Documentation for the OPL3-SA2, SA3, and SAx driver (opl3sa2.o)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Scott Murray, scottm@interlog.com
January 5, 1999

NOTE: All trade-marked terms mentioned below are properties of their
      respective owners.

This driver is for PnP soundcards based on the following Yamaha audio
controller chipsets:

YMF711 aka OPL3-SA2
YMF715 aka OPL3-SA3
YMF719 aka OPL3-SAx (?)

I'm a little fuzzy on what exactly is classified a SAx, as I've seen
the label used to refer to the whole 7xx family and as a specific
identifier for the 719 on my no-name soundcard.  To make matters
worse, there seem to be several revisions of the 715 chipset.

Anyways, all of these chipsets implement the following devices:

OPL3 FM synthesizer
Soundblaster Pro
Microsoft/Windows Sound System
MPU401 MIDI interface

Note that this driver uses the MSS device, and to my knowledge these
chipsets enforce an either/or situation with the Soundblaster Pro
device and the MSS device.  Since the MSS device has better
capabilities, I have implemented the driver to use it.

Being PnP cards, some configuration is required.  There are two ways
of doing this.  The most common is to use the isapnptools package to
initialize the card, and use the kernel module form of the sound
subsystem and sound drivers.  Alternatively, some BIOS's allow manual
configuration of installed PnP devices in a BIOS menu, which should
allow using the non-modular sound drivers, i.e. built into the kernel.

I personally use isapnp and modules, and do not have access to a PnP
BIOS machine to test.  If you have such a beast, try building both the
MSS driver and this driver into the kernel (appropriately configured,
of course).  I have received reports of this working, so it should be
possible for most people with PnP BIOS.  If it does not work for you,
then email me if you are willing to experiment in an effort to make it
work.

If you are using isapnp, follow the directions in its documentation to
produce a configuration file.  Here is the relevant excerpt I use for
my SAx card from my isapnp.conf:

(CONFIGURE YMH0800/-1 (LD 0

# Instead of (IO 0 (BASE 0x0220)), disable SB:
(IO 0 (BASE 0x0000))
(IO 1 (BASE 0x0530))
(IO 2 (BASE 0x0388))
(IO 3 (BASE 0x0330))
(IO 4 (BASE 0x0370))
(INT 0 (IRQ 7 (MODE +E)))
(DMA 0 (CHANNEL 0))
(DMA 1 (CHANNEL 3))

Here, note that:

Port  Acceptable Range  Purpose
----  ----------------  -------
IO 0  0x0220 - 0x0280   SB base address, I set to 0 just to be safe.
IO 1  0x0530 - 0x0F48   MSS base address
IO 2  0x0388 - 0x03F8   OPL3 base address
IO 3  0x0300 - 0x0334   MPU base address
IO 4  0x0100 - 0x0FFE   card's own base address for its control I/O ports

The IRQ and DMA values can be any that considered acceptable for a
MSS.  Assuming you've got isapnp all happy, then you should be able to
do something like the following (which matches up with the isapnp
configuration above):

insmod mpu401
insmod ad1848
insmod opl3sa2 io=0x370 mss_io=0x530 mpu_io=0x330 irq=7 dma=0 dma2=3
insmod opl3 io=0x388

Remember that the opl3sa2 module's io argument is for it's own control
port, which handles the card's master mixer for volume (on all cards),
and bass and treble (on SA3 and SAx cards).

If all goes well and you see no error messages, you should be able to
start using the sound capabilities of your system.  If you get an
error message while trying to insert the opl3sa2 module, then make
sure that the values of the various arguments match what you specified
in your isapnp configuration file, and that there is no conflict with
another device for an I/O port or interrupt.  Checking the contents of
/proc/ioports and /proc/interrupts can be useful to see if you're
butting heads with another device.

If you still cannot get the module to load, look at the contents of
your system log file, usually /var/log/messages.  If you see the
message "Unknown Yamaha audio controller version", then you have a
different chipset than I've encountered so far.  Look for a line in
the log file that says "opl3sa2.c: chipset version = <some number>".
If you want me to add support for your card, send me the number from
this line and any information you have on the make and chipset of your
sound card, and I should be able to work up a permanent fix.

If you do not see the chipset version message, and none of the other
messages present in the system log are helpful, email me some details
and I'll try my best to help.

Lastly, if you're using modules and want to set up automatic module
loading with kmod, the kernel module loader, here is the section I
currently use in my conf.modules file:

# Sound
alias char-major-14 opl3sa2
pre-install opl3sa2 modprobe "-k" "ad1848"
post-install opl3sa2 modprobe "-k" "opl3"
options opl3sa2 io=0x370 mss_io=0x530 mpu_io=0x330 irq=7 dma=0 dma2=3
options opl3 io=0x388

That's all it currently takes to get an OPL3-SAx card working on my
system.  Once again, if you have any other problems, email me at the
address listed above.

Scott
