OpenAL setup for general use (Linux) ------------------------------------- As of the July 2004 release of OpenAL it is best to add at least the following line to your ~/.openalrc file on Linux because it wil find out what audio backend to use, starting with the most appropriate: (define devices '(native alsa sdl esd arts null)) ALSA surround sound (5.1) setup ------------------------------------- (taken from http://floam.ascorbic.com/how-to/alsa5.1) Make a ~/.openalrc, we are telling OpenAL that we want surround sound and we want to use ALSA instead of OSS. (define speaker-num 4) (define devices '(alsa)) (define alsa-out-device "surround40:0,0") IRIX surround sound (5.1) setup ------------------------------------- To add 4 channel surround sound on IRIX hardware that supports in directly you can just add the following line to your ~/.openalrc file: (define speaker-num 4) To add 4 channel surround sound to IRIX systems that have more than one stereo output you can add the following section to your ~/.openalrc file (for a typical O2 configuration): (define speaker-num 4) (define native-out-device "Analog Out") (define native-rear-out-device "Analog Out 2") or alternatively: (define speaker-num 4) (define native-out-device "A3.Speaker") (define native-rear-out-device "A3.LineOut2") (Note the following section is obsolete as of the July 2004 release of OpenAL, since your could command OpenAL to use ALSA or Arts directly) ALSA and Arts ------------------------------------- I'm using kernel 2.6.5 with alsa, my sound module is snd-intel8x0. When I ran fgfs, I'd get quite 'choppy' sound (wasn't smooth, there'd be a couple of breaks in the sound every second or so). Running arts, and starting fgfs with "artsdsp fgfs" (from the artsdsp website: "When an application is run under artsdsp all accesses to the /dev/dsp audio device are intercepted and mapped into aRts API calls. While the device emulation is not perfect, most applications work this way, albeit with some degradation in performance and latency.") would improve the situation, but it seemed to still be choppy. This command: echo "fgfs 0 0 direct" >/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/oss (from the alsa kernel OSS emulation website: "The direct option is used, as mentioned above, to bypass the automatic conversion and useful for MMAP-applications") made my sound work beautifully when fgfs was run with artsdsp. Running without artsdsp however (with artsd suspended or killed), would give me no sound at all (which I find a bit strange) The following websites might help people with similar troubles: http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/OSS-Emulation.html http://www.arts-project.org/doc/handbook/artsdsp.html Computer info: kernel 2.6.5 flightgear 0.9.4 simgear 0.3.5 plib 1.8.3 soundcard is onboard an asus p4p800-e deluxe mobo (using snd-intel8x0), alsa, related modules from lsmod: Module Size Used by snd_pcm_oss 53252 1 snd_mixer_oss 19968 1 snd_pcm_oss snd_intel8x0 33476 1 snd_ac97_codec 63492 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_pcm 97408 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0 snd_timer 26112 1 snd_pcm snd_page_alloc 11396 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm snd_mpu401_uart 7936 1 snd_intel8x0 snd_rawmidi 24832 1 snd_mpu401_uart snd_seq_device 8324 1 snd_rawmidi snd 53892 9 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device soundcore 10208 2 snd