1

I have a GIGABYTE GA-H170N-WIFI motherboard which I'd like to use as a basis for home audio system. It has got two HDMI outputs and 5.1 analog audio output.

The question is, how do I find out how many independent audio channels does the sound card/subsystem support? Can I really have 8 independent audio channels per HDMI output, plus 6 analog channels (not to mention up to 8 channels on the S/PDIF output) running at the same time, sending different signals? Furthermore, is it possible to convince PulseAudio to "split" the HDMI audio channels and provide them as 8 independent sinks?

Thanks!

Update: my /proc/asound/card0/codec#2

Codec: Intel Skylake HDMI
Address: 2
AFG Function Id: 0x1 (unsol 0)
Vendor Id: 0x80862809
Subsystem Id: 0x80860101
Revision Id: 0x100000
No Modem Function Group found
Default PCM:
    rates [0x0]:
    bits [0x0]:
    formats [0x0]:
Default Amp-In caps: N/A
Default Amp-Out caps: N/A
State of AFG node 0x01:
  Power states:  D0 D3 CLKSTOP EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0, Clock-stop-OK
GPIO: io=0, o=0, i=0, unsolicited=0, wake=0
Node 0x02 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x6611: 8-Channels Digital
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  Digital: Enabled KAE
  Digital category: 0x0
  IEC Coding Type: 0x0
  PCM:
    rates [0x7f0]: 32000 44100 48000 88200 96000 176400 192000
    bits [0x1a]: 16 24 32
    formats [0x5]: PCM AC3
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
Node 0x03 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x6611: 8-Channels Digital
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  Digital: Enabled KAE
  Digital category: 0x0
  IEC Coding Type: 0x0
  PCM:
    rates [0x7f0]: 32000 44100 48000 88200 96000 176400 192000
    bits [0x1a]: 16 24 32
    formats [0x5]: PCM AC3
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
Node 0x04 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x6611: 8-Channels Digital
  Converter: stream=0, channel=0
  Digital: Enabled KAE
  Digital category: 0x0
  IEC Coding Type: 0x0
  PCM:
    rates [0x7f0]: 32000 44100 48000 88200 96000 176400 192000
    bits [0x1a]: 16 24 32
    formats [0x5]: PCM AC3
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
Node 0x05 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40778d: 8-Channels Digital Amp-Out CP
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x00, stepsize=0x00, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals:  [0x00 0x00]
  Pincap 0x0b000094: OUT Detect HBR HDMI DP
  Pin Default 0x18560010: [Jack] Digital Out at Int HDMI
    Conn = Digital, Color = Unknown
    DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0x0
  Pin-ctls: 0x40: OUT
  Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
  Devices: 0
  Connection: 3
     0x02* 0x03 0x04
Node 0x06 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40778d: 8-Channels Digital Amp-Out CP
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x00, stepsize=0x00, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals:  [0x00 0x00]
  Pincap 0x0b000094: OUT Detect HBR HDMI DP
  Pin Default 0x18560010: [Jack] Digital Out at Int HDMI
    Conn = Digital, Color = Unknown
    DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0x0
  Pin-ctls: 0x00:
  Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
  Devices: 0
  Connection: 0
  In-driver Connection: 3
     0x02 0x03 0x04
Node 0x07 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40778d: 8-Channels Digital Amp-Out CP
  Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x00, stepsize=0x00, mute=1
  Amp-Out vals:  [0x00 0x00]
  Pincap 0x0b000094: OUT Detect HBR HDMI DP
  Pin Default 0x18560010: [Jack] Digital Out at Int HDMI
    Conn = Digital, Color = Unknown
    DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0x0
  Pin-ctls: 0x00:
  Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0
  Power states:  D0 D3 EPSS
  Power: setting=D0, actual=D0
  Devices: 0
  Connection: 0
  In-driver Connection: 3
     0x02 0x03 0x04
Node 0x08 [Vendor Defined Widget] wcaps 0xf00000: Mono
|improve this question
  • Why the downvote? – David Jan 13 '18 at 20:13
  • 1
    This question may be better suited to superuser or serverfault, as there’s nothing specific to Unix/Linux in it. – Jeff Schaller♦ Jan 13 '18 at 20:18
  • Look at cat /proc/asound/card*/codec\#* to see if you can use audio in both HDMI outputs at once, or just in a single one. This may also give an indication how many channels you can transfer over HDMI. Look at cat /proc/asound/card*/eld\#* to see what formats/how many channels whatever you connected to HDMI will accept. Yes, you can split channels in both Pulseaudio and ALSA. – dirkt Jan 13 '18 at 20:21
  • @dirkt, would you please help me to decipher the output? I'm not quite sure how to interpret it. – David Jan 13 '18 at 21:13
4

According to the codec information, you have 3 converter nodes (which accept a digital data stream) of 8 channels each, and 3 pin nodes (which are connected to the graphic card to embed the sound stream into HDMI).

So your hardware is indeed capable of 8 channels per HDMI plus 6 channels analog (unless the HDA soundcard has bandwidth restrictions, but I'll guess one just has to try that), and it could even do an additional 8 channels for another HDMI output if you had the physical output.

Setting up simultanous output on both HDMI channels in Pulseaudio may be a bit of a headache, though. You may have to fiddle with the profile sets in /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/ if you actually plan to do this.

You can split off channels as additional sinks easily in Pulseaudio with the module-remap-sink module.

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