Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 Issues
I've got a fun one here, and not exactly sure what is causing it. Just installed Bazzite for the first time and was poking around the sound and display settings to make sure everything was working. Immediately noticed that the default sound source, HDA Creative (referring to my Sound Blaster AE-7), was using the port for Speakers. Aka, no sound from the headphones. No problem, happens on Windows too, and usually when I swap to the headphones it works. Problem is Bazzite is registering the headphones port as "unplugged." The full port text is "Line Out / Headphones (unplugged)."
When I test that port, I do get sound, but it does not allow me to select that sound device anymore. In fact, when I select the headphones port, it forces the playback device selection up to "USB Audio S/PDIF Output." I have no USB sound devices plugged in, so now sound there either.
My setup is a small, provided with the card amp that has a volume knob on it, with both my headphones and mic plugged into it using separate 3.5 mm jacks. The amp has a single cord from it that runs to the card, but splits at the end into individual headphones and mic jacks, also 3.5 mm.
Things I have tried:
- Setting default device in alsamixer
- Swapped between different profiles, including the 5.1 output + stereo input suggested in the AE-5 thread here
- Unplugging and replugging in jacks on amp and into sound card
- Plugging headphones and microphone directly into sound card
So far, nothing has worked, and I have tried restarting with jacks directly into sound card to no avail. I am aware that AE-7 support appears to be patched into the AE-5 unofficial driver, which I'm assuming is why alsamixer correctly identified and provides extra driver options, but I understand if support is not yet fully provided for the sound card. Any assistance would be helpful! Thanks.
Solution:Jump to solution
Did some more testing and will post what I believe the solution is here.
The GUI for Bazzite with this particular card appears to be accidently misleading and interestingly coupled with the card's firmware. Initially on setup, just like in windows, the card starts with speakers as its default. And, like in Windows, it refers to its output as Speaker, no matter if headphone or speaker output is selected.
So if you come across this issue in Bazzite or another linux distro, here's the correct way to get the card to work using alsa (alsamixer on the command line)....
4 Replies
Should be mentioned that, upon further testing, in Discord if I swap to the HDA Creative Analog Surround 5.0 with Port set to Line Out / Headphone (unplugged), sound works fine. Unfortunately, I get no system sounds though (like entering a voice call, a notification ping, etc.). This is the same with say a YouTube video, since I can't select the card as the default sound device and the browser uses the default selection to output audio
Okay I believe I got it working, would still consider this a bug but I managed to get system sound. The setting changed in alsamixer was HP/Speaker Auto Detect, which after a restart, resulted in sound, even with Line Out / Speaker selected for the port
I ditched internal sound cards years ago. Always a pain even on Windows. Best is always and will always be S/PDIF out from motherboard into an external dac/amp.
Also reliability issues aside converting digital to analog in an environment as electronically noisy as the inside of a computer case is dumb. No other way to put it and I use to be that person having owned both the xonar essence STX and STX 2.
Solution
Did some more testing and will post what I believe the solution is here.
The GUI for Bazzite with this particular card appears to be accidently misleading and interestingly coupled with the card's firmware. Initially on setup, just like in windows, the card starts with speakers as its default. And, like in Windows, it refers to its output as Speaker, no matter if headphone or speaker output is selected.
So if you come across this issue in Bazzite or another linux distro, here's the correct way to get the card to work using alsa (alsamixer on the command line).
- Don't touch the port drop-down in the sound settings! It is set correctly. I found that setting the channels to 5.0 analog with analog input was the best option for the card in the other drop-down.
- Open command prompt and run
alsamixer. Press F6 to swap to the card (labeled HDA Creative in the menu).
- On the output screen, arrow all the way over to HP/Speaker Auto Detect and press M to activate it. Then arrow over one more time and press the up (or down arrow) to swap off Speaker to the Headphones option.
- Press esc to exit alsamixer and you should be set from there.