Toccata soundcard

[lillPiP]

Hi!

To use the Toccata soundcard for playing MP3's is it possible? Or is it better to use the Delfina?
Will there be any CPU-load with the Toccata?

Kind regards
//Peter

[Robert17]

Well, I have a Prelude Soundcard, and the load would be quite severe if you're using a 68060, not so bad if you have PowerPC, if you have anything less than an 060, the Delfina would be great, as it can play MP3s in hardware, with very little CPU load, but bear in mind if you have a zorro equipped amiga, you'll need a zorro card with a clockport on it, as only the clockport version of the Delfina is available new nowadays

Hope this answers your question

Robert

[Kraftwerk]

I use both a Tocatta and AD516 in my A4000 with a Cyberstorm PPC 233 and they both run just fine with AmigaAMP under AHI.

[Crusher]

@Kraftwerk, are you able to do anything else the same time you´re playing MP3´s?
What´s your AmigaAMP-config?

I´m asking because I have some trouble to surf at the same time I´m using AmigaAMP and my AD516.  :-)

[Framiga]

i personally, use SongPlayer with WOS mpega.library with no impact during the use of 68K apps (browsing an so).

[samanosuke]

Songplayer rules. I was so impressed by the quality it knocks out just using the Paula chip that I've given up on the idea of a soundcard altogether. Framiga, do you have PPC or are you telling me an '060 can cope with web browsing at the same time as Mp3 playback? It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that I haven't tried using the 'net on my A4K for years as I don't have a network card. I still have my modem but I couldn't bear the thought of using 56k again.

[CU_AMiGA]

Hey Yo!

I was using Song Player and using the ASp Spectrum emulator in one move! :-) But i had to lower the mp3 quality to around 22khz! Still good though. Song Player rules (and ASp), both are highly optimised!

Regards,

[darksun9210]

using a toccata sound card is possible, as it is supported in AHI, but its an old card, and doesn't carry any funky dsp's or anything to help decode mp3s. its just a 16bit D/A A/D converter with some buffering, so all the work of decoding and mixing the audio is going to be done by the CPU. 040 and upwards cpu wise really. least with the tocatta, your CPU doesn't have to do any downsampling like dumping it into paula.

the delfina has a dsp processor so you can have it playing your mp3s without having to worry about it chewing up any CPU time. or so i belive...

on a side note, how are you using your AD516 to play MP3s? the AHI driver i had was highly experimental and you had to have Studio16 running in the background for it to work. very crashy. :-D

[PiR]

CU_AMiGA wrote:
Hey Yo!

I was using Song Player and using the ASp Spectrum emulator in one move! :-) But i had to lower the mp3 quality to around 22khz! Still good though. Song Player rules (and ASp), both are highly optimised!

Regards,

Geee, man!!!

You should be covered with gold for this info.
I thought that all we can get is ZXAM and nothing better is available, but yesterday I've downloaded and tried ASp ad couldn't find my eyes back on the floor, after they fall off my head...

PiR

P.S.: Wasn't that kind of Out Of Topic? :lol:

[number6]

Hi,

I also have toccata in A4000 warpengine 040/40.
I enjoy Songplayer as well.

Personally, with the hardware listed, I have had to adjust
"quality", "division frequency", "Max frequency" depending
on the MP3 program I use.

One very nice thing about Songplayer is the "CPU usage
window", which can be very helpful with adjusting settings.

In my system, I cannot use any MP3 player at full quality.

Hope this helps someone.

[Kraftwerk]

Yeah, I am able to do things just fine while using the
Tocatta. no problems at all.

My AmigaAMP setup was to use the WarpUP engine, so I had minimal 68K useage.

 

[Kraftwerk]

The latest AHI driver for the AD516 does not require Studio 16 to be loaded in the background. It works just fine as a stand alone AHI driver.

I have used the Toccatta, AD516 and Concertio (all in the same machine) and they all run fine using the WarpUP engine at max sound quality with the max file buffer. It also works with lower buffers, but I figure I have the memory so what the heck.

[aggro_mix]

Digging up a very old topic here

Would the DSP on the AD516 (Analog Devices 2105 DSP 10 MIPS, 100 ns instruction execution time) be good enough to play mp3 files if someone wrote a driver/program for it, similar to the Delfina. Or is it simply a too old DSP?

I know nothing about these things....