Open Sound System for Haiku

cocobean · March 19, 2019, 5:34pm

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Series with Haiku R1B1 release

OSS v4.2 Build 2019 was recently released.

I’m going to start supporting Creative SoundBlaster sound card hardware for Haiku for semi-pro/pro-level device driver development. I’ll support more audio chips and soundcards as time permits.

If you’re having audio problems with any of the default audio drivers, please fill out a bug report under Drivers->Audio. OSS-specific issues goes under Drivers->Audio->OpenSound.

If you are still having problems with OSS 4.2, I’ll consolidate the info here so we can assist in fixing a few things before the R1B2 release this Sept.

NOTE:
For testing and review, blacklist a non-working default Haiku audio driver (i.e. hda, emuxki, …) by creating a ‘packages’ file in /boot/system/settings with this content:

```
Package haiku {
	EntryBlacklist {
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/auich
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/auvia
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/cmedia
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/echo3g
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/emuxki
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/es1370
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/hda
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/ice1712
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/sb16
		add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin/sis7018
	}
}
```

pkgman install opensound
System reboot and restart media_server. Check for media_addon_server activity.
Check for any muted or incorrect audio settings in MIDI, HD Audio, Audio mixer areas.
Test audio line out and CD playback (MP3/WAV audio formats) w/MediaPlayer (headphone test).
Test audio line in/microphone sound recording w/SoundRecorder (mic test).

waddlesplash · March 19, 2019, 11:42pm

Now this is news to me, and I’m the tentative release coordinator!

This fall is just R1/beta2, not R1.

Yes, and it contains 0 changes to drivers. In fact the drv directory in the official release image has not been touched since 2015. So I sincerely doubt it will support any new HDA hardware; and we of course are not going to modify it; it’s intended for legacy devices, not new ones.

We need to fix our HDA driver, that’s for sure, but at this point I think it’s more advanced than OSS’ is.

cb88 · March 20, 2019, 8:04pm

It is worth noting you can’t even buy the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro anymore.

Something that didn’t exist back then as well is higher quality USB sound devices… which seems to be one of the things waddlesplash is intending to support, when adding isosynchronous support to the USB stack.

cb88 · March 21, 2019, 8:24pm

I’m aware, but Ebay isn’t a real solution… as it will dry up quickly. You can’t say, base a business around the supply of used sound cards on ebay.

I already have an HT Omega Claro Halo

dwt · March 21, 2019, 8:54pm

I dunno, I used to work for one of the world’s biggest banks who had to scrounge parts for a server they refused to replace on eBay. When said procurement failed, there was one logic board to share between two sites (primary and backup) which required an engineer to take a taxi at 2am when either node failed

I’m not joking, either.

cb88 · March 21, 2019, 9:09pm

Yes, I know, it happens doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea.

Also, chances are they could have ran that system on either an emulator or newer machine, almost all big iron hardware has things like that available. Anyway kinda OT.

SCollins · March 28, 2019, 12:05am

haiku supports ice1724, which is most proaudio cards with real io

cb88 · March 28, 2019, 3:39pm

Where can you even buy those? I only see the Maya44 for sale… is that the currently active card do we know if it works?

extrowerk · March 28, 2019, 7:41pm

Before somebody runs to buy an USB external device from this list, refer: External usb Soundcard for haiku? which is still true.

SCollins · March 29, 2019, 12:48am

I have a Detla1010, it also works. can’t remeber the chipset, but it is in tons of stuff and even the midi works last I tested.

cb88 · March 29, 2019, 3:07am

Looks cool and quite a few on ebay still… sadly appears to be out of production.

SCollins · April 1, 2019, 4:56pm

it’s Envy24 chip from Via, still in production, and used in a lot of sound cards, no shortage, I think Maudio just update to PCI EX

cb88 · April 1, 2019, 6:53pm

Most motherboards omit legacy PCI these days so not that useful… and it would be a completely different chip for PCIe.

SCollins · April 3, 2019, 9:25pm

Maudio did produce pciE cards, and they are out there in the market. Point is if you want a pro audio card, haiku already has a driver for the envy24 chipset.

cocobean · October 15, 2026, 1:45pm

As for the project, I finalized the X-Fi driver with SoundFont 2.0.4 support as a separate project

I had the legacy Audigy2 and Audigy4 cards - but these are no longer popular in the 2026 marketplace. Tested the latest OSS v4.2 project from GitHub which compiles now on Haiku R1B6 (provided patches).

Basically, I got all of my Creative Labs sound cards to work on Haiku. As for OSS, a few legacy pro-level audio cards don’t have native drivers for Haiku. Suggest focusing on UAC and HDA as a modernized approach.

brunobastardi · October 15, 2026, 2:38pm

So my SoundBlaster Live will have to go?

cocobean · October 15, 2026, 2:54pm

Unofficially, yes. Although, I thought you have this card working on Haiku already…?

brunobastardi · October 15, 2026, 2:56pm

It was working before Beta6, have to try it tomorrow.
Was not easy to get the driver loding!
The volume bar is reversed too, green is red and red is green.

jscipione · October 15, 2026, 4:04pm

Having messed with the volume replicant I can tell you that the green and orange colors are based on the db value it receive. Green is for non-positive (negative or 0) and orange is for positive db values. So the only reason I can think that the green/orange colors would be reversed is if the db values are sign reversed coming out of the driver.