Clemens Ladisch wrote:

The only chip where hardware mixing is supported is Creative's Emu10k1 (snd-emu10k1 driver), used on the SB Live!, most Audigy and certain low-end X-Fi cards. (Cards with the 'real' X-Fi chip do _not_ work well in Linux.)

Other supported chips are ICE1724 (M-Audio Delta 1010(LT), DiO 2496, 66, 44, 410, Audiophile 24/96; Digigram VX442; TerraTec EWX 24/96, EWS 88MT/D, DMX 6Fire, Phase 88; Hoontech SoundTrack DSP 24/Value/ Media7.1; Event EZ8; Lionstracs Mediastation, Terrasoniq TS 88) and VT1720/24 (AMP AUDIO2000; M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 7.1, Audiophile 192; TerraTec Aureon 5.1 Sky, 7.1 Space/Universe, Phase 22/28; Onkyo SE-90PCI, SE-200PCI; AudioTrak Prodigy 192, 7.1 (HIFI/LT/XT), HD2; Hercules Fortissimo IV; ESI Juli@; Pontis MS300; EGO-SYS WaveTerminal 192M).

Thanks. I'll look over these cards.

The most high-end supported cards are probably the Asus Xonar cards. The D2/D2X have even slightly better audio quality than the best X-Fi, and, as the obviously most important feature, colorfully illuminated jacks. The various Dolby features are done in software in the Windows driver and are not supported in Linux. If you need a PCI-E card, the Xonar DX or D2X are your only choice.

What about the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3?

John Rigg wrote:

...

The most high-end supported cards are probably the Asus Xonar cards.

`High end' means different things in different situations of course. RME HDSP series are probably the `highest end' cards supported, but they need external converters, so they're probably unsuitable here.

The Xonar cards do look interesting, but I'd also like to carry one higher-end card. I'm looking for a single-slot PCI Express solution that works as a standalone sound card, i.e. without any mandatory external devices (though optional ones are fine).

Thanks for the information.

Edward