Eugene Gavrilov

Hi guys,

I'm not sure whether you've noticed , but kX Project is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary soon. I would like to polish 3550 release and fix most of the present issues caused by Windows 7 compatibility and recent code changes..

Fixes and changes to existing driver code:

* Fixed issue with Wave HQ unsupported in Windows 7 (should work with all p16v-compatible cards now)
* Fixed mapping for Audigy2 ZS notebook side outputs
* Fixed kX Mixer memory leak (system hangs while HDD activity is high, kxmixer allocates a lot of memory), specific to Windows 7
* Fixed kX Mixer combo boxes showing no settings, empty lists (SPDIF and similar options), specific to Windows 7
* Added support for 32/64 ASIO clients under x64 OS (new feature)
* Improved 32/64-bit installer with support for UAC
* Fixed ASIO registration issues under x64 OS
* Fixed issue with ASIO driver not showing correct device names (you may see a UAC message when starting kX Mixer, this is OK)
* Installer updated, removed several shortcuts, added new ones, simplified installing, removed legacy code
* Fixed AC3 decoding not working under x64 OS
* Fixed AC3 passthrough problem introduced in 3543, should work fine now for Audigy/Audigy2

SDK:
0. License agreement is GPL now
1. Changed ‘char *’ to “const char *” in most places, some plugins might no longer load, need to update and re-compile them
2. KX_MAX_NAME is now obsolete, use KX_MAX_STRING [set to 128 by default]
3. More parts of the driver released open-source under GPL
4. OS X driver released opensource (without kX HAL though, just CoreAudio layer)

Here's the list of the problems I'm currently working on (cannot promise I fix them, but I'll do my best):

* improve audio quality for master mixer under windows 7
* memory leak in directsound applications (need more input on this in corresponding thread)
* sfman32 is not functioning properly because it (and kxapi.dll) are not located in system32 folder
* IR remote/multimedia keyboard under Win64
* soundfonts under x64

Please let me know if I missed some critical and serious bugs:
Post a link to the corresponding thread and a brief description of the problem. Please ensure the issue IS present in 3550 before posting.
Please do NOT post your feature requests here, this will make this thread completely unreadable and useless. And if you save my time browsing the forum, I will spend it more efficiently on bugfixing, not reading/searching/answering/...

Thank you,

E.

Russ

There is the issue with certain plugins (e.g. FxMix) causing kX (64 bit only) to hang.
e.g.
See Here: (win7 64) double clicking on FXmixer hangs system.

And of course there is still the issues (that you are aware of, or course) with Master Mixer (Windows 7/Vista). (i.e. the noise issue, and the issue of how stereo audio is routed). I do not know if you can do anything about either of these issues, but I thought I should mention them since they are probably the most commonly talked about issues (most people do not use Master Mixer because of this (they use Wave 2/3 or AC3/SPDIF instead, but this does not work for people who have audio with more than 2 channels, etc)).

Eugene Gavrilov

Hi Russ, glad to see you

Thank you, yes, the issue with 'hangs' you are talking about is number #3 in my list (already fixed, used to be #6 in my original post). It took about 2 hours to figure this out, since every 'wrong' guess costed me 10 minutes of a locked-up system

I have started a new thread dealing with Vista/Win7-specific issues related to FXBus and buffer size.

E.

jaromanda

when you say "fixed it already", you mean in an as yet unreleased update? or should these problems be fixed in 3550? because #1 definitely is not fixed in 3550

__________________
Feed your head.

Russ

Hi E ,

Just to clarify, I was NOT saying that multichannel audio does not work with Master Mixer (AFAIK, it does work).

Also, I do not have Vista/7, so I cannot verify anything myself...

The main issue was noise, and the secondary issue was that stereo audio (using Master Mixer) gets routed to FxBus 2/3, 4/5, or 6/7, instead of FxBus 0/1. The routing issue causes people to have to redo the routing in the DSP in order to enable upmixing, etc, and thus makes it impossible to have one DSP config that will work for both multichannel audio and stereo audio. Due to one, or both of these issues, many people opt to use one of the other wave devices as the default (often AC3/SPDIF since it uses FxBus 0/1 and thus allows upmixing, etc in default DSP config without modification). but since none of the other wave devices are multichannel capable, this workaround (as expected) is no good for multichannel audio sources, etc.

In any case, hopefully other people will post their results in the other thread.

Thanks again (as always)

nakamichi

Serious bugs and regressions in 3550:

1. WASAPI exclusive mode doesn't work under Windows 7 64-bit with a SB0240 (Audigy2 retail). Tested with all major audio players (XMPlay, foobar2000 and others). Using 'Master Mixer' as the audio device. I always get this error message: "output format not supported".

NOTE: all audio players tested are 32-bit applications.

Tried every kX driver and audio player setting - it just doesn't work

Some people report that WASAPI exclusive is working with the Audigy2 ZS, but it doesn't work with the normal Audigy2.


2. Recording through the UDA codec doesn't work with the SB0240 (normal Audigy2 retail). Only AC97 recording works. Tested with ProFX as well.


3. Under Windows XP 32-bit, there are some major regressions:

- DirectSound (acceleration) doesn't work anymore
- WaveHQ output is broken
- The installer fails to auto-reboot the computer
- ASIO performance is noticably worse than with the previous drivers

4. Windows 7 needs (more than) double the DirectSound buffer size (compared to Windows XP) for crackle-free sound in all applications.

Russ

@nakamichi

Regarding #2:
I suspect that issue may be with your card only (i.e. maybe a hardware issue, or some corruption in the hardware registers?). Has anyone else with a SB0240 confirmed this? In this thread (post #62), it seems that UDA did work for Max M. and his SB0240.
Have you ever tried "Reset AC97" and "Reset Hardware Settings" to see if it makes a difference? Were you ever able to go back and find an older version of kX in which it does work for you?

Regarding #3 and DirectSound:
I would guess that E. is probably gonna need more information...

Clayman1979

Hi, Eugene.

There is well known bug missing in your list -- noise in LineIn2 of external drive of Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (SB0360). AFAIK this bug is unfixable due the lack of documentation on how to initialize it.
I fix it by unplugging power cord off the drive and then plugging it back in. Maybe such "reboot" could be done by software methods?

Dave_Scream

Eugene release please half-fixed 3550... i hate this crackles... cant work with it.
People say that 3541 is most stable version here, but it even wont run on my W7 32bit 4gb Ram...

what can i do? i dont wanna hear this crackles

Eugene Gavrilov

status updated

E.

nakamichi

Awesome!

This means kX users can finally delete the 32-bit OS they're still keeping on a second partition and use Win7 x64 exclusively

Jani-

Oh, I was just about to go to back to my integrated sound card, because there were no good drivers for my needs. But this sounds awesome!

Eugene Gavrilov

3551 is out, this thread is closed
3550 is no longer supported officially...

E.