Wow, that's quite the subject line. Here's the whole story:
Mandriva 2008 running on an Asus A7V880 based system, using the onboard (VIA 8237 sound). lspci output as follows:
Code:
Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)
Recently, I decided to connect a set of 5.1 speakers. If I set dxs_support=2 as an option for the snd_via82xx module, I can successfully use surround sound with a command like:
Code:
mplayer -channels 6 -ao alsa:device=surround51 test.ac3
But the catch is, if I use dxs_support=2, I can't use KDE's sound system (arts) at the same time as I use mplayer and ALSA. (ie there's no mixing ... dxs_support=2 disables it ... I can only have sound from one source at a time).
With dxs_support=1 or 4 I have very nice mixed sound, which I can share out to the center and rear speakers via kmixer ... but it isn't surround sound, it's stereo. Under these conditions, the mplayer command given above simply freezes mplayer.
So, ideas are welcome! How can I have surround sound and arts together? (Bonus for ideas pertinent to just this hardware!) Naturally, I am also considering adding a PCI sound card as a solution. If you've added surround sound to a system and want to recommend your sound card, go for it! Thanks!
