run with artsdsp. Running without
71artsdsp however (with artsd suspended or killed), would give me no sound at all
72(which I find a bit strange)
73
74The following websites might help people with similar troubles:
75http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/OSS-Emulation.html
76http://www.arts-project.org/doc/handbook/artsdsp.html
77
78Computer info:
79
80kernel 2.6.5
81
82flightgear 0.9.4
83simgear 0.3.5
84plib 1.8.3
85
86soundcard is onboard an asus p4p800-e deluxe mobo (using snd-intel8x0), alsa,
87related modules from lsmod:
88Module                  Size  Used by
89snd_pcm_oss            53252  1
90snd_mixer_oss          19968  1 snd_pcm_oss
91snd_intel8x0           33476  1
92snd_ac97_codec         63492  1 snd_intel8x0
93snd_pcm                97408  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0
94snd_timer              26112  1 snd_pcm
95snd_page_alloc         11396  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
96snd_mpu401_uart         7936  1 snd_intel8x0
97snd_rawmidi            24832  1 snd_mpu401_uart
98snd_seq_device          8324  1 snd_rawmidi
99snd                    53892  9 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
100soundcore              10208  2 snd
101