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What's A Good Way To Handle Multiple /dev/dsp's?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-one-just-isn't-good-enough dept.

kronoman asks: "I've got a multiple-soundcard setup (three cards, four DSP devices) under Mandrake 7.0. Currently, I have an Ensoniq ES1371 on /dev/dsp0 and /dev/dsp1, an SB AWE64 on /dev/dsp2 and an AU8830 on /dev/dsp3. I'm already using ESD to send all ESD sound (especially xmms/mpg123) to /dev/dsp3, and timidity and kmidi use /dev/dsp1. I want to use /dev/dsp2 for emulator output and /dev/dsp for system sound and programs not smart enough to be able to put sound anywhere else. Unfortunately, most of my emus only want to output to /dev/dsp (in particular, UAE, Bochs, Snes9x). Is there a way to either A) get those emus to send output to /dev/dsp2 or B) get kaudioserver/kwmsound to output on a different DSP device (can't seem to find it in the docs, don't know enough C/C++ to find it in the source without some clue what to look for)"

3 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Similar problem with CD-ROMs by Tet · · Score: 3

    I have a similar problem with CD-ROMs. Far too many apps use /dev/cdrom, and assume it'll be pointing to the right place. I have both a CD-ROM and a CD-RW in my machine, and obviously can't have /dev/cdrom pointing to both...

    --
    "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
  2. Patch for UAE 0.7.6 by retep · · Score: 3

    I just made a patch for UAE 0.7.6 that adds a -e option that allows you to specify the device used for sound output. Download it here. To apply it simply go into your UAE source directory and type patch -p0 < patchfile where patchfile is the patch you want to apply.

    I hope this helps.

  3. Solaris solution? by larien · · Score: 3
    Not much help to you in this case, but Solaris recommends this in man audio:
    As some systems may contain more than one audio device, application writers are encouraged to query the AUDIODEV environment variable. If this variable is present in the environment, its value should identify the path name of the default audio device.
    Thus, you would use something like:
    char *dev;
    dev=getenv("AUDIODEV");
    if ( dev == NULL )
    dev = "/dev/audio"; /* or /dev/dsp in linux */
    and now you could use dev in open() calls.

    Perhaps we should recommend this for all app writers under linux?
    --