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le BUZZ DriverWatch
the drivers that are...
and the drivers that are yet to... Be
le BUZZ now monitors five resources (Be.com, The Be Site, BeDrivers, and "BeOS Soundcard Compatibility List") to try and give you the very best information on available audio hardware drivers.
For overall hardware compatibility, the new king of the hill is The Be Site (everyone, please report in there to list which hardware on your system works with Be and which does not...it's important that you take a few minutes to do so and will serve a very important cause in the process!), while specific listings of available audio drivers, etc., are handled the most completely on our le BUZZ Driver List.
The table and much of the data for this list is courtesy of bebox.org's fine driver list. We've added some notations and supplements as we have learned new info.
So here you go. Click here for the le BUZZ driver list
Use the chart to see what's available, what's coming, and how you can help encourage the development of new drivers, then check out le BUZZ's very own BeOS driver headlines below...
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DRIVERWATCH HEADLINES
Our Driver List adds another entry today, with the arrival of an "n505ve" driver for the Yamaha YMF-744B sound chip found in Sony N505VE laptops. Andrew Green, who posted it on BeBits says the driver supports 44kHz 8 bit stereo playback using the YMF-744B's legacy Sound Blaster emulation.
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Jens Winkler has just released an updated driver for the entire series of AD1816 chipset-based sound cards, including Terratec Base 1 / Base 64, HP Kayak, Acer FX-3D, SY-1816, Highscreen Sound-Boostar 16 & 32 Wave 3D. AVM Apex Pro card, Aztech/Newcom SC-16 3D and HP Pavilion 8175 cards, and AOPen FX-3D Plus / Pro Radio. The driver has been added to the list.
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Simon South has started a new driver list which promises to add new information beyond what we have here or at TheBeSite. One thing he seems to be specializing in is in following MIDI compatibility. You can check out his new listings at this location.
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The new place to get Carlos' SB 16 driver, which also provides support for the AWE series, is at BeBits, where the driver has been updated again.
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Carlos Hasan knows there are a lot of you out there with SB 16 cards and compatibles, and he's keeping you all in shoe leather with a slick new R4.5 driver. Carlos says it now supports full-duplex playback and recording of digital audio (allowing you to monitor what you're recording, or record what you're playing). It is also expected to work better in dual-processor machines now. Ole! Grab it here...
http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~chasan/files/sb16-1.0-x86.zip
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The Classic Be site's "NewBeWare" page has added a listing for an experimental R4.5 driver for Soundblaster 16 cards.
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Germany's RME, makers of the "DIGI" series of audio cards and products, is putting a beta version of their BeOS driver for the "DIGI96" card out for public experimentation. Matthias Carstens says the driver is still a little shaky here and there because it is relying on the older API found in R4. All the same, RME felt letting Buzzers kick the driver's tires and drive it around the block until R4.5 (Genki) arrives with its newer media kit will help the company sort out any bugs it hasn't already found. At that time, a new and greatly improved driver will be released.
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BeDriverShop has a newly updated version of the Terratec Base1 sound card driver which fixes some problems. Midi support still not included, but coming.
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Echo has announced successful completion of a driver for their Layla, Gina, and Darla cards. They are awaiting a node in the new media kit, at which time all three cards will be ready to rock (hopefully in June with the release of R4.5).
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Be.com has added a nice support feature called Breaking News which contains the latest list of common technical issues and their best solutions. Amid all this useful treasure is a good info page for people who have audio cards supposedly supported by the BeOS which aren't working for some reason. Hey, give it a shot if you're having a problem!
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A new Terratec Baseline-1 sound card driver has been written, and can be found at the BeDriverShop. It has been added to our Driver List.
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An effort is underway to create a comprehensive hyperguide to creating BeOS drivers. The outline and progress report is located here. Please help out if you can.
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Our Belgian friend Ben Golinvaux has started the ball rolling. Now it's up to the rest of us. He wrote recently to the folks at Guillemot about Be drivers for their multitrack audio card and, well, let him tell it...
"Some people might not know it, but the Guillemot ISIS Home Studio is really
an exciting piece of gear. I've been looking for and multitrack audio card
for a long time, and this is the best I could found. Priced (roughly) at
$300 (!), it features 8 analog inputs and 4 analog outputs in an external
rack connected to a pci card in the host PC.
"A friend of mine contacted Guillemot to check if a BeOS driver was planned
for sometime... They replied they had no plan to do this... I suppose they
haven't still checked the potential of BeOS as an audio platform."
The Guillemot ISIS Maxi Sound ISIS PCI has 8 in, 4 out right on the card, for some pretty exciting real-time recording potential. Let's all dash off a few lines to them and politely request that they consider adding Be drivers.
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Good news for anyone with Aureal-based sound cards like the Diamond
Monster Sound MX300.. Aureal has written back to just such
an owner, telling Chris Molstad at SkyPoint Communications
they are working with Be, Inc. to create a driver. Here's what
they said...
"We are currently working wit BeOS, Inc. to
develop drivers for our audio chipsets. And, since
the MX300 uses our AU8830 chipset, the drivers
should work for your card as well once they are
released."
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4Front Technologies is working on BeOS drivers for virtually all PCI and ISA sound cards, as well as some pro cards like RME and Sonorus (and some others they aren't announcing yet.) Want the list? It includes Sound Blaster, Gravis Ultrasound, ESS Technologies, Crystal Semiconductor, Analog Devices, OPTi, Rockwell, C-Media Electronics, MediaTrix AudioTrix, Aztech, Ensoniq, Turtle Beach, Aureal Semiconductor, Yamaha, S3, Sonorus, RME Audio, Zefiro Acoustics. We're in touch with them and will provide more information as soon as we know more!
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They're only rumours at this stage, but Creative Labs has reportedly supplied Be Inc. with the information necessary to create a Soundblaster Live! driver, and that such a driver may be in the works. This is one of the most sought-after drivers in the newsgroups.
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The key to the future of audio work on the BeOS platform is hardware support. Keep checking this column for the latest hardware drivers necessary to support your sound cards and other devices. If you know of others, please tell us immediately!
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NOW PLAYING!
ADVANTAGE UPDATE!
Y2K GOAL:
100 BUZZERS!
Already over 70 Buzzers and their friends have signed up with AllAdvantage through le Buzz, which is extremely gratifying. Our goal: 100 Buzzers before the end of the year! If you want to get paid 50 cents per hour you cruise the web, and a dime for each hour your friends cruise the web, take a moment now to read my 10 Ten Reasons for signing up.
IF YOU'RE ALREADY SIGNED UP: The key is to be SURE to use the full 25 hours you're allowed each month! Not only does that assure you of every cent you have coming, but it gives you full credit for every friend who uses 25 hours a month.
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Grab these for your site!
le BUZZ is now
a domain!
Just type "lebuzz" into any browser in the world, and you'll be taken right here!
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Reserve your space now!
It's the Web's Most Complete Listing of BeOS Audio Products...
Product Buzz!
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