Short: Retargetable audio, Developer's Archive Author: Martin Blom Uploader: Martin Blom Type: driver/audio Version: 6.0 Architecture: m68k-amigaos This archive contains the developer documentation and example source code for AHI, both for programmer who wish to use AHI in their own applications and those who want to write hardware drivers. Changes since last release ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ * Anti-click mixing routines, which makes AHI search for a zero-crossing before playing a new note * Playback of 32 bit samples. * Multi-channel audio. Eight channels are supported. * Support for four more architectures: MorphOS/PPC, AmigaOS4/PPC, Amithlon/ix86, AROS/ix86. * Support for PowerPC accelerator cards (MorphOS and AmigaOS4 only). * A new driver, device.audio, can be used to make all low-level AHI applications, which normally open AHI in exclusive mode, behave as if they used the high-level API which allows several AHI applications to work simultaneously. (Note that this driver currently does not work with applications that require less than 20 ms latency.) * The 68000 processor is no longer supported; a 68020 or better is required. For a full log of everything that has been updated, see the ChangeLog file. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE AHI Audio system VERSION Release 6.0 AUTHOR Martin Blom DESCRIPTION Retargetable Audio for AmigaOS ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ (When refering to this software, the correct term is 'AHI audio system' or just 'AHI', never 'Audio Hardware Interface'! 'AHI' is pronounced 'atchii', as in 'God bless!'.) AHI now supports the PowerPC processor. Thanks to the users who donated money and Syscom & Mematex AB who sponsored the hardware, I was finally able you buy a Cyberstorm PPC card. The current version is for MorphOS only, but a WarpUp version will hopefully follow later. Version 6.0 supports 68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060 from the m68k family and 603 and 604 from the PowerPC family. Staring with version 6, the 68000 processor is no longer supported. 68000 owners should use version 4 instead. Quick overview ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ * Driver based Each supported sound card is controlled by a library-based audio driver. For a 'dumb' sound card, a new driver should be written in a few hours. For a 'smart' sound card, it is possible to utilize an on-board DSP, for example, to maximize performance and sound quality. For sound cards with own DSP but little or no memory, it is possible to use the main CPU to mix channels and do the post-processing with the DSP. Available today are drivers for · Aura (sampler only) · Clarity (sampler only) · Concierto (Picasso IV sound module) · Delfina DSP and Delfina Lite · DraCo Motion · Maestro Pro · Melody Z2 and 1200 · Paula (8/14/14c bit) · Prelude and Prelude 1200 · Toccata · Wavetools · 8SVX (mono) and AIFF/AIFC (mono & stereo) sample render · ...and more. * Fast, powerful mixing routines (yeah, right... haha) The device's mixing routines mix 8- or 16-bit signed samples, both mono and stereo, located in Fast-RAM and outputs 32-bit mono or stereo (with stereo panning if desired) data, using any number of channels (as long as 'any' means less than 128...). Tables are no longer used, which might affect performace slightly. Instead, version 6 forcuses slightly more on the quality of the sound. * Support for non-realtime mixing By providing a timing feature, it is possible to create high- quality output even if the processing power is lacking, by saving the output to disk, for example as an IFF AIFF or 8SXV file. There are so-called HiFi mixing routines that can be used, which use linear interpolation and gives 32 bit output. * Audio database Uses ID codes, much like Screenmode IDs, to select the many parameters that can be set. The functions to access the audio database are not too different from those in 'graphics.library'. The device also features a requester to get an ID code from the user. * Both high- and low-level protocol By acting both like a device and a library, AHI gives the programmer a choice between full control and simplicity. The device API allows several programs to use the audio hardware at the same time, and the AUDIO: dos-device driver makes playing and recording sound very simple for both the programmer and user. * Future Compatible When AmigaOS gets device-independent audio worth it's name, it should not be too difficult to write a driver for AHI, allowing applications using 'ahi.device' to automatically use the new OS interface. At least I hope it wont. Funny how things turned out, isn't it? Sigh. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS release 2. MC68020 processor or better. AVAILABILITY Aminet, for example: ftp://ftp.germany.aminet.org/pub/aminet/dev/misc/ahi6dev.lha ftp://ftp.germany.aminet.org/pub/aminet/dev/misc/ahi6src.lha ftp://ftp.germany.aminet.org/pub/aminet/mus/misc/ahi6usr.lha WWW: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~lcs/ahi.html PRICE Free. As in speech. And beer too! However, should you want to make a donation, my PayPal account is martin@blom.org. DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright İ1994-2005 Martin Blom. AHI version 6 is (L)GPL:ed. See COPYING and COPYING.LIB inside the archive for more information.