Discuss: Mac OS X guest sound support driver

[OmegaX]

[modedit]This howto is now available at viewtopic.php?f=30&t=33358. This is now left for discussion.[/modedit]

[notbad]

is the sound good? bcs i have installed such an kext but the sound is bad for me. is this kext someway patched?

[OmegaX]

is the sound good? bcs i have installed such an kext but the sound is bad for me. is this kext someway patched?

Sound quality is perfect for me, played music through it to test it, input(mic) works also.
This is the AC97 drivers compiled from Darwin source patched specifically for the AC97 sound device VirtualBox emulates.

[notbad]

thanks I will try

[Kariddi]

The audio quality is bad for me.

I'm using it on MacOSX 10.6.3 and only one speaker works. The audio also crackles a lot.

Any suggestion?

[takwing]

Are you using v3.2.0 beta 3?
Would you mind following my guide to install SL again and see if that works?

http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/virtual/ ... index.html

[OmegaX]

The audio quality is bad for me.

I'm using it on MacOSX 10.6.3 and only one speaker works. The audio also crackles a lot.

Any suggestion?

I'm not sure, I haven't been able to recreate that problem but i've seen a few people have it, for most it seems to be working fine.
are you using NullCPUPowerManagement.kext as well? if not it might help to install it.

[paulscode]

This doesn't seem to work for me. My host is Ubuntu Lucid 64-bit, VB is 3.2 Beta2, guest is Snow Leopard 10.6.3. I tried both the package installer method and the manual install method. In both cases, the guest freezes when shutting down, requiring me to power it off manually. After firing back up, there is still no sound and the System Preferences->Sound window shows "No output devices found".

Note, my Snow Leopard guest is running in 64-bit mode (seems to be required for some reason, probably since the host is 64-bit). Do you know if that could be causing a problem?

[OmegaX]

This doesn't seem to work for me. My host is Ubuntu Lucid 64-bit, VB is 3.2 Beta2, guest is Snow Leopard 10.6.3. I tried both the package installer method and the manual install method. In both cases, the guest freezes when shutting down, requiring me to power it off manually. After firing back up, there is still no sound and the System Preferences->Sound window shows "No output devices found".

Note, my Snow Leopard guest is running in 64-bit mode (seems to be required for some reason, probably since the host is 64-bit). Do you know if that could be causing a problem?

I forgot to mention this but the driver is only 32-bit, thats why it's not loading when you're in 64-bit mode. I'm going to try to work on a 64-bit compatible driver but for now you could run in 32-bit to get sound support working, you aren't required to run the guest as 64-bit on 64-bit hardware, I run mine in 32-bit on my 64-bit Core 2 Duo system.

I'll edit the topic to make it known it's currently 32-bit only.

[paulscode]

Awesome, thanks much!

[Sasquatch]

Can you also provide the source code of the driver, so that the devs can possibly use it for Guest Additions (if they are going to add audio to it)?

In the mean time, I think this is a great addition and will therefore sticky this thread.

[OmegaX]

Can you also provide the source code of the driver, so that the devs can possibly use it for Guest Additions (if they are going to add audio to it)?

In the mean time, I think this is a great addition and will therefore sticky this thread.

Thank you, I'll provide all the necessary info for building the driver shortly.

[Technologov]

Having AC97 driver is very favorable development.

OmegaX: Which community are you come from? OSx86, or from VBox OSE, or from Oracle, or ... ?

[OmegaX]

Having AC97 driver is very favorable development.

OmegaX: Which community are you come from? OSx86, or from VBox OSE, or from Oracle, or ... ?

I guess you could say i'm from OSx86 but posting this extension there was my first post in years of inactivity.

[takwing]

Omega,

I got some information that you may find interesting.

I have tried your NullCPUPowerManagement kext installation package on my existing SL VM (which has sound working by using your audio driver). Installation of NullCPUPowerManagement kext is find (as reported). After I reboot, I find that my sound does not work perfectly anymore.... there is only sound from the right channel (if I remember correctly, this has been reported by one user also) and the sound interruptions issue reoccurs again!

Trying to solve this problem, I have tried to
- reinstall the audio driver by using the installation package. Installation is reported to be OK, but after reboot, the sound is not improved.
- hopefully, I have take a snapshot installing and testing the audio dirver... and so I restore that snapshot.
I boot up the machine again and to my surprise, the problem is not solved! (I previously think that restoring a snapshot is a MUST-WORK solution.)

The sound is still not working perfectly at this moment. I have taken a snapshot of the boot up screen and I wonder iif the 2 lines that are related to audio driver expected or not. Sorry that I really cannot tell if these 2 lines are in fact there even when the audio is working perfectly.

Besides, I have tried to "tune" the left-right balance of the sound volume in MacOS and have the following findings:
- when I move the slider to the right a little bit, sounds are coming out from my left speaker (I am sure that the left, right channel of my system is correct as I have verified this in Windows)
- when I move the slider to the farmost right, there is no sounds coming out from both speaker
- when I move the slider to the center, or a little bit to the left, sounds are coming out from my right speaker (I am sure that the left, right channel of my system is correct as I have verified this in Windows)
- when I move the slider to the farmost left, there is no sounds coming out from both speaker