Buzzerman

I've seen a few old posts around here mentioning a (couple of) developer/debugging tool (named 'spy_cmd' or sometimes just 'spy' for read-only access) that used with giveio.sys can allow one to snoop around and even set some DSP parameters, even under Creative/E-mu original drivers.. Unfortunately all the links I found are dead.. Any chance someone has the spy_cmd.exe and can it be made available again somewhere, or perhaps just e-mail it to me -- let me know with a PM or so if you can do that? I guess we need Eugene's permission for that -- but I am not sure if he's still following these forums.

Since I am still stuck with Creative drivers until SF support improves under kX (if ever..), I keep bumping into the routing and configuration limitations of the retarted Creative drivers for my Audigy 2 -- and now that I've seen what kX can do and how many things CAN be done better, I am wondering if I could use spy_cmd or something like that to "tweak" the 10k2 chipset under Creative drivers, just to try and change little things, see what's possible under their drivers without completely breaking them... I know it's dangerous but I am not afraid of BSODs or audigycide , of course I am willing to take full responsibility for whatever damage I may produce to my own computer/audio equipment .

Thanks a lot!

Russ

The only program I have seen/used is one at the Emu10k1 Independent Programmers Site. AFAIK, it is still there, but to do what you want is probably more complicated than what you might be thinking...

i.e.
IIRC, the program does not work with newer (than WinME) versions of Windows.

I am not sure which models it supports.

It is all low level stuff.

i.e.
It is possible to read/write to the DSP, but you are working with the raw bytes. It is not going to be like kX where you can list each plugin, and list the code and registers for each plugin, etc. First you have to figure out how to read/write to the DSP in the first place (i.e. figure out which addresses to read). Then you would have translate the raw bytes to DSP instructions, and then understand everything enough to figure out what are physical inputs/outputs, and plugin I/O's and where each plugin starts and ends, and what the code is doing, etc. Again, it is fairly complicated...

Buzzerman

Well, I expected it to be raw access, and I am talking about the one utility that surely works with audigy 2 and it should work in windows xp if giveio.sys is loaded -- like I see in this 2005 post:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/general-...tml#post529818

I do expect it to get complicated -- I was also hoping to find some documentation about those commands, it seems that some of the kxctrl commands also work with that utility. It's true that I am rather clueless right now when it comes to those raw commands, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do what I really have in mind -- specifically to be able to "inspect" the CT routing (?) and perhaps even attempt to change some of that while still under CT drivers.. it doesn't matter if that breaks some of the features in the CT driver, like gaming or 3D/surround sound support, I don't really care about those, only the hardware soundfont synth and ASIO/FX routing are my interests right now..

Russ

Yeah, that one looks like a different program (or maybe a newer version)... I do not know anything about it (I would not mind taking a look at it myself).

Max M.

i'd suggest you to contact Eugene via email (it's unlikely he'll read this thread soon).
anyway don't expect too much from it - i suspect it's more likely the utility is totally useless for your goal. maybe if you named "the routing and configuration limitations" you plan to overcome specifically - you get more hints on what's possible, what's not and where to start
(for example you won't be able to affect the soundfont synth in anyway by changing whatever registers simply because the driver programs the corresponding set of registers for each voice right before it's played... etc.)

__________________

Lex Nahumury

It is possible to change the routing by changing the DSP firmware in the CL driven card.
Basicly you would want to connect the correct fxbusses to the correct outputs.
The quick & dirty way is to replace the entire DSP content.
The big problem however is that the CL driver + CL apps may want to read/write to certain DSP locations that are no longer 'valid' causing all kinds of havok.
It has been a while I've done all this, but IIRC it kinda worked as long as I didn't invoke certain CL applets/functions.
(can't remember the details)

What you need is giveio.sys and some C programming knowledge to write a simple console app.
Basicly you would;
- scan the pci bus for the card
- retrieve it's base register
- clear the DSP
- write custom DSP content into the card

One way of making a custom DSP image is to build one in kX DSP and dumping it's content into an array.

Well, like I said, this is the quick & dirty way.
Only do this if you have lot's of time to kill and enjoy messing around with low level hw programming.
Practicly all CL card related programming info can be found in 8010.h and ALSA driver source code.

Buzzerman

Excellent info, thanks Max and Lex (also many thanks for your great work on these drivers and related DSP utilities!)

Lex really hit the nail in the head there, that's exactly what I want to do.
I do have C/C++ programming experience (though not low-level driver-writing or DSP programming experience) and I'm going to look into that ALSA header -- now that I know where to look.
Thanks a lot for the advices and guidance.

Lex Nahumury

Keep in mind that in the 'hack' I described, you can only alter "what's going on in the DSP part".
As such, you can only alter the routing in the DSP part.
For example (and as Max already pointed out), you can *not* change how and to what fxbuss Soundfont Playback is routed. (that is done by the driver)
But once in DSP, you can pick up that fxbuss signal and route it where you like.

Good luck.