EzAudDac Alpha release: Cheap DACing!

oops, just fried my sound card :(

I changed which channels XY command were coming out of in attempt to use Zoofscope. (BTW laseroids and laser tennis both worked! awesome!) While I was probing signals to figure out what the new XY signals were, something happened and now no more sound card...

Barold

Shut down everything and let the computer PS caps discharge for a while. You might have just shorted your system into a fault state. There is a lot going on in that PS. If that doesn't work, try a different PCI slot. If that doesn't work, try the sound card in another PC. If that doesn't work, thow it in a dumpster.

James. :)

It's alive!! I tried turning it off a few times, but all it would do is tell me there was hardware to install, but it couldn't install the driver. I guess third try was a charm! I also just wiggled everything attached to the sound card (very technical troubleshooting) and its up and running again. PHEW!

Barold

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drlava

I have the scanner audio card as a secondary, so the music doesn't overlap the data..
l

---

Back on topic... How did you do this? Were you still able to play waves created in LaserBoy?

Barold

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carmangary

There is a bit of a problem getting it to work with Spaghetti right now because Windows wants to make the USB sound card the default device for playing sound. I need to figure out how to force it to play audio via a specified sound device. It's probably as simple as setting a parameter on the audio device but I need to look into it. I'll look into that later tonight and see what I can find out.

I'm also currently adding the sound card driver to the drop down list so that you won't have to install the driver yourself. It will come with Spaghetti. The ini file will still need to be configured. It would be nice to be able to send the settings to the driver via an API call instead of (or in addition to) using the ini file.

---

I looked into this and here is what I found out. If you plug a USB soundcard or possible a second PCI sound card into your PC, windows will pick it up and most likely make the new soundcard the default soundcard for the system. This means when you play audio it will go to the new soundcard and that is bad if it is intended to be for controlling your scanner. You can change the original one back to the default by going into the control panel and selecting Sounds. You should be able to select your original soundcard and right click and check Default. Now just make sure the ini file for the laser sound card driver is set to use the correct sound card and you should be set. You should be able to use Spaghetti to play back shows and the audio should go to your original soundcard the the laser stuff should go to your modified soundcard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carmangary

You can change the original one back to the default by going into the control panel and selecting Sounds.

---

Yep, similar for XP. control panel (traditional), sounds and audio devices, audio tab.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drlava

Code:

---

struct EAD_Pnt_s {
    __int16 X;
    __int16 Y;
    __int16 R;
    __int16 G;
    __int16 B;
    __int16 I;
    __int16 AL;
    __int16 AR;
};

---

where AL and AR are optional audio stream inputs. Using the audio stream inputs from show software will keep synchronization between music and show display. The lag is determined by the BufferLengthMS setting in the ini file. Setting this value too low will cause the output to jitter.
[...]

---

Have you considered transporting AL/AR to left/right front channels and use the remaining channels for the laser output? That way, you could use a single soundcard to play audio AND laser signals. Of course, it would require show software that is capable of feeding audio and video to the driver. I'd suggest a secondary set of API calls to achieve compatibility for both approaches. Further development could make use of DirectSound API so that the laser driver appears as an audio filter which could be used very easily.

P.S. I second the suggestion to make configuration available through API calls instead of ini files. It saves a lot of hassle on Vista systems for sure :D

The next wave header data chunk I was thinking of adding is a track label set. It might make sense to create 8 channel waves with AL and AR in the first two tracks; even if they are all zeros. As long as there is an assignment structure in the header, we'll always know what's what.

James. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OldGrumpy

Have you considered transporting AL/AR to left/right front channels and use the remaining channels for the laser output? That way, you could use a single soundcard to play audio AND laser signals.

---

It's already done. Currently most show software uses the default sound card for audio. Through that API, it can be written to use the sound card dac for audio, also. The only difference is the order of the output channels and that can be changed in the ini.

Quote:

---

P.S. I second the suggestion to make configuration available through API calls instead of ini files. It saves a lot of hassle on Vista systems for sure :D

---

Sure, it'll be done eventually. Doesn't Vista even have a text editor? ;)

In the case of Spaghetti, it is installed in a weird location. It would be hard for a user to find the ini file. And even if they did, unless they are slightly programmer savvy they might not know how to correctly set it up.