Amiga audio early lead lost..

[ChaosLord]

Amigas have been using 64 tracks of 16-bit since forever.  Its called Octamed Sound studio.  Its free and fun to use.  Why aren't you using it?

Even in the old A500 7Mhz 68000 days you had 8 channels of 8-bit with Oktalyzer or 7 channels of 8-bit with TFMX.  But that was the 1980's.

In the 1990s lots of trackers came out that supported more than 8 channels and 16-bit samples.

Amiga moved on.  Did you?

[ChaosLord]

But the Amiga could fake it to more than adequately keep up with PC soundcards.

Why is it that when the Amiga uses the CPU to mix sound channels you say it is "faking it" but when 500 million bill gates compatible PCs use the CPU to mix sound channels its "4 realz dewd"?

The vast majority of bill gates compatible pcs do not have a sound card and never will have a sound card.  I certainly never had one on any of mine.  I never met any laptop that had a sound card plugged in.  I only met a few desktops that had one.  Most computers use cheap onboard audio chip.

My 1500 Mhz Athlon Windoze XP box uses the CPU to mix the audio channels when I run audio software that has 4 channels of audio.  My audio drops out all the time when the computer is under high cpu load.

[ChaosLord]

I think he's referring to the 14-bit hack that is used to approximate 16-bit sound.

oic.  In that case he should buy a 16-bit soundcard for his Amiga.

Or talk FPGAreplay or Natami into adding native 16-bit Paula.

[ChaosLord]

I dont need a soundcard - audio on chip is great.

My PC has a Realtek ALC892 audio chipset acording to the asus website :


How does this chip compare ?

Yes that is exactly what I meant by a cheap onboard sound chip.

When you play a mod on that sound chip, 4 channels or 64 channels, it doesn't matter:  The CPU has to do all the work of mixing the soundchannels together which is exactly what Amiga Oktalyzer and TFMX have been doing since the 1980s and Octamed Sound Studio and Digibooster and others have been doing since 1990s.

At least Paula can mix 4 channels together for free on its own.  Your cheap onboard sound chip can't even do that.

At least Paula accepts a wide variety of sample rates.  Your cheap onboard soundchip can't.  It just laughs at you and lazily refuses to play any sound that has not been laboriously resampled by the CPU to one of the few frequencies that it can handle.

[ChaosLord]

It has 10 24-bit DACs capable of 192kHz playback that can be multiplexed down into a single stereo stream (for instance, when using headphones). In what sense is it not capable of mixing channels?

Because it has 10 wires.
Because it does not mix the 10 audio streams.
Because it does not support any kind of useable sampling rates.
Because nobody writes 10 channel mods.
Because nobody writes mods using 100% 44.1Khz sample speed.
Of all the sample speeds used in a random mod, this sound chip supports between 0% and 1% of the required sample rates.

It only outputs what the CPU has already mixed itself into 7.1 format or into 2 channel stereo format.

Either way the sound chip does almost nothing.  Its just 10 dumb DACs sitting there waiting to be spoonfed data from the CPU.

Its not a Paula or anything of that technology level.

[ChaosLord]

Did you miss the part about 10 DACs?

Did you miss the part where the CPU does all the mixing itself?

 Really, didn't the 7.1 part get through to you?

The definition of 7.1 is not mixed.  It is 7 discrete sound channels that are not mixed.  Each channel goes to a separate speaker.

If you want mixing done you must use the CPU to do it.  This sound chip is 10 dumb DACs.  They just sit there refusing to do anything until the CPU has done all the work of mixing a 64 channel mod into either A) Stereo format or B) 7.1 format.

How do you think a 12 channel mod would magically play on this sound chip?
The sound chip does not support 12 channels.
The sound chip does not support mods.
The sound chip does not support 8-bit samples. (most mods have 1 or more 8bit samples in them)
The sound chip does not support variable playback frequencies so by definition it cannot ever play a mod.

 Do you have an issue with reading comprehension?

Do u?

 That's 7 individual channels.

Exactly.  Now u r getting it.

7 individual unmixed sound channels.

7 channels is like 1980s TFMX or Okalyzer.  Your sound chip can match a 7Mhz Motorola 68000.  I am impressed.

Since nobody writes 7 channel mods for decades the sound chip can't play them.  Its up to the CPU to render your 24 channel mod down into 7.1 format and to scale all the sample rates up or down as required.  All the mixing work is done by the CPU.

 These chips are a lot more competent than you make them out to be.

No.  They are a lot less competent since I never even got started on its complete lack features.

You are naive to think that the function of modern PC sound chips is limited to CPU based software mixing.

You are naive to think otherwise.
I am sure u could somehow buy such a soundcard as u r dreaming of.
Nobody would be using it and thus nobody would support it with software so it would not be particularly relevant.
The other 99.999% of ppl with intel compatible computers would still be using lame nonmxing cpu-driven soundchip.  Somebody cut&pasted a feature list into the thread a while back.  Perhaps you missed it?

Here is a quote:

All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate

Notice how it refuses to accept 99% of all existing sample rates?
Wanna play a mod?  It tells you to go screw yourself until you have the CPU do all the mixing itself and convert all samples into one of those 4 formats and convert all 64 tracks down into 7.1 format (or stereo format).

You have obviously never made a mod before or you would understand that you can't make a mod with only 4 sample rates.  Especially not those 4 particular sample rates.

Good lucking trying to make music where every note sounds exactly the same.

[ChaosLord]

BTW, where the hell did you get the idea that the Amiga can mix 4 channels together for free?

It is practically free.  It uses hardware double buffering.  It uses DMA.  The Paula chip is its own processor that processes information on its own.  It does need a little supervsion from the CPU so its not 100% free, just 95% free.

[ChaosLord]

@Chaoslord I don't mean to be rude, but your rantings are just insane... I love the colour Paula's audio reproduction, but it is far from a "good" sound chip. Even in the mid 80's it was simply "good enough" (ie better than the competition) at the price point.

All u r saying is "I wish Paula had 16-bit audio output".  Well everyone wants that.  Of course it would be better.  Its a tiny tiny design change to Paula but Mehdi Ali would not allow it.  Oh well.

You go on about the fixed frequency of modern sound chips, but that is the best way to get accurate audio reproduction...

Guess what?  Paula can do fixed frequency too.

[ChaosLord]

No, it can do fixed period. They aren't quite the same. You can't play a 22050Hz stream because there's no integer value you can divide either the PAL or NTSC clock by to get that value. The closest you can get with PAL is ~22030Hz.

Paula does fixed frequency of 22030hz in PAL or any of a wide range of other values.

And btw: I tried to convince Gunnar that Natami Paula needs a special fix to be able to generate 44100Hz exactly.  But he repeatedly rejected the idea as unnecessary and silly and pointless.  What is your opinion on that?

[ChaosLord]

It simply doesn't mix 4 channels together. It mixes channels together in pairs to two different outputs. I.E. sure, you could set it up to output four channels without using any CPU, but nope, it doesn't mix them all together.

 True that it mixes 2 channels to the left and 2 to the right.  But it does not require you to use the CPU to resample all the sounds to a specific frequency.  It supports a giant range of frequencies and just mixes the different samples of different frequencies together like magic.  And it does the mixing on its own with DMA.  One DMA channel per DAC.

[ChaosLord]

The Amiga's low pass filter is far too low to leave enabled when you're outputting 44k. Even with normal rates it sounds too muddy.

 I agree.  I always turned my filter off and left it off.

However at some point a new Amiga came out that had much brighter audio.  It sounded sooooo much better.  I can't remember if it was the A3000 or A1200 but it was one of those.  I donno what they did but the audio was noticeably brighter.

I still have my ghettoblaster too (picture isn't mine... but it looks the same) and the fake surround and 3d bass really made the amiga sound great.

I donno what 3D bass is but I have always used a Sony stereo with a "Surround Sound" button that makes the Amiga's audio sound fantastically awesome!  It completely removes that wide separation thing and makes listening on headphones a wonderful audiophonical experience.