What's With The Sound Quality?

[gaarder]

The new compiled kernel runs perfectly on my Cacko C3200. I used the FastFPE-cachedfb version and noticed some performance improvement. I am going to compare it with another machine with the same config with the stock kernel to see if there's any significant difference.

[zedkatuf2]

wouldn' the thing to do be to patch the existing pdax kernel and then build as usual (not that I7ve done any such thing in pdaX, but itt seems more logical)
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...yes, definitely - no time to do it though   [if anyone wants to try, it'd be nice to get working on pdaxii13  )

[eviLjazz]

Alright, I installed pdaXii13 at last. It's quite nice actually. WPA is a nightmare to set up, though.
Anyway, attached is a screenshot of the mixer app running in X11 and Qt3.
I'll probably release the ipkg and kernels sometime today or tomorrow.

[Gorth]

This will be excellent.  Thanks!

[zedkatuf2]

Alright, I installed pdaXii13 at last. It's quite nice actually. WPA is a nightmare to set up, though.
Anyway, attached is a screenshot of the mixer app running in X11 and Qt3.
I'll probably release the ipkg and kernels sometime today or tomorrow.
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Wow! Many thanks for spending the time on this...looking forward to trying it out!

[eviLjazz]

Okay, that took a bit longer than expected. Sorry about that.

So here it is:

Mixer sourcecode and binaries for Sharp ROM/Cacko and pdaXrom/pdaXii13:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/sources/wm8750mixer

Pre-compiled kernel images that include the modified WM8750 driver code:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/kernels/v55

In my kernel branch the official pdaXrom kernel patches that are included with the pdaXrom builder have been merged with the Cacko patches. There weren't many differences sourcecode-wise. Most of it comes down to just a few kernel configuration differences, which are handled by the build system included in the sourcecode snapshot. I'm going to submit the changes to the pdaXrom team. However, I'm not sure if they are still interested in the old, albeit stable kernel 2.4.20.

I've tested the pdaXrom kernel extensively on my C3200 for the last 3 days. It's working without any problems.
Please post your results for the other models! Thanks.

[Meanie]

Okay, that took a bit longer than expected. Sorry about that.

So here it is:

Mixer sourcecode and binaries for Sharp ROM/Cacko and pdaXrom/pdaXii13:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/sources/wm8750mixer

Pre-compiled kernel images that include the modified WM8750 driver code:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/kernels/v55

In my kernel branch the official pdaXrom kernel patches that are included with the pdaXrom builder have been merged with the Cacko patches. There weren't many differences sourcecode-wise. Most of it comes down to just a few kernel configuration differences, which are handled by the build system included in the sourcecode snapshot. I'm going to submit the changes to the pdaXrom team. However, I'm not sure if they are still interested in the old, albeit stable kernel 2.4.20.

I've tested the pdaXrom kernel extensively on my C3200 for the last 3 days. It's working without any problems.
Please post your results for the other models! Thanks.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=165333\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

since pdaXii13 is using the stable 2.4.20 kernel, I'd be interested in it and will be adding the patches into the pdaxrom svn (but it probably will take some time since I am currently quite busy)

[Dromede]

Okay, that took a bit longer than expected. Sorry about that.

So here it is:

Mixer sourcecode and binaries for Sharp ROM/Cacko and pdaXrom/pdaXii13:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/sources/wm8750mixer

Pre-compiled kernel images that include the modified WM8750 driver code:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/kernels/v55

In my kernel branch the official pdaXrom kernel patches that are included with the pdaXrom builder have been merged with the Cacko patches. There weren't many differences sourcecode-wise. Most of it comes down to just a few kernel configuration differences, which are handled by the build system included in the sourcecode snapshot. I'm going to submit the changes to the pdaXrom team. However, I'm not sure if they are still interested in the old, albeit stable kernel 2.4.20.

I've tested the pdaXrom kernel extensively on my C3200 for the last 3 days. It's working without any problems.
Please post your results for the other models! Thanks.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=165333\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

did fastFPE made any performance difference when you ran pdaxrom?

[eviLjazz]

No. In pdaXrom all binaries are compiled with soft float, so they do not contain any hardware FP instructions. Running FastFPE only makes a difference if you intend to run chrooted Debian or other ARM GNU/Linux distros, where binaries are compiled with hard floats.

[Dromede]

Ok. So how can pdaxrom users exploit fastFPE performance gains? do we recompile stuff to use hard floats? would that make any noticeable difference performance wise?

[eviLjazz]

Generally you can't mix soft float with hard float compiled binaries and libraries (at least I think pdaXrom doesn't use the new EABI, does it?). You would have to recompile everything for hard floats and I really don't see the point in that. We've been there and done that in the first pdaXrom releases...

The benchmarks I posted on my website are only representative for Cacko and SharpROM - I should have made that one clear.
I think the reason the softfloat benchmark results are roughly on par with the Netwinder float point emulator (NWFPE) is due to the softfloat functions in GCC 2.95.x being generic and not specifically optimized for ARM. NWFPE is using the very same functions from what I know. Add to that the trapping and context switch overhead that's happening in the kernel.

AFAIK the softfloat functions in GCC 3.x used in pdaXrom are more tuned for ARM. The only way to figure that out is checking the sourcecode and re-doing the necessary benchmarks on pdaXrom. I'll do that tonight.
Update: I've updated the benchmark results at http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/kernels.../FPE-Benchmark/
GCC 3.4.6 has better softfloat code than GCC 2.95.3. It's faster than FastFPE. Like I said, you can still benefit from FastFPE if you use a chrooted Debian / Pocketworkstation, which binaries contain hardware floating point instructions. It's still 3-5 times faster than the regular NWFPE.

Anyway, the thread was about the sound quality and audio chip features, so how about that? Anybody feeling brave enough to try my stuff?

[Dromede]

hmmm...Ok. this is a but too much for me to follow.:-D indeed, i started this thread due to poor sound quality of existing drivers. and you've certainly made quite an improvement in that field and for that i thank you. unfortunately my sd card isn't recognised by teh bootloader or whatever so i can't flash your new kernel. i'll have to borrow another one from a friend. I'm very eager to try it. i'll post my results later when i get a hold of my friend.

respect.

[eviLjazz]

Make sure to format it FAT16. FAT32 won't work.

[Dromede]

i tried reformatting to FAT16 as you suggested. card still isnt recognised. i should also mention that the card never gets automounted, i always have to do it myself. dmesg says stuff like "JFFS2: attempt to mount non-MTD device 3c:01" and "FAT: unable to read boot sector". but i can mount it  with "mount /dev/mmcda  /mnt/card". i never had any problem reading or writing to the card. i had no such problems on a 1gig PQI card i lost recently...

[zedkatuf2]

Okay, that took a bit longer than expected. Sorry about that.

So here it is:

Mixer sourcecode and binaries for Sharp ROM/Cacko and pdaXrom/pdaXii13:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/sources/wm8750mixer

Pre-compiled kernel images that include the modified WM8750 driver code:
http://www.katastrophos.net/zaurus/kernels/v55

In my kernel branch the official pdaXrom kernel patches that are included with the pdaXrom builder have been merged with the Cacko patches. There weren't many differences sourcecode-wise. Most of it comes down to just a few kernel configuration differences, which are handled by the build system included in the sourcecode snapshot. I'm going to submit the changes to the pdaXrom team. However, I'm not sure if they are still interested in the old, albeit stable kernel 2.4.20.

I've tested the pdaXrom kernel extensively on my C3200 for the last 3 days. It's working without any problems.
Please post your results for the other models! Thanks.
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Hi - just want to confirm that I should use the following to get the mixer working on pdaxii13:


[a href=\"http://tinyurl.com/35oyyo]http://tinyurl.com/35oyyo[/url] - mixer app
http://tinyurl.com/2o7aql  - zImage kernel for pdaxrom (fastfpe)
http://tinyurl.com/2u2kt7 - kernel config
http://tinyurl.com/39mdud - pdaxrom kernel modules
http://tinyurl.com/2ncw3z - updater.sh

....slap on vfat sd/CF & reflash kernel as per normal?

(I've put the above as tinyurl's so you can see them, as the oesf BB sometimes abbreviates long urls).