Struggles with AppleALC Custom Layout for ALC887

[CaseySJ]

@ExtremeXT,

There are still a handful of options left:

• Currently the rear Mic and rear Line In are configured as auto-sense pairs, which is technically not correct
• So we can go back to pairing the rear Mic and front Mic together
• Or we can split the front Mic and rear Mic (i.e. remove auto-switching) so they appear as separate inputs
  • This can produce 3 inputs:
    • Mic 1
    • Mic 2
    • Line In
• We can also temporarily remove the front Mic and focus on bringing up the rear Mic
  • This will produce:
    • Mic 1
    • Line In
• We can also remove front Mic and Line In
  • This will produce:
    • Mic 1

If you're up for testing these variants, I can produce all three variants and upload them by your morning time.

Variant A	Mic 1, Mic 2, Line In as 3 independent outputs
Variant B	Mic 1 and Line In only
Variant C	Mic 1 only

 

[CaseySJ]

This is Variant A

It will look weird. That's okay. We just want to see:

• Which Inputs are available in Sound --> Input
• Do any of the inputs work?
• Do both outputs still work?

 

[CaseySJ]

This is Variant B

We just want to see:

• Which Inputs are available in Sound --> Input
• Do any of the inputs work?
• Do both outputs still work?

 

[CaseySJ]

This is Variant C

We just want to see:

• Which Inputs are available in Sound --> Input
• Do any of the inputs work?
• Do both outputs still work?

 

[ExtremeXT]

Variant A:

• Internal Microphone, Line In, Line In
• No
• Yes

Variant B: Same as Variant A.

Variant C: Same as Variant B and C.

Is it possible to focus on the front mic port instead of the back one? It's easier for me to plug it in there.

 

[CaseySJ]

There are very few options remaining.

We can try changing the Mic address from 0x50010018 to 0x50010019 in layout15.xml (in Resources/ALC887 sub folder) just under MuteGPIO. The address is specified in decimal, so it would be: 1342242841

<key>Mic</key>
   <dict>
   <key>MuteGPIO</key>
   <integer>1342242841>
   <key>SignalProcessing</key>
   …
   </dict>

Another option would be to use the SignalProcessing section from a different layout XML.

The microphone should work on other boards that use the same chip/codec so it’s puzzling why this particular board is not cooperating.

 

[ExtremeXT]

There are very few options remaining.

We can try changing the Mic address from 0x50010018 to 0x50010019 in layout15.xml (in Resources/ALC887 sub folder) just under MuteGPIO. The address is specified in decimal, so it would be: 1342242841

<key>Mic</key>
   <dict>
   <key>MuteGPIO</key>
   <integer>1342242841>
   <key>SignalProcessing</key>
   …
   </dict>

Another option would be to use the SignalProcessing section from a different layout XML.

The microphone should work on other boards that use the same chip/codec so it’s puzzling why this particular board is not cooperating.

My guess is that AppleHDA doesn't support AMD microphones, it's been known for a while that you need VoodooHDA or an USB DAC. Maybe we could look into patching AppleHDA and integrating that into AppleHDA?

 

[CaseySJ]

Have you tried Layout 77?

It looks quite reasonable…

We just need to set alcid=77

 

[CaseySJ]

My guess is that AppleHDA doesn't support AMD microphones, it's been known for a while that you need VoodooHDA or an USB DAC. Maybe we could look into patching AppleHDA and integrating that into AppleHDA?

Let me test Mic input on my Gigabyte B550 Vision D shortly. It uses ALC1220.

 

[CaseySJ]

Please ignore previous post about layout 77. That’s for 897 not 887.

 

[CaseySJ]

We may need to look at PROC_COEF and COEF_INDEX values, then construct additional verbs for the Microphone input if something significant is discovered. Normally it's not necessary to inject additional verbs, but this has helped solve the following problems in the recent past (i.e. within the last year):

1. Sound output not working after booting from Windows to Mac if Realtek drivers are installed in Windows
2. Microphone input not working on some codecs

I can create the additional verbs, but let's first run the following data-collection steps:

1. Create a Linux Live USB
   • We can download Ubuntu, for example, and use Balena Etcher to transfer the ISO image to an empty USB flash drive
   • Then we boot from the flash drive and choose the option to run Linux without installing it
2. Boot Linux Live
3. Important: In Linux, verify that sound output and input are working
4. If so, then run the two commands shown below and post the output directly to this site from Linux (Firefox is included with Ubuntu)

Then we'll boot into macOS and use alc-verb and dump_coeff.sh (which I can post here) to query the system for specific coefficients on our Microphone and Line-In nodes to see if they are different from Linux. If they're different, we can try injecting alc-verbs to make them equivalent to Linux.

The procedure is located here:

Dumping processing coefficients

Native macOS HD audio for not officially supported codecs - acidanthera/AppleALC

github.com

 

[CaseySJ]

Here's a reference to a Microphone-not-working issue that was fixed by adding special verbs:

[AppleALC] alc-verb doesn't work correctly · Issue #1644 · acidanthera/bugtracker

Since 61e2bbf is applied to AppleALC, we could send hda-verb command through AppleALC by adding alcverbs=1. But there has a weird problem, my computer using ALC255 and I use the layout-id 66, then ...

github.com

 

[CaseySJ]

Attached ZIP contains two files for macOS:

• dump_coeff.sh
• alc-verb

The script dump_coeff.sh is what we'll use. It calls alc-verb internally. To use this in macOS, however, we need the output from Linux.

 

[ExtremeXT]

We may need to look at PROC_COEF and COEF_INDEX values, then construct additional verbs for the Microphone input if something significant is discovered. Normally it's not necessary to inject additional verbs, but this has helped solve the following problems in the recent past (i.e. within the last year):

1. Sound output not working after booting from Windows to Mac if Realtek drivers are installed in Windows
2. Microphone input not working on some codecs

I can create the additional verbs, but let's first run the following data-collection steps:

1. Create a Linux Live USB
   • We can download Ubuntu, for example, and use Balena Etcher to transfer the ISO image to an empty USB flash drive
   • Then we boot from the flash drive and choose the option to run Linux without installing it
2. Boot Linux Live
3. Important: In Linux, verify that sound output and input are working
4. If so, then run the two commands shown below and post the output directly to this site from Linux (Firefox is included with Ubuntu)

View attachment 8919

Then we'll boot into macOS and use alc-verb and dump_coeff.sh (which I can post here) to query the system for specific coefficients on our Microphone and Line-In nodes to see if they are different from Linux. If they're different, we can try injecting alc-verbs to make them equivalent to Linux.

The procedure is located here:

Dumping processing coefficients

Native macOS HD audio for not officially supported codecs - acidanthera/AppleALC

github.com

Here is my codec dump from an older Linux Mint ISO I had laying around on my Ventoy USB drive, I hope it's okay. The microphone works perfectly in this environment. macOS coefficient dump coming soon.

 

[ExtremeXT]

@CaseySJ Here is the output from the script on macOS, I hope I did it right.

extremext@ExtremeXTs-Mac-Pro ALC-Dumps % ./dump_coeff.sh 1 0x20 24


Node 0x20


Processing caps: ncoeff=24


Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc
Coeff 0xe00002bc: 0xe00002bc

EDIT: All of them are the same

 

[ExtremeXT]

So I forgot to add the alc-verb property, here is the new list.

extremext@ExtremeXTs-Mac-Pro ALC-Dumps % ./dump_coeff.sh 0 0x20 24


Node 0x20


Processing caps: ncoeff=24


Coeff 0x00: 0x6033


Coeff 0x01: 0xa9a8


Coeff 0x02: 0x86a5


Coeff 0x03: 0x0000


Coeff 0x04: 0x0001


Coeff 0x05: 0x0000


Coeff 0x06: 0x0000


Coeff 0x07: 0x0808


Coeff 0x08: 0x0030


Coeff 0x09: 0x1900


Coeff 0x0a: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0b: 0x0c00


Coeff 0x0c: 0x3f02


Coeff 0x0d: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0e: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0f: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x10: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x11: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x12: 0x0300


Coeff 0x13: 0x0053


Coeff 0x14: 0x3fff


Coeff 0x15: 0x0080


Coeff 0x16: 0x062b


Coeff 0x17: 0x0340

 

[CaseySJ]

Coefficient 0x09 is different:

• Linux = 0x1800
• Mac = 0x1900

This might pertain to the path map, as follows:

• Currently we have Audio Input 0x08 connected to Microphone node 0x18
• Currently we have Audio Input 0x09 connected to Microphone node 0x19 <-- hence Coeff 0x09 on Mac is 0x1900 (I believe)

This is a guess. But we can harmlessly try this:

• Remap Audio Input 0x09 to Microphone node 0x18
• Remap Audio Input 0x08 to Microphone node 0x19

Line-In can be left as-is:

• Audio Input 0x08 to Line-In node 0x1A

I can make this change to the ConfigData and compile a new version.

 

[CaseySJ]

However, we can also add an ALC Verb for node 0x20 that makes the change to 0x1800. I can do that as well.

 

[CaseySJ]

Attached is AppleALC that includes these 2 changes to path map:

• Remap Audio Input 0x09 to Microphone node 0x18
• Remap Audio Input 0x08 to Microphone node 0x19

After booting with this, let's generate the coeff dump in macOS once again.

 

[ExtremeXT]

Attached is AppleALC that includes these 2 changes to path map:

• Remap Audio Input 0x09 to Microphone node 0x18
• Remap Audio Input 0x08 to Microphone node 0x19

After booting with this, let's generate the coeff dump in macOS once again.

Here are the coeffs.

Coeff 0x00: 0x6033


Coeff 0x01: 0xa9a8


Coeff 0x02: 0x87a9


Coeff 0x03: 0x0000


Coeff 0x04: 0x0001


Coeff 0x05: 0x0000


Coeff 0x06: 0x0000


Coeff 0x07: 0x0808


Coeff 0x08: 0x0030


Coeff 0x09: 0x1800


Coeff 0x0a: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0b: 0x0c00


Coeff 0x0c: 0x3f02


Coeff 0x0d: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0e: 0x0000


Coeff 0x0f: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x10: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x11: 0xddcc


Coeff 0x12: 0x0300


Coeff 0x13: 0x0053


Coeff 0x14: 0x3fff


Coeff 0x15: 0x0080


Coeff 0x16: 0x062b


Coeff 0x17: 0x034c