Re: high quality sound card ???

2007-08-20 Thread Cavan Mejias
as said above look up alsa (advanced linux sound architecture
alsa-project.org..). Its pretty comprehensive. Good luck

On 8/20/07, helices <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
>
> * "Douglas A. Tutty" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007:08:20:20:56:53-0400]
> scribed:
> > On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 06:34:04PM -0500, helices wrote:
> > > I am looking to add a high quality sound card to my amd64 system.
> > >
> > > Obviously, I want it supported on in Etch.
> > >
> > > Please, advise ...
> > >
> >
> > You need to provide more info.  How do you define high-quality?
> >
> > Until I got my recent box I was running with a SB16.  Now I'm using the
> > built-in sound on my Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe.  Huge difference.
> >
> > Under Etch, sound is handled by Alsa, so look through the alsa docs and
> > see.
> >
> > Doug.
>
> I was hoping to elicit kudos on everybody's favorite add-ons.
>
> Clearly, this is a personal thing.  My ml350 doesn't come with sound on
> the mainboard.  Needing to add it to this system, I want get as much
> value for the dollar as possible; albeit, some I've looked at do not
> appear to be supported under linux ;<
>
> I am NOT looking at $29 cards ...
>
> What do you think?
>
> --
> Best Regards,
>
> helices
> -
> Dare to fix things before they break . . .
> -
> Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
> we think we know.  The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
> --
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Re: high quality sound card ???

2007-08-20 Thread helices
* "Douglas A. Tutty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007:08:20:20:56:53-0400] scribed:
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 06:34:04PM -0500, helices wrote:
> > I am looking to add a high quality sound card to my amd64 system.
> > 
> > Obviously, I want it supported on in Etch.
> > 
> > Please, advise ...
> > 
> 
> You need to provide more info.  How do you define high-quality?
> 
> Until I got my recent box I was running with a SB16.  Now I'm using the
> built-in sound on my Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe.  Huge difference.
> 
> Under Etch, sound is handled by Alsa, so look through the alsa docs and
> see.
> 
> Doug.

I was hoping to elicit kudos on everybody's favorite add-ons.

Clearly, this is a personal thing.  My ml350 doesn't come with sound on
the mainboard.  Needing to add it to this system, I want get as much
value for the dollar as possible; albeit, some I've looked at do not
appear to be supported under linux ;<

I am NOT looking at $29 cards ...

What do you think?

-- 
Best Regards,

helices
-
Dare to fix things before they break . . .
-
Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
we think we know.  The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
--


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Re: high quality sound card ???

2007-08-20 Thread Douglas A. Tutty
On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 06:34:04PM -0500, helices wrote:
> I am looking to add a high quality sound card to my amd64 system.
> 
> Obviously, I want it supported on in Etch.
> 
> Please, advise ...
> 

You need to provide more info.  How do you define high-quality?

Until I got my recent box I was running with a SB16.  Now I'm using the
built-in sound on my Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe.  Huge difference.

Under Etch, sound is handled by Alsa, so look through the alsa docs and
see.

Doug.


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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Douglas A. Tutty
On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 09:20:00AM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:10:34PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> > I have an nVidia EN7300GT based card.  I'm quite happy with it when I
> > use the nVidia driver to watch DVDs.  With the nv driver the fine image
> > detail is less clear.  I'm assuming that this is because the nv driver
> > isn't accessing the hardware decoding engine.
> 
> Which player program, which X resolution, which refresh rate, etc.
> 
> > Are there any good video cards that do hardware decoding/accelleration
> > that use a free driver?
> 
> Well personally I just use mythtv or mplayer or xine or whichever I feel
> like to play DVDs, and I use the nvidia non-free drivers on a 6600gt,
> which has plenty of accaleration so my 700mhz athlon can keep up just
> fine.
 
> Well the hauppauge PVR350 has hardware mpeg2 encoder and decoder, but I
> guess it isn't really a video card unless you count using your TV as
> your display as being a video card (you can run fb console and X on it
> after all).

My only TV is a 17" 30 year old with poor vertical hold.

> 
> I somewhat doubt that a hardware decoder would make the quality any
> different.  Having a driver to accalerate the decoding should just
> reduce cpu load, not affect the quality.  Various filters and such in
> the application doing the playback on the other hand could affect it.

Hi Lennart,

I did a direct comparision of the nv driver with the debian-packaged
nvidia non-free driver.  The difference I noticed was with playing back
a DVD.  

Card: Asus EN7300GT silent (nVidia EN7300GT), 256 MB.
MB/CPU: Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe, Athlon64 3800+, 1x 1GB ram stick.
Display:  Intergraph 21" CRT at 1600 x 1200 x 32-bit, 85 Hz.

Test movie:  40th anniversary edition DVD of __The_Sound_of_Music__.
Ideal test scene, near the beginning where the Nuns are in the chapple,
shot on location, good contrast, facial details, candle flames, etc.

VLC setup:  full-screen (so the picture gets enlarged from the default
DVD), de-interlace blending.

Nvidia driver:  CPU 98% idle, little memory used.
fine detail clear, lines in old nun's face, great dynamic range (subtle
shading light to dark), clear definition around candle flame on dark
background, motion smooth.

nv driver:  CPU 94% idle, little memory used.
blurred fine detail, old nun has a younger (smoother) face, less dynamic
range (some dark details lost), candle flame blurred, motion slightly
rough.

Another good test scene: Maria in the Mother Superior's office, the
Nvidia driver lets the viewer see the MS's facial expression change as
Maria talks, with the nv driver you miss this subtle facial acting.

I too was surprised that having the hardware decoding made a qualatative
difference rather than just using more system resources.  

Thanks,

Doug.


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high quality sound card ???

2007-08-20 Thread helices
I am looking to add a high quality sound card to my amd64 system.

Obviously, I want it supported on in Etch.

Please, advise ...

-- 
Best Regards,

helices
-
Dare to fix things before they break . . .
-
Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
we think we know.  The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
--


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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Chris Ahlstrom
* Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 13:12:17 +0100]:

> On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 08:03 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> > * Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 12:06:05 +0100]:
> > 
> > > In short? AMD64 gives you 2GFLOPS per core per GHz. Core2 gives double
> > > that. It's a significantly faster floating point chip, albeit with
> > > significantly worse memory bandwidth.
> > 
> > Thanks!  Do you know of a URL that lays out all the plusses/minuses in a
> > convenient form.
> 
> Here's one: http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2007/08/msg00071.html

Let me ask a followup:

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2007/08/msg00072.html

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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Lennart Sorensen
On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 06:59:19AM -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> Why is a Core 2 system superior?  Just a few highlights, please.

The Core 2 can execute more instructions per clock cycle than the Athlon
64.  Especially the FPU is much faster on the Core 2.

Athlon 64 still wins on raw memory bandwidth, and has a nicer multi CPU
interconnect system (so for 4+ CPU systems the Opteron still beats the
intel nicely).

> (Not trying to start a war, I've just never found a good succinct
> summary, and I'm very happy with this AMG64.)

Well many people are hoping the new AMDs coming out in the next 6 to 12
month will be able to give intel a run for its money.  The PC world
always works better when intel isn't in the lead, but instead is trying
to catch up.

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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Lennart Sorensen
On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:10:34PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> I have an nVidia EN7300GT based card.  I'm quite happy with it when I
> use the nVidia driver to watch DVDs.  With the nv driver the fine image
> detail is less clear.  I'm assuming that this is because the nv driver
> isn't accessing the hardware decoding engine.

Which player program, which X resolution, which refresh rate, etc.

> Are there any good video cards that do hardware decoding/accelleration
> that use a free driver?

Well personally I just use mythtv or mplayer or xine or whichever I feel
like to play DVDs, and I use the nvidia non-free drivers on a 6600gt,
which has plenty of accaleration so my 700mhz athlon can keep up just
fine.

> I'm asking on this list since my box is an Athlon64 running amd64 and I
> don't know if, for example, there are fewer choices of free drivers for
> amd64.

Well the hauppauge PVR350 has hardware mpeg2 encoder and decoder, but I
guess it isn't really a video card unless you count using your TV as
your display as being a video card (you can run fb console and X on it
after all).

I somewhat doubt that a hardware decoder would make the quality any
different.  Having a driver to accalerate the decoding should just
reduce cpu load, not affect the quality.  Various filters and such in
the application doing the playback on the other hand could affect it.

--
Len Sorensen


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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Jo Shields
On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 08:03 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> * Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 12:06:05 +0100]:
> 
> > In short? AMD64 gives you 2GFLOPS per core per GHz. Core2 gives double
> > that. It's a significantly faster floating point chip, albeit with
> > significantly worse memory bandwidth.
> 
> Thanks!  Do you know of a URL that lays out all the plusses/minuses in a
> convenient form.

Here's one: http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2007/08/msg00071.html

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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Chris Ahlstrom
* Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 12:06:05 +0100]:

> In short? AMD64 gives you 2GFLOPS per core per GHz. Core2 gives double
> that. It's a significantly faster floating point chip, albeit with
> significantly worse memory bandwidth.

Thanks!  Do you know of a URL that lays out all the plusses/minuses in a
convenient form.

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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Jo Shields
On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 06:59 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> * Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 08:48:57 +0100]:
> 
> > On Sun, 2007-08-19 at 22:10 -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> > > 
> > > I'm asking on this list since my box is an Athlon64 running amd64 and I
> > > don't know if, for example, there are fewer choices of free drivers for
> > > amd64.
> > 
> > Free XvMC support is offered by Intel onboard graphics (which would
> > require moving to a superior core2-based system), ...
> 
> Why is a Core 2 system superior?  Just a few highlights, please.
> 
> (Not trying to start a war, I've just never found a good succinct
> summary, and I'm very happy with this AMG64.)

In short? AMD64 gives you 2GFLOPS per core per GHz. Core2 gives double
that. It's a significantly faster floating point chip, albeit with
significantly worse memory bandwidth.

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 ---
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   (__))\
  ||--|| *


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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Chris Ahlstrom
* Jo Shields <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-08-20 08:48:57 +0100]:

> On Sun, 2007-08-19 at 22:10 -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> > 
> > I'm asking on this list since my box is an Athlon64 running amd64 and I
> > don't know if, for example, there are fewer choices of free drivers for
> > amd64.
> 
> Free XvMC support is offered by Intel onboard graphics (which would
> require moving to a superior core2-based system), ...

Why is a Core 2 system superior?  Just a few highlights, please.

(Not trying to start a war, I've just never found a good succinct
summary, and I'm very happy with this AMG64.)

Thanks!

Chris

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Re: video card with hardware mpeg decoding with free driver?

2007-08-20 Thread Jo Shields
On Sun, 2007-08-19 at 22:10 -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> I have an nVidia EN7300GT based card.  I'm quite happy with it when I
> use the nVidia driver to watch DVDs.  With the nv driver the fine image
> detail is less clear.  I'm assuming that this is because the nv driver
> isn't accessing the hardware decoding engine.
> 
> Are there any good video cards that do hardware decoding/accelleration
> that use a free driver?
> 
> I'm asking on this list since my box is an Athlon64 running amd64 and I
> don't know if, for example, there are fewer choices of free drivers for
> amd64.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Doug.

Free XvMC support is offered by Intel onboard graphics (which would
require moving to a superior core2-based system), or by the S3/Via
"Chrome" series cards, e.g.
http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/chrome_s27/


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