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             An OSS/Free Driver for WaveFront soundcards

               (Turtle Beach Maui, Tropez, Tropez Plus)

                     Paul Barton-Davis, July 1998

                          VERSION 0.2.5

Driver Status

-------------

Requires: Kernel 2.1.106 or later (the driver is included with kernels

2.1.109 and above)

As of 7/22/1998, this driver is currently in *BETA* state. This means

that it compiles and runs, and that I use it on my system (Linux

2.1.106) with some reasonably demanding applications and uses.  I

believe the code is approaching an initial "finished" state that

provides bug-free support for the Tropez Plus.

Please note that to date, the driver has ONLY been tested on a Tropez

Plus. I would very much like to hear (and help out) people with Tropez

and Maui cards, since I think the driver can support those cards as

well.

Finally, the driver has not been tested (or even compiled) as a static

(non-modular) part of the kernel. Alan Cox's good work in modularizing

OSS/Free for Linux makes this rather unnecessary.

Some Questions

--------------

**********************************************************************

0) What does this driver do that the maui driver did not ?

**********************************************************************

* can fully initialize a WaveFront card from cold boot - no DOS

          utilities needed

* working patch/sample/program loading and unloading (the maui

      driver didn't document how to make this work, and assumed

      user-level preparation of the patch data for writing

      to the board. ick.)

* full user-level access to all WaveFront commands

* for the Tropez Plus, (primitive) control of the YSS225 FX processor

* Virtual MIDI mode supported - 2 MIDI devices accessible via the

          WaveFront's MPU401/UART emulation. One

          accesses the WaveFront synth, the other accesses the

          external MIDI connector. Full MIDI read/write semantics

          for both devices.

* OSS-compliant /dev/sequencer interface for the WaveFront synth,

          including native and GUS-format patch downloading.

* semi-intelligent patch management (prototypical at this point)

**********************************************************************

1) What to do about MIDI interfaces ?

**********************************************************************

The Tropez Plus (and perhaps other WF cards) can in theory support up

to 2 physical MIDI interfaces. One of these is connected to the

ICS2115 chip (the WaveFront synth itself) and is controlled by

MPU/UART-401 emulation code running as part of the WaveFront OS.  The

other is controlled by the CS4232 chip present on the board. However,

physical access to the CS4232 connector is difficult, and it is

unlikely (though not impossible) that you will want to use it.

An older version of this driver introduced an additional kernel config

variable which controlled whether or not the CS4232 MIDI interface was

configured. Because of Alan Cox's work on modularizing the sound

drivers, and now backporting them to 2.0.34 kernels, there seems to be

little reason to support "static" configuration variables, and so this

has been abandoned in favor of *only* module parameters. Specifying

"mpuio" and "mpuirq" for the cs4232 parameter will result in the

CS4232 MIDI interface being configured; leaving them unspecified will

leave it unconfigured (and thus unusable).

BTW, I have heard from one Tropez+ user that the CS4232 interface is

more reliable than the ICS2115 one. I have had no problems with the

latter, and I don't have the right cable to test the former one

out. Reports welcome.

**********************************************************************

2) Why does line XXX of the code look like this .... ?

**********************************************************************

Either because its not finished yet, or because you're a better coder

than I am, or because you don't understand some aspect of how the card

or the code works.

I absolutely welcome comments, criticisms and suggestions about the

design and implementation of the driver.

**********************************************************************

3) What files are included ?

**********************************************************************

   drivers/sound/README.wavefront       -- this file

   drivers/sound/wavefront.patch        -- patches for the 2.1.106 sound drivers

                                           needed to make the rest of this work

                                           DO NOT USE IF YOU'VE APPLIED THEM

                                           BEFORE, OR HAVE 2.1.109 OR ABOVE

   drivers/sound/wavfront.c             -- the driver

   drivers/sound/ys225.h                -- data declarations for FX config

   drivers/sound/ys225.c                -- data definitions for FX config

   drivers/sound/wf_midi.c              -- the "uart401" driver

                                              to support virtual MIDI mode.

   include/wavefront.h                  -- the header file

   Documentation/sound/Tropez+          -- short docs on configuration

**********************************************************************

4) How do I compile/install/use it ?

**********************************************************************

PART ONE: install the source code into your sound driver directory

  cd 

  tar -zxvf 

PART TWO: apply the patches

     DO THIS ONLY IF YOU HAVE A KERNEL VERSION BELOW 2.1.109

     AND HAVE NOT ALREADY INSTALLED THE PATCH(ES).

  cd drivers/sound

  patch < wavefront.patch

PART THREE: configure your kernel

  cd 

  make xconfig (or whichever config option you use)

         - choose YES for Sound Support

         - choose MODULE (M) for OSS Sound Modules

         - choose MODULE(M) to YM3812/OPL3 support

         - choose MODULE(M) for WaveFront support

         - choose MODULE(M) for CS4232 support

         - choose "N" for everything else (unless you have other

              soundcards you want support for)

   make dep

   make boot

   .

   .

   .

   make modules

   .

   .

   .

   make modules_install

Here's my autoconf.h SOUND section:

/*

 * Sound

 */

#define CONFIG_SOUND 1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_OSS

#define CONFIG_SOUND_OSS_MODULE 1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_PAS

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_SB

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_ADLIB

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_GUS

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_MPU401

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_PSS

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_MSS

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_SSCAPE

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_TRIX

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_MAD16

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_WAVEFRONT

#define CONFIG_SOUND_WAVEFRONT_MODULE 1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_CS4232

#define CONFIG_SOUND_CS4232_MODULE 1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_MAUI

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_SGALAXY

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_OPL3SA1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_SOFTOSS

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_YM3812

#define CONFIG_SOUND_YM3812_MODULE 1

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_VMIDI

#undef  CONFIG_SOUND_UART6850

/*

 * Additional low level sound drivers

 */

#undef  CONFIG_LOWLEVEL_SOUND

************************************************************

6) How do I configure my card ?

************************************************************

You need to edit /etc/modules.conf. Here's mine (edited to show the

relevant details):

  # Sound system

  alias char-major-14 wavefront

  alias synth0 wavefront

  alias mixer0 cs4232

  alias audio0 cs4232

  pre-install wavefront modprobe "-k" "cs4232"

  post-install wavefront modprobe "-k" "opl3"

  options wavefront io=0x200 irq=9

  options cs4232 synthirq=9 synthio=0x200 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0

  options opl3 io=0x388

Things to note:

       the wavefront options "io" and "irq" ***MUST*** match the "synthio"

       and "synthirq" cs4232 options.

       you can do without the opl3 module if you don't

       want to use the OPL/[34] FM synth on the soundcard

       the opl3 io parameter is conventionally not adjustable.

       In theory, any not-in-use IO port address would work, but

       just use 0x388 and stick with the crowd.

**********************************************************************

7) What about firmware ?

**********************************************************************

Turtle Beach have not given me permission to distribute their firmware

for the ICS2115. However, if you have a WaveFront card, then you

almost certainly have the firmware, and if not, its freely available

on their website, at:

   http://www.tbeach.com/tbs/downloads/scardsdown.htm#tropezplus

The file is called WFOS2001.MOT (for the Tropez+).

This driver, however, doesn't use the pure firmware as distributed,

but instead relies on a somewhat processed form of it. You can

generate this very easily. Following an idea from Andrew Veliath's

Pinnacle driver, the following flex program will generate the

processed version:

---- cut here -------------------------

%option main

%%

^S[28].*\r$ printf ("%c%.*s", yyleng-1,yyleng-1,yytext);

<> { fputc ('\0', stdout); return; }

\n {}

.  {}

---- cut here -------------------------

To use it, put the above in file (say, ws.l) compile it like this:

      shell> flex -ows.c ws.l

      shell> cc -o ws ws.c

and then use it like this:

    ws < my-copy-of-the-oswf.mot-file > /etc/sound/wavefront.os

If you put it somewhere else, you'll always have to use the wf_ospath

module parameter (see below) or alter the source code.

**********************************************************************

7) How do I get it working ?

**********************************************************************

Optionally, you can reboot with the "new" kernel (even though the only

changes have really been made to a module).

Then, as root do:

     modprobe wavefront

You should get something like this in /var/log/messages:

    WaveFront: firmware 1.20 already loaded.

or

    WaveFront: no response to firmware probe, assume raw.

then:

    WaveFront: waiting for memory configuration ...

    WaveFront: hardware version 1.64

    WaveFront: available DRAM 8191k

    WaveFront: 332 samples used (266 real, 13 aliases, 53 multi), 180 empty

    WaveFront: 128 programs slots in use

    WaveFront: 256 patch slots filled, 142 in use

The whole process takes about 16 seconds, the longest waits being

after reporting the hardware version (during the firmware download),

and after reporting program status (during patch status inquiry).  Its

shorter (about 10 secs) if the firmware is already loaded (i.e. only

warm reboots since the last firmware load).

The "available DRAM" line will vary depending on how much added RAM

your card has. Mine has 8MB.

To check basically functionality, use play(1) or splay(1) to send a

.WAV or other audio file through the audio portion. Then use playmidi

to play a General MIDI file. Try the "-D 0" to hear the

difference between sending MIDI to the WaveFront and using the OPL/3,

which is the default (I think ...). If you have an external synth(s)

hooked to the soundcard, you can use "-e" to route to the

external synth(s) (in theory, -D 1 should work as well, but I think

there is a bug in playmidi which prevents this from doing what it

should).

**********************************************************************

8) What are the module parameters ?

**********************************************************************

Its best to read wavefront.c for this, but here is a summary:

integers:

          wf_raw  - if set, ignore apparent presence of firmware

                    loaded onto the ICS2115, reset the whole

                    board, and initialize it from scratch. (default = 0)

          fx_raw  - if set, always initialize the YSS225 processor

                    on the Tropez plus. (default = 1)

          < The next 4 are basically for kernel hackers to allow

            tweaking the driver for testing purposes. >

          wait_usecs        -  loop timer used when waiting for

                               status conditions on the board.

                               The default is 150.

          debug_default    - debugging flags. See sound/wavefront.h

                             for WF_DEBUG_* values. Default is zero.

                             Setting this allows you to debug the

                             driver during module installation.

strings:

          ospath - path to get to the pre-processed OS firmware.

                    (default: /etc/sound/wavefront.os)

**********************************************************************

9) Who should I contact if I have problems?

**********************************************************************

Just me: Paul Barton-Davis