help Soundblaster RECON 3D Fatality Sound card under Linux

[Ravensky]

Does anyone have this sound card working under Linux x64?  I am running gnome Ubuntu 15.10 and for the life of me I can not get this card to work at all.  Any help would be appreciated.  I had to remove it to get sound from my onboard Realtek which sounds dull and not very crisp at all.

 

Thank you!

[Unobscured Vision]

I had to jump through hoops to get my Audigy 2 Platinum Pro working properly. Seems like the methodology would be the same.

 

In Terminal, fire up alsamixer. Press F6 to select your SD Fatality. Press the arrow keys until you get to the the Audigy (or equivalent) Digital/Analog Output Switch. Press 'M' to un-mute it. If it's not muted, mute then un-mute it again. It's a known bug with the driver that has gone back a long way; it'll properly apply the setting this time.

 

Then go through the rest of the channels and un-mute anything else you think you need, and press up/down on the arrow keys to adjust your levels. 'M' will mute and un-mute channels. Press 'Esc' to exit.

 

Restart. This is critical. Mine wouldn't work until I did this.

 

Now, in the Sound Settings, make certain that the correct Sound Card is selected and test the output until you get the correct one. It can be a trial-and-error process, so be patient.

 

Hope that helps.

[Ravensky]

Thank you I will try this after I put the card back in

[PGHammer]

15 minutes ago, Ravensky said:

Does anyone have this sound card working under Linux x64?  I am running gnome Ubuntu 15.10 and for the life of me I can not get this card to work at all.  Any help would be appreciated.  I had to remove it to get sound from my onboard Realtek which sounds dull and not very crisp at all.

 

Thank you!

I have for the past three years.  Surprisingly, all you need is support for Intel HD Audio (which is the default format for all SoundCore3D audio processors, regardless of OS); however, in order to use it, you must disable your onboard audio (which does tend to interfere with it) in your BIOS/UEFI equivalent.  The only reason I don't use my Fata1ity Pro sound card today is due to it being physically crowded out by my GPU (dual-slot-plus GTX550Ti) - as my current mATX motherboard is physically smaller than the mATX motherboard it replaced - basically, lack of room on the motherboard - not lack of compatibility.  (It will work in SteamOS as well (1.0 or later) - so it will work in BYOPC SteamMachines, too.)

[Ravensky]

1 minute ago, PGHammer said:

I have for the past three years.  Surprisingly, all you need is support for Intel HD Audio (which is the default format for all SoundCore3D audio processors, regardless of OS); however, in order to use it, you must disable your onboard audio (which does tend to interfere with it) in your BIOS/UEFI equivalent.  The only reason I don't use my Fata1ity Pro sound card today is due to it being physically crowded out by my GPU (dual-slot-plus GTX550Ti) - as my current mATX motherboard is physically smaller than the mATX motherboard it replaced - basically, lack of room on the motherboard - not lack of compatibility.  (It will work in SteamOS as well (1.0 or later) - so it will work in BYOPC SteamMachines, too.)

How did you get it to work then?  I have the onboard disabled and am using Ubuntu 15.10, but it doesn't work even then...

[Unobscured Vision]

3 minutes ago, PGHammer said:

I have for the past three years.  Surprisingly, all you need is support for Intel HD Audio (which is the default format for all SoundCore3D audio processors, regardless of OS); however, in order to use it, you must disable your onboard audio (which does tend to interfere with it) in your BIOS/UEFI equivalent.  The only reason I don't use my Fata1ity Pro sound card today is due to it being physically crowded out by my GPU (dual-slot-plus GTX550Ti) - as my current mATX motherboard is physically smaller than the mATX motherboard it replaced - basically, lack of room on the motherboard - not lack of compatibility.  (It will work in SteamOS as well (1.0 or later) - so it will work in BYOPC SteamMachines, too.)

Really? I didn't have to disable my onboard sound. Just select the sound output I wanted to use, and presto/no problems. Never mind, same driver can't use two chipsets.

[Ravensky]

19 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

I had to jump through hoops to get my Audigy 2 Platinum Pro working properly. Seems like the methodology would be the same.

 

In Terminal, fire up alsamixer. Press F6 to select your SD Fatality. Press the arrow keys until you get to the the Audigy (or equivalent) Digital/Analog Output Switch. Press 'M' to un-mute it. If it's not muted, mute then un-mute it again. It's a known bug with the driver that has gone back a long way; it'll properly apply the setting this time.

 

Then go through the rest of the channels and un-mute anything else you think you need, and press up/down on the arrow keys to adjust your levels. 'M' will mute and un-mute channels. Press 'Esc' to exit.

 

Restart. This is critical. Mine wouldn't work until I did this.

 

Now, in the Sound Settings, make certain that the correct Sound Card is selected and test the output until you get the correct one. It can be a trial-and-error process, so be patient.

 

Hope that helps.

I did this and still nothing =/

[Unobscured Vision]

Bummer.  I dunno then.

[Unobscured Vision]

Did you keep scrolling? There are way more channels for Soundblaster cards than what are shown initially. Trust me. Keep pressing the right arrow key.

[Ravensky]

1 minute ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Did you keep scrolling? There are way more channels for Soundblaster cards than what are shown initially. Trust me. Keep pressing the right arrow key.

yes and rebooted... =/

[BinaryData]

Have you consulted the Ubuntu forums? They've been quite helpful for a lot of my problems. My Keyboard (Orion Spark) refuses to work in Ubuntu, others don't have problems at all.

[Unobscured Vision]

2 minutes ago, Ravensky said:

yes and rebooted... =/

And clicked the sound applet after rebooting to make sure you're using the right output device? I know it's a pain, but sometimes it's the most simple, stupid and most obvious things that'll hold up the show.

 

And PGHammer had a possible solution as well. If mine isn't working, try that one.

[Ravensky]

I did this:

 

added rmmod snd_hda_intel
modprobe snd_hda_intel position_fix=1

 

at the end of my /etc/rc.local file and then did:

 

sudo echo "options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1"

sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

and my sound is working! it is only 2:1 though, surround is not working nor do I have the option to select 5:1 in the sound settings, is there something I can edit to add this?

 

 

 

[Unobscured Vision]

Anything in the profile that will let you select 4:1 or 5:1?

[Ravensky]

nowhere that I can see... it's there when I am using the onboard sound but that is disabled now.

[BinaryData]

4 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Anything in the profile that will let you select 4:1 or 5:1?

Seems to be kernel related, from what I've seen. It'll work in Stereo, and 32bit, but 64bit might not. Granted there should be a larger support for this by now, considering it's 3 years old.

 

Found this tidbit.

 

I know it might not be enjoyable, but what about WinE and using Windows Drivers for it?

[Ravensky]

now when I reboot sound works for like a split second then dies, then if I wait for a minute same thing happens.... O_O

 

[Ravensky]

16 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

Seems to be kernel related, from what I've seen. It'll work in Stereo, and 32bit, but 64bit might not. Granted there should be a larger support for this by now, considering it's 3 years old.

 

Found this tidbit.

 

I know it might not be enjoyable, but what about WinE and using Windows Drivers for it?

hmmm didnt know you could initialize hardware with WinE?

[BinaryData]

Just now, Ravensky said:

What is WinE?

WinE is like a Windows Emulator for Linux. It allows some support for Windows applications/games within Linux.

 

WineHQ

[Ravensky]

1 minute ago, BinaryData said:

WinE is like a Windows Emulator for Linux. It allows some support for Windows applications/games within Linux.

 

WineHQ

yeah I have Wine installed I use it for Teamviewer =)

[Ravensky]

I'm back to using Windows 10 for now, I give up! lol

 

[BinaryData]

11 minutes ago, Ravensky said:

yeah I have Wine installed I use it for Teamviewer =)

I haven't used it in years, probably since 2009. Has it improved with its ability to handle Windows installs?

[Ravensky]

1 minute ago, BinaryData said:

I haven't used it in years, probably since 2009. Has it improved with its ability to handle Windows installs?

Yes I believe so...

 

 

[BinaryData]

2 hours ago, Ravensky said:

Yes I believe so...

 

 

Give that a try then.

 

Which Recon3D do you have? Champion or Professional?

[Unobscured Vision]

I'd be careful with using Windows Drivers. The chances of something catastrophic going wrong, including the possibility of launching kittens into Lunar Orbit, are quite high.