Help! Multiple Sound Cards! Ohh No!

tjsniper

OK heres whats up.
I have 2 sound cards on my PC.

One of them is detected in windows a c-media wave audio device,
and the other vinyl ac'97 audio device.

I'm using Windows XP SP2 and Mandrake (Mandriva) 10.1 linux.

I would like both of them to output the same audio.
In other words i want to setup multiple outputs in linux and windows.

I tried the control panel in windows to configure both but it will only let specify the default device.

I tried "configure your computer" in linux and set them to all of the different drivers(theres only 2 and i set them to the same one and then the opposite ones,the computer locks up when there the same one).

Any ideas how I'd go about this?
Thanks
EDIT:
I mean that when I'm using Linux both of the sound cards play the same sounds and when Im in windows both of the sound cards play the same sounds.

Tom Dunne

I don't think you can actively use two different sound cards at the one time in Windows. I would imagine the same is the case for Linux, though I could be corrected.

Anti

I dont thik this is ppossible either, Especially when using on board and a pci sound card. The drivers would cause conflicts. Maybe 2 pci sound cards might work though?

Khannie

tom dunne wrote:

I don't think you can actively use two different sound cards at the one time in Windows. I would imagine the same is the case for Linux, though I could be corrected.

Should be possible in linux alright (almost anything is, if you're willing to fiddle), though I doubt windows has that kind of facility. Is there some reason you wouldn't just disable the on-board and use a splitter maybe?

If you're determined to get it working in linux, I'd post something in the unix forum here and/or drop by #unix.ie on quakenet.

(been afk for a bit and thought about it)...Under linux / unix when you use your soundcard, you're actually just writing to a file (devices are treated as files in *nix). I'd say this is where you should focus your efforts.

edit: should be possible to write a short script / program which takes stdin and re-writes it to two files (your sound card files). This may result in a (very) short delay. I'm sure the more knowledgeable unix heads will come up with a better solution.

edit 2: You could do this with a named pipe replaceing /dev/snd maybe. You will need to google named pipes.

Snowbat

Another method in Linux is ALSA pcm_multi.

I suggest you update your distro - Mandrake 10.1 is two versions behind current (Mandriva 2007) and ALSA has had much development since 10.1 was released in Oct 2004.

tjsniper

Ok thanks ill try and update Mandriva and ill have a fiddle around,But if anybody had any ideas for linux it would be ok because I dont use windows a lot.
Thanks guys for trying and i see what your saying,but its linux and nearly everything is possible in linux:).
Any more ideas?

tjsniper

Khannie wrote:

Is there some reason you wouldn't just disable the on-board and use a splitter maybe?

I once had a splitter ,But I lost it:( and I always wanted the onboard to work with the other sound card.
But my brother has convinced me that it is impossible.
We click on a song on both of our pcs and played it exactly the same time and his finished 4 seconds before mine(which is impossible as we were only a few milliseconds apart at the start).

Ill check here every so often to see if some smart person can do this nearly impossible task.

But their are some people who claim to have managed it in winamp.
A plugin called multiple output plugin is supposed to work but its not working on my computer it is only allowing fast soundcard switching for me.
But reading the comments people claim it has worked for them.
Its on http://www.winamp.com search for multiple output plugin

Anyway thanks for your help so far guys.
any more help will be GREATLY appreciated because now its soo annoying!:mad:

Any more ideas?