# nforce 2 new modules released!!

## lokojones

2 days ago (13 ag 2004) nvidia released their lastest nforce2 drivers for linux, including for first time 2.6.x kernel support, lots of changes and a new app for switching speakers output... etc it also includes a new ethernet module..

2.6.x users will not need anymore to use i810 modules, getting no hw mixing and only stereo output  :Smile: 

I'm trying to get the work fine, but I'm not sure how to do it.. you can post here your experience with them :

My problem is that I dont know if I have to change back to oss to get the sound module work, or if it will work with alsa... i have only tried to do it with OSS support, but i dont get nice results... I get only sound in quake3 but not in xmms/xine..etc

notice that nv audio modules has changed it name to nvsound and the nv sound mixing app has changed it name from nvaudio to nvmixer

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## Anarcho

Damn....

I get errors while compiling...

```
make -C  nvaudio

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/downloads/nforce/nvaudio'

make nvaudio.o

make[2]: Entering directory `/home/downloads/nforce/nvaudio'

gcc -D__KERNEL__  -I/lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O -fno-strict-alia                                       sing -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 -march=i686 -falign-functions=4 -DMODULE -DDRIVERVER=\"0274\" -DRE                                       MAP_NEW    -c -o nvhw.o nvhw.c

In Datei, eingefügt von /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/linux/irq.h:20,

                    von /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/hardirq.h:6,

                    von nvhw.h:31,

                    von nvhw.c:16:

/lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/irq.h:16:25: irq_vectors.h: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefu                                       nden

In file included from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/hardirq.h:6,

                 from nvhw.h:31,

                 from nvhw.c:16:

/lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/linux/irq.h:70: error: `NR_IRQS' undeclared here (not in a functi                                       on)

In file included from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/linux/irq.h:72,

                 from /lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/hardirq.h:6,

                 from nvhw.h:31,

                 from nvhw.c:16:

/lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/hw_irq.h:28: error: `NR_IRQ_VECTORS' undeclared here (not in                                        a function)

/lib/modules/2.6.8.1/build/include/asm/hw_irq.h:32: error: `NR_IRQS' undeclared here (not in a funct                                       ion)

make[2]: *** [nvhw.o] Fehler 1

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/downloads/nforce/nvaudio'

make[1]: *** [all] Fehler 2

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/downloads/nforce/nvaudio'

make: *** [nvaudio_make] Fehler 2

```

Can so help me out?

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## mattjgalloway

I have nForce 2 and I have never used the nforce-net or nforce-audio drivers. What are they for?

I use i810 in Alsa and my onboard net works even though hotplug complains that it can't find nvnet (even though I have emerged it).

What will the new drivers mean? Should I try and sort them out on my system?

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## isnogood

The main thing seems to be that audio is supported much better (hardware mixing and stuff)

Why they made it for OSS and not alsa is beyound me though.I'd try it but there are no speakers on my box right now anyway.

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## devast

 *mattjgalloway wrote:*   

> I have nForce 2 and I have never used the nforce-net or nforce-audio drivers. What are they for?
> 
> I use i810 in Alsa and my onboard net works even though hotplug complains that it can't find nvnet (even though I have emerged it).
> 
> What will the new drivers mean? Should I try and sort them out on my system?

 

Why ? Because the sound chip with i810 driver has the same features as my 10 years old soundblaster16... that's the point...

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## Anarcho

Can anybody tell me why I can't compile the drivers?

Errormessage above. It says that it can't find the irq_vectors.h 

I looked in the irq.h and there is a include for the file irq_vectors.h

but there is no such file in the dir, only in some subdirs.

But I can't believe that there is an error in the Kernel Include files...

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## lokojones

anarcho, do u really have the lastest nforce modules?

they provide an installer, so you dont need to compile it by hand.

anyway, u must be using old ones, in the new ones, the sound module is called nvsound, not nvaudio. ill provide the link for download.

Download the drivers from the link and simply run them as root

when its done, u've got to add the modules names to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.x ,where x is the version of your running kernel, so it loads them at boot-time. The names you've got to add to the list are nvnet and nvsound in different lines

uhm, other thing... gentoo portage has got a really old version of the drivers.. dont install them through emerge, its better manually, till gentoo updates portage with new ones

[/url]

http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nforce/1.0-0283/NFORCE-Linux-x86-1.0-0283-pkg1.run

[url]

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## IntergalacticWalrus

DAMNIT!!! Their new audio driver is closed source! What gives? Now the ALSA people won't be able to add their new stuff.

This new driver sounds cool and all, but I'm not really thrilled at the idea to switch from an open source ALSA driver to a closed source OSS driver. That's a pretty big step backwards.

Also, from what I can tell, I think the new hardware mixing support is only working with the Soundstorm chip. My nforce2 mobo has an ALC655 chip, so I guess it won't work.

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## Broot

Hahahahah way to get with the times, NVIDIA.

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## lokojones

their previous driver was closed source too... there has never been any open-source driver for nforce2, insted of it, we have always used i810 compatible module, that gives us just sound, without all the advantages that the nforce2 sound has. The only difference is that now, we can use 5.1 real sound, hw mixing... and that it works with 2.6.x kernels, not only with 2.4.x

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## IntergalacticWalrus

 *lokojones wrote:*   

> their previous driver was closed source too... there has never been any open-source driver for nforce2, insted of it, we have always used i810 compatible module, that gives us just sound, without all the advantages that the nforce2 sound has. The only difference is that now, we can use 5.1 real sound, hw mixing... and that it works with 2.6.x kernels, not only with 2.4.x

 

No, it really was open source. I already discussed this in another thread a few weeks ago.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=182466&highlight=

And BTW surround sound does work in the intel8x0 ALSA driver.

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## lokojones

Umh, couldnt the alsa team in that case develop a driver for the nforce2 sound without much effort? why havent they?

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## lokojones

think its just open-source but not GPL

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## IntergalacticWalrus

 *lokojones wrote:*   

> Umh, couldnt the alsa team in that case develop a driver for the nforce2 sound without much effort? why havent they?

 

What do you mean? The ALSA intel8x0 driver does have everything the previous (opensource) nvidia drivers had.

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## Plastic

The point is, these drivers are closed source and nvidia hasn't released enough details for the alsa people to make an nforce driver with hw mixing. And the installer fails on my machine saying invalid module format  :Crying or Very sad: 

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## lokojones

with the previous ones (a month old), with an app called nvaudio u could switch to 5.1, and the app is open source too...anyway, I dont think i810 has any single line code from nvidia's nvsound/nvaudio, just because i810 is a common one, nforce not; and because of nvidia's licence (giving their source doesnt mean that its GPL I think..)

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## Plastic

Anybody running these with 4k stacks and mregparm=3 ? I think this may be my problem...

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## Anarcho

I downloaded the package from there page, but from the german one.

It might be that they are not up to date. I will check it when I'm home.

But another question:

Am I able to get gamesound and Teamspeak-Sound with these drivers?

I really hope so!!!Last edited by Anarcho on Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:24 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Gentii

These drivers don't seem to that great... Nobody managed to get them working ? 

They are really bad for me atm. No sound in xmms, strikeforce crashed because of sound and the sound in quake 3 has a few seconds delay. Really awful. I'm emerging qt, I hope I'll be able to launch nvmixer after that and see if I can do something.

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## lokojones

Gentii, same problem here.. I've got qt merged and im able to switch outputs and that... I get 5.1 sound in quake (dont have that delay u are talking about) but I cant use xmms and xine too... anyway, I'm not sure if the driver works with alsa or only with oss, and u should try to configure your sound output in xmms (preferences, output plugin) For me, it still doesnt work this way  :Sad: 

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## lokojones

anarcho, its supposed to be that way.. but havent seen it yet : p

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## Anarcho

Ok, I took a quick look at the page and it is the 0274 Version, so I downloaded not the new one.

I will get the english one this afternoon.

What kernel settings do I need for these drivers? Do I only need the OSS drivers and should disable the ALSA drivers?

What is with sound out of two applications at the same time? How can I get this? I want to play UT2004 and talk with my clan-mates via teamspeak.

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## PrakashP

disable regparm, apic, alsa, enable oss support and module will load and work in a very unstable fashion.

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## Anarcho

finally downloaded the right driver, installed.

xmms -> no sound

mplayer -> don't play any movie

ut2004 -> crashes at startup

quake3 -> sound delay 

so...will get back to ALSA soon ....

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## bartek

1.How I can check if my nforce audio support hw mixing?

2.Anybody has any idea why in nvmixer when i change any of its setting nothing happens - i can mute master volume and I still can hear the music?

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## Plastic

Dang! These drivers suck! Freeze on module load for me, but I guess thats apic...

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## bartek

Arts - works

Mplayer (arts,oss) - works

ut2004demo - works

americas-army - works

but:

no hwmixing

nvmixer - doesn't work

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## PrakashP

You probably still use the plain ac'97 and not nvsound...

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## bartek

 *PrakashKC wrote:*   

> You probably still use the plain ac'97 and not nvsound...

 

how can i check that?

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## Gentii

 *Anarcho wrote:*   

> finally downloaded the right driver, installed.
> 
> xmms -> no sound
> 
> mplayer -> don't play any movie
> ...

 

It's nearly the same here. I thought these drivers will rock because of the hw mixing, but they suck too much. I'm switching back to alsa too.

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## lucf3r

Yeah I am having problems too.  XMMS works but unreliably.  Usually it hangs.  I can't get basic players to work.  There is a massive sound delay in ET.  I constantly get these messages from dmesg:

Nvsound: Value 20000c

Nvsound: fragment size 20 fragnum c

Nvsound: Set format as 10

Nvsound: Set format as 10

Nvsound: Nvaudio_release

This driver is alpha at best really.  Thanks for nothing Nvidia.  Next time if you don't have a WORKING driver don't bother.

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## godfather82

ive just recently installed the new nforce drivers from the nvidia page and am running an nforce2 chipset.  im using the 2.6 kernel with alsa compiled in.  i have sound from xmms and totem but would like to get all five of my speakers working with them.  currently i only have the front two and my sub channel.  does anyone have any ideas?  help would be greatly appreciated.

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## asciiwhite

finally downloaded the right driver, installed. 

 xmms -> no sound 

 mplayer -> don't play any movie 

 ut2004 -> crashes at startup 

 quake3 -> sound delay 

 so...will get back to ALSA soon ....

Are you using 2.6.X kernel and did you 'emerge alsa-driver', if so 

# emerge unmerge alsa-driver 

2.6.X comes with alsa support allready.

also

#emerge alsa-oss

for a alsa-oss wrapper.

#emerge alsa-utils

alot of games like quake/ut use openAL for audio which wrappes ontop of oss. 

Also what is your /etc/modules.d/alsa config like?

check out 

/var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules*

for some info on setting up the correct modules for alsa..

Dylan D.

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## lucif3r

Umm, I got news for you.  you should not have ANY ALSA installed if you are using these OSS drivers.  They are NOT ALSA drivers and are not compatible with ALSA whatsoever.

His results are the same as mine as far as I can tell.  I think the people who have had success are using the wrong driver.  They either emerged nforce-audio, which is an older driver, so not the driver we are talking about, or the forgot to turn of their current ALSA or OSS drivers so they are not using these drivers.

From what I can tell from both this forum and the NForcer's HQ form these driver work poorly at best.

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## sofcik

he's right , thats oss driver and alsa shoul be removed from kernel, in place there should be oss placed. After that kernel must be loaded without apic and module loads

For me:

xmms hang's

mplayer doesn't plat any movie

quake3 and ET work's great , better than alsa driver , and without any dealay !!

EDITED:

1st:   driver is donwloaded from nvidia , not portage

2nd:  using ck-sources-2.6.8.1-ck5 

3rd:  i have "noapic" in grub config ( as it is said by nvidia )

sound is better quality ( maybe i'm wrong ;d ) - is seems to be clear(er ) then alsa one and i don't work for nvidia ( if i could , i'd been working for ATI ;P )Last edited by sofcik on Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:51 am; edited 1 time in total

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## lucif3r

Really.  ET works without delay???  Wow.  What kernel are you using.  Can you e-mail me a copy of your .config? 

7cmn at qlink.queensu.ca (I DON'T LIKE SPAM! -Monty Python)

As for Mplayer, there is a trick that was posted on the NforcersHQ forums.

mplayer -channels 6

Apparently it helps although it did nothing for me.  Check this forum if you want more info on the drivers though.

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51343&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

PS: Better than the ALSA drivers?  I have zero delay with alsa in ET and the sound is definitely good.  Better how?  Do you work for NVidia?  :Wink: 

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## lasseo

I recently reinstalled gentoo os.

For sound I installed ALSA sound system with i810 driver. The sound works but when watching movie I get about 2 seconds missmatch between picture and sound.

As I remeber from my last installation I needed a .asoundrc file to get it work properly. Unfortunalety I have lost the one I had and I therefor ask you guys for hints.

When I saw the new nvsound driver from nvidia I went optimistic but after some testing I have not manage to get this driver working at all. Could someone give me a hint how to do it?

I did the following....

On my 2.6.8 kernel:

- removed alsa from default startup list.

- removed hotplug from the default list.

- recompile the kernel with OSS support, removed alsa support

- installed nvsound driver with nvidia script.

no problem to load nvsound module. But it does not work.

Trying the this command: "cat myFile.txt > /dev/dsp" returns "Illegal seek". KDE does not find the soundsystem.

Om my 2.4.27 kernel:

- compiled in sound support.

- try to install the nvsound modeule with nvidia script. -> gives kernel PANIC.

So can any body help me with getting the sound to work on my computer.

I do not know which driver I should choose, as for now , both ALSA and the nvidia driver kind of sucks.

Cheers

Lasseo

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## lucif3r

Well ALSA is definitely the most reliable and if set up correctly you should not have latency problems.

I would ask if you are using KDE and ARTS.  If so you may actually be playing sound through ARTS.  Which is going to have delays.  Also if you are using any of the software in kdemultimedia that all uses ARTS.  To fix delays go to the control panel, and sound and multimedia and change lower the buffer.  On a good comp you can easily set it below 100ms instead of the default 2000ms.

I like you would love to use the nvsound driver but it is nowhere near stabe.  I would put alsa back in if I were you.  

Also, plz tell me what movie program you are using.  I recomend mplayer (or kplayer for a GUI) and be sure ALSA is in your use variable list.  Mplayer is the most versatile player of all the players (and yes I have tried ALL of them).

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## agent_jdh

Be aware now that this new 2.6 compatible driver (v1.0-0283) now runs along the same lines as the nvidia video driver, i.e. both the audio and ethernet portions are a closed source binary with the only source available being the 'kernel interface portion' of the driver.

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## put

hi,

 *lasseo wrote:*   

> I recently reinstalled gentoo os.
> 
> I did the following....
> 
> On my 2.6.8 kernel:
> ...

 

I have the same problem: module is loaded but no sound.

 *lasseo wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Om my 2.4.27 kernel:
> 
> - compiled in sound support.
> ...

 

With kernel 2.4.27 no problems, but with the kernel 2.4.26-gentoo-r9 i get also kernel panic when the option preemptible is enabled.

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## lucif3r

Ok I recently cleaned up my machine and decided to give these another shot.  

So now:

-XMMS works with OSS driver

-Mplayer works with SDL driver (OSS hangs it but I am not using the other solutions I posted above)

- America's Army works with minimal latency (almost none)

- ET still has just under 1 second latency.  Totally unacceptable

- Didn't try UT2004 but that is SDL like AA so I imagine it is just as good.

I think anything that uses SDL is able to handle the latency problems.  For example Mplayer starts playing instantly with sound.  Things that use OSS directly have problems though.  XMMS is a program where latency less than a second or two really wouldn't be noticed.

So pretty good overall.  And yes the sound quality is better I think (at least for those who have soundstorm).   

Still puts out a crapload of kernel messages.  What is the deal with that?

I am also going to see if preemptable kernel helps with ET.  I have lowlatency on already, but preempt tends to crash my machine so... (crossing fingers).

Can't use NVMixer cause I don't have qt, but I think that program is a no-no, don't touch it.

Anyone else have any ideas for how to improve OSS latency in ET?

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## lucif3r

Ok I'm back.  Preempt is still hella unstable with the NF7-S board and it doesn't help anyways.  But I was thinking how it runs fine with SDL on top (which makes no sense).  Well you can't play ET with SDL but you can do it with ESD.  So I thought well the sound daemon should just make latency worse but why not.

So I ran 'esddsp -m --mmap et' and sure enough it was just as good as in AA.  You could tell there was the slightest latency but that is probably typical kernel crap (I bet with a 2.6 kernel and some of the schedulers there it would be better).

I am going to send an e-mail off to Nvidia telling them about this weirdness.  But for now as long as everything I use is working one way or another then I am sticking with this driver.

EDIT:  Ok real sorry I should have checked this first.  I re-ran it just for testing without esd and sure enough it works now.  No latency.  I really wish I could say what I did but I can't.  

It is possible it was related to not removing all the alsa stuff from modules.conf.  I had just done that and added the nvsound lines from the nvidia documentation.  Weird, I wish I knew what was the deal with these drivers.

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## lucif3r

Well just a few more notes on this.  The driver seems pretty reliable actually for playback.  It doesn't appear to be a standard OSS driver however and it has some quirks with OSS programs.

-Gstreamer doesn't want to play any sound, although it doesn't give me any errors.  ESD works as mentioned so I can get it working through ESD.

- Recording is spotty.  I have been able to record using 'dd' from the command line manually and it plays back so it is working.  I can't get it to work through gnome-sound-recorder though.  It uses gstreamer which produces no errors but doesn't work with OSS and with ESD it usually hangs and has to be killed.  Seems to be a problem with the osssrc plugin and the new module.

- Finally I was really hoping to get Teamspeak up and running with this.  But alas Teamspeak seems to hang instantly and it hangs the entire system.  Nothing works and it has to be hard booted.  I don't want to test that too much until I can figure out the problem is, but I imagine it is again due to the fact that this driver is not standard OSS.

If anyone has had success with Teamspeak or recording in Gnome please let me know so I can rule out the driver.

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## lucif3r

Ok now it isn't working again.  It looks like it has something to do with the sndspeed setting in etconfig.cfg. 

I have tried 11075, 22050 (it defaults to this), 44100 and 48000.  48000 has the best timing (no lag) but a lot of static for sound effects.  Lag gets progressively worse as wel go down.  I can't figure this out.  Anyone else?

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## pagerc@ufl.edu

This is my /etc/asound.conf.  I've tested it and can get alsaplayer, gaim, and mplayer all working seamlessly (no lag) together.  The dmix period and buffer stuff is what removes latency from the software mixing.  The default device should be given to mplayer -ao alsa1x:default filename.  Hopefully this helps you guys out.  I would avoid using the OSS drivers from nvidia because OSS is deprecated (i.e. going the way of the dinosaurs).  Using an alsa driver for your chipset will help in the long run.

pcm.snd_card {

        type hw

        card 0

}

pcm.dmix {

        type dmix

        ipc_key 1024

        slave.pcm "snd_card"

        slave {

                period_time 0

                period_size 1024

                buffer_size 8192

        }

        bindings {  

                0 0

                1 1

        }

}

pcm.dsnoop {

        type dsnoop

        ipc_key 2048

        slave.pcm "snd_card"

        bindings {  

                0 0

                1 1

        }

}pcm.duplex {

        type asym

        playback.pcm "dmix"

        capture.pcm "dsnoop"

}

###################

# CONVERSION PLUG #

###################

pcm.!default {

        type plug

        slave.pcm "duplex"

}

ctl.!default {

        type plug

        slave.pcm "snd_card"

}

########

# AOSS #

########

pcm.dsp0 {

        type plug

        slave.pcm "duplex"

}

ctl.dsp0 {

        type plug

        slave.pcm "snd_card"

}

ctl.mixer0 {

        type plug

        slave.pcm "snd_card"

}

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## lucif3r

Yeah there are several forums on using ALSA with the NForce sound and yes it works great, but if you are using OSS emulation with some programs you cannot use any other programs.

For example it is impossible to use Teamspeak and Enemy Territory at the same time.

That is why we want hardware mixing.  Also, hardware mixing reduces CPU load.

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