PCITV author Simon Wilson has released an early version of a Soundblaster Live driver for the Iyonix platform. The software can play sound through a Live 5.1 PCI card and can be modified to support Audigy devices. It's believed the project will bring a new level of audio quality to the RISC OS 5 computer.Simon created the RISC OS driver by porting the open source EMU10K1 driver software for Linux. It's hoped a future version will also support the card's input mixer, recording features and MIDI support. The software is being released for free with source code.
Simon said: "Many users, including myself, reported a crackling problem with the on-board Iyonix audio, which occurs on sounds that are high pitched, or high in volume. The Soundblaster Live card, being a dedicated audio board, does not suffer from these problems.
"The sound quality is amazing, and makes listening to music on RISC OS enjoyable again."
The finished driver will be a module, possibly working as a SoundDMA replacement, and will integrate with the RISC OS sound system transparently, according to Simon who is being given a helping hand by Aemulor author Adrian Lees.
• This early version is fixed to play 16bit linear stereo samples, such as standard Windows .wav files. It can be run from a taskwindow using the command
sblive_play <filename>. The taskwindow should be given as much memory as the size of the sample file plus a couple of extra megabytes. The original SB Live cards will not fit in the Iyonix.Links
Simon's audio driver website - more information to be published later
All about the Soundblaster Live