Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #150

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I still dont understand 1 thing, my system acting as onboard sound cart would be somehow connected to iGPU.

When i added iGPu to passthough vfio-pci list have lots Linux sound.. and now i had some sound devices but there some missing Test speakers dialog.. and sound doesnt worked.. and was getting Qemu errors that hda is not available for emulation of AC97 or SB16.. i would swear that it worked fine before, but i had to remove iGPu from vfio list to make it working again.

I would understand if these 2 would be in same IOMMU group, but they arent, or i dont understand how its working, here are lspci -mm and find /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/ -type l outputs, in theory it could be problem of my iGPU problems.. I maybe share some PCI-E root or something like that.

Display adaper is 00:02.0 .. is IOMMU group 2.. soundcard is :1f.3 group 13 where are other on board devices include LAN, but i dont use them for passthrough.

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Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #150

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Update2: At least with all Windows machine, keyboard release is working, not mouse doesnt..
-object input-linux,id=mouse,evdev=/dev/input/by-id/usb-093a_USB_OPTICAL_MOUSE-event-mouse \
-object input-linux,id=kbd,evdev=/dev/input/by-id/usb-ZALMAN_ZM-K600S-event-kbd,grab_all=on,repeat=on \
I have tried to add same, flags - grab_all=on,repeat=on to mouse line, but its not solution.

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Zitat

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The IGP and the integrated HD Audio Azalia Controller are unrelated. I don't understand what issue you had there.

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I as wrote is strange, but my MB is dont behave like that are unrelated.. if remember correctly when i add first time Display adapter to vfio and blacklisted it, i lost my sound card on Linux.
Also when i blacklisted HDMI audio (blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi), i was losing whole HDA sound too.. Which should be other device, if own blacklist command (blacklist snd_hda_intel)

Other strange this is that im getting that sound card errors only in some boot sessions..

Zitat

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On command line QEMU, the order in which you input parameters is important. Try putting the Keyboard first, then Mouse second:

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Thanks i will try it.
Update: Thanks its working, if use LEFT CTRL+RIGHT CTRL or CTRL+ALT+G and before / after CRTL+CTRL! But, but.. who BFU should know that is other magic.. at least half-bug..

Zitat

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Also, at some point supposedly an AGP-to-PCIe Bridge was announced by Albatron: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/albatr...boards,976.html
...but I'm not sure if it actually became available: https://hwbot.org/newsflash/4883_throwba..._to_pci_adapter
Could actually solve yet another issue considering than there is a lack of high end PCI Cards and first generation PCIe ones.

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Thanks, i will check it out.. i saw in the past some PCI to AGP adapters, but i never had such thing in my hands.. I really depends how work card holding mechanism otherwise these things are MB and cards killers.

Update: Its mystery thing, maybe it exist.. but i didnt found any test or place there i could order it.. AGP to PCI is slower, but its at least available on eBay - but its expensive.
I contacted some AGP to PCI seller he send me some questionable manual and it seems to be only Voodoo thing and there is no word about other cards.. it make sense, because we actually know that Voodoo Agp.. actually doesnt support agp features, so adapter doesnt need to be clever.

I just checked some Voodoo 4/5 benchmarks and comparison with Geforce 2 ultra.. sometime its faster, but usually it has same or worse performance.
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/3dfx-Vood...pecial-1246582/
https://www.anandtech.com/show/580/7
There are few games when it could give you 1600x1200 60FPS as 1999 3d games as Expendable - also own as Millennium soldier / Descent.. There are games where you can get 1024x768 and 60 FPS, but later games can give even that.

I finally had time to test AC97 sound - i used Realtek 3.62 Win9x driver, because it seems that only this one has SB emulation, Windows 98 drivers doesnt.
I tried Doom 2 - slideshow and now sound, Wacraft 2 demo - in setup FX is working, FM doesnt. So conclusim seems to be that Windows 98 Dos sound is broken in Qemu itself, that is not problem of sound card pass through etc.. and Qemu would need some patching to make it working.

I tested same Win98 game set as with Sound blaste 16:
Windows 98SE on Modern Hardware (6)
Except Vampire: Redemption sound in all games was clean, no stuttering etc.. and Vampire has not stuttering but sound is low quality, im not sure why, because its simply only "feature" of this demo, im used to play full games.. But all games have big lag..
I havent time to play with Qemu / Linux audio settings, there are some guides.. Are 2 possible results..
1) Its possible on Linux / Qemu level get rid of lag and after than i would have nice and clean Windows 98 sound and except Dos would be nice.
2) There is not fix - if would be sad, so only good solution would be use real sound card passthrough and we can maximaly create some Win98 related sound bug report.

We should also try Qemu on Windows is it has same lag, or it is only Linux problem.

So far im using Qemu starting script without any sound variables, in Heiko tutorial are these lines, im not sure if they are only for emulated HDA and new OSes or not?
export QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=pa
export QEMU_PA_SAMPLES=8192
export QEMU_AUDIO_TIMER_PERIOD=99
export QEMU_PA_SERVER=/run/user/1000/pulse/native

Update: I tested these lines its much better.. There is now exact measurement, so i could be wrong it could be now completely fine, because im still using Voodoo 3 which had sub-d only i have to sit elsewhere (because of other monitor) than usually so i have speakers not frond me but at the left side..

Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #154

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So far im using Qemu starting script without any sound variables, in Heiko tutorial are these lines, im not sure if they are only for emulated HDA and new OSes or not?
export QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=pa
export QEMU_PA_SAMPLES=8192
export QEMU_AUDIO_TIMER_PERIOD=99
export QEMU_PA_SERVER=/run/user/1000/pulse/native

Update: I tested these lines its much better.. There is now exact measurement, so i could be wrong it could be now completely fine, because im still using Voodoo 3 which had sub-d only i have to sit elsewhere (because of other monitor) than usually so i have speakers not frond me but at the left side..

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@ zir_blazer
Thanks i willl check this info. Biggest problem is that my ears arent really some reliable measurement tool, so it there would be some SW way how to print somewhere how big lag is it would be big help.

Zitat

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If you're using SB16 and W9x, you're pretty much on your own since I doubt that there are a lot of people that used these features.

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I found out same thing. SB16 is much worse for Win9x machine and in situation when Dos fallback is not working, it really make no sense to use it for Windows 98.
I still want to use AC 97 with Win98 driver + SB16 emulation for a bit better fallback and Dos support - multiboot , if Windows 98 would handle nice Qemu system with both cards.

Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #156

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@ zir_blazer

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Zitat

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Buffer sizes are specified in microseconds everywhere. So configuring alsa with a buffer for 10 milliseconds of sound data and 4 periods (2.5 miliseconds each) works this way.

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Problem is that i dont really understand sound, to know what values are good or bad.. maybe someone else does?

Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #157

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You actually can help us.. I never got into Alsa vs. Pulse Audio thing, its nice DirectSound vs. Xaudio, OpenAL whatever on Windows. What are differences, what is better for what?

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Zitat von ruthan im Beitrag #157

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Otherwise article just state that Qemu 4.2 has improved audio..

There is only one interesting line:
qemu -audiodev alsa,id=snd0,out.buffer-length=10000,out.period-length=2500

With description:

Zitat

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Buffer sizes are specified in microseconds everywhere. So configuring alsa with a buffer for 10 milliseconds of sound data and 4 periods (2.5 miliseconds each) works this way.

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Problem is that i dont really understand sound, to know what values are good or bad.. maybe someone else does?

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I don't understand them, either. Can't help you there.



Oh, there is something that I just noticed. You say that you have issues with the Sound Card on some boots. I think that you may have a race condition, as the name of the Devices may change during boot depending on the order that they are loaded. Are you blacklisting anything related to any of the Sound Cards? I can't help you to troubleshoot that, but check whenever you can see if there is a pattern about how devices get named when they work, and if they change when they don't. I think that race conditions were usually solved by using udev rules, or something like that, but first you have to identify if that is your exact issue.

Zitat

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ALSA is what provides Software access to the Sound Card. The problem is that only a single application can use the Sound Card via ALSA. Pulseaudio is a mixer, so the standard setup is to let Pulseaudio to have exclusive access to ALSA, then take as inputs all other applications

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Thanks for explanation it works, otherwise that i though, i lived that they are 2 different APIs for same thing.

Zitat von zir_blazer im Beitrag #158

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I think that you may have a race condition

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Zitat von zir_blazer im Beitrag #158

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Are you blacklisting anything related to any of the Sound Cards?

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Zitat von zir_blazer im Beitrag #158

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I can\'t help you to troubleshoot that, but check whenever you can see if there is a pattern about how devices get named when they work, and if they change when they don\'t.

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To main tutorial post, i added part with videocards benchmarks to help you orient in Windows 98 3d cards performance:
Windows 98SE on Modern Hardware (6) // Search for "Win98 videocards benchmarks" string..
Problems is that cards are often compared only with previous generation.. if someone know some chart will card from Voodoo 3 to Geforce 6/7 let me know, you can at least try to compare cards through Passmark score.

Otherwise i did some research about Win 98 compatible PCI / PCie cards videocards options, to bypass lack of agp, there are options, but they are often pretty rare, so they could be expensive, if you are not from rich part of world.
- only really widely available and cheap cards are Geforce 6xxx PCI-e cards they are also fastest, second would be ATI X300-x850 line, but there are not working with pass through so far:
6200 LE, 6200 TC,6200,6500,6600 LE,6600 (DDR/DDR2),6600 GT, 6800 LE,6800 XT,6800,6800 GS,6800 GTO,6800 GT,6800 Ultra
- there are of classic options known to everyone as Voodoo 3 /4 /5500 / TNT / TNT2 / Matrox G200 PCI
- Matrox G450 PCI exist
- Matrox G550 PCI exists
- Matrox G550 PCI-E exists
- Radeon 7000 PCI exists, it could be dud for KVM, it will still work fine with physical Win98 install
- Radeon 9250 PCI - exists, it could be dud for KVM, it will still work fine with physical Win98 install
- Geforce 2 MX 400 PCI - exists
- Geforce 4 PCX 4300 PCI-E - exists, it has faster memory clock mighty 666 (where MX400 has 332), but it also has only 64 bit bus.
- Geforce 5 FX 5200 PCI exists
- Geforce 5 FX 5500 PCI exists
- Geforce 5 FX 5600 PCI exists
- Geforce 5 PCX 5300 PCI-E exists
- Geforce 5 PCX 5750 PCI-E exists
- Geforce 5 PCX 5900 PCI-E exists
- Geforce 5 PCX 5950 PCI-E exists

If you found others pleas report, we can make some nice list.

I added to main tutorial post - Useful qemu monitor commands part, it could help to shutdown (with XP+ working nice clean acpi shutdown),reset machine, mount cd / floppy images on the fly, check which devices are emulated, if vnc enabled, what device was pass through etc.. its nice for usage and debugging, im using it from the start.

Some new discoveries:
1) I managed to get proper shutdown working it was annoying.. i had to no-acpi line from starting script for sure, im not sure if Intel chipset drivers was needed to installed them at the same moment.. and they created some intel power management device..

Im adding Win 98 shutdown fixes package to attachment, they were not needed, but they are hard to get and they will not hurt anyway.

2) Sound, AC97 + SB 16 emulation combo is working, qemu line (-soundhw ac97,sb16,adlib,pcspk \). When you install AC97 WDM driver.. and use add new hardware wizard for SB16 detection. SB is after that on great IRQ 5 and A200 and 388 - what is im not work for Adlib. In Windows you can select AC97 as prefered device and sound is still nice and clean and SB 16 is just fallback for Dos..
With this Warcraft 2 setup is able to detect both FX and FM, but i still wasnt able to make game working.. i got freeze right after Dos4gw exectution.. but im getting same even when i disable sound.. so its probably some Qemu bug which block to set Vesa 640x480x256 in dos mode, or its Voodoo 3 bug (i doubt it, but through is that i 20+ ago wrote some Dos Vesa engine and standard vesa implemetation not worked with Voodoo 3, something in my memory say me that i had same problem with Voodoo 3 on other machine.. Update: I consulted my Dos sound card testing matrix and had same problem with X800, Nvidias and old Ati Mach 64 are fine), or its just some Win98 unpatched bug (not probable)
Dos Windows 98 mode and needs more testing for sure..

Here is still lots thing to test. I want to test more modern Ati cards, they would be nice at least for XP.. I also want to test some later HW heavy games to slow that some Win98 games can require quite fast GPU..

Here are pictures from sound settings tray icon wizard when Linux audio is working and not working:

AMD 3450 PCi-E passthrough its working, its not Windows 98 card, but it good to finnally have at least one ATI/AMD working card.. Its one would be nice for WinXP.

X1600 is working too, so its only 1 generation from X300-X850 line.
Diderius made working unsupported Notebook ATI with Win98 driver just by inf update:
Windows XP 32-Bit and Server 2003 32-Bit on Modern Hardware (277)

I was a bit hoping that some can make X1300-X1950 line make work too. But even MSFN guys failed:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/158640-comp...i-x1250/page/2/

Maybe, someone can try to mess with it again, i will not.