Using a Presonus Quantum Thunderbolt 2 Audio Interface...HELP

[Slaughter]

Just to clarify, I haven't yet gone the Hack route - I am in the process of working out if I even can! I'm quite sobered by the fact that since July '17 nobody has got a Quantum working with a Hackintosh... it's a little heartbreaking actually...

 

[Mixerjack]

I don't see any Quantum errors.


If you're both following along, some information would be helpful to discover where the problem is occurring:

1. boot log (to show errors)
2. kextstat (to show if the driver loaded)
3. ioreg from hackintosh (to show if the devices were discovered)
4. ioreg from a working Mac (to show what the devices and drivers should look like)

I will get right on this, nice one!!

 

[Mixerjack]

Just to clarify, I haven't yet gone the Hack route - I am in the process of working out if I even can! I'm quite sobered by the fact that since July '17 nobody has got a Quantum working with a Hackintosh... it's a little heartbreaking actually...

I bought the quantum without checking... But I will keep working at it with the help of the smart and helpful people on this forum (obviously joevt really knows his ****!). And if hackintoshing has taught me anything, its to just stick at it. There's always a workaround. The quantums just arn't as popular as the apollos/ensemble etc...

 

[Mixerjack]

Will get the genuine mac ioreg asap

 

[MyTosh]

If it helps on the VRS8 issue, the hardware consists of 2 elements from VIA Technologies:

VT1720/24 (Envy24PT/HT) PCI Multi-Channel Audio Controller
ICE1712 (Envy24) PCI Multi-Channel I/O Controller

Am I the only one, who is starting to feel like they have been sold a sack of HS by Slate on how amazing this unit is with all the latest and greatest components? These 2 have been around like at least 17 years and are used in very entry-level products like M-Audio. They seem very cheap and old components to be used in a $2000 + system.

I did a little bit of googling, and it seems that some people have used Envy24PCIAudioDriver.kext to get Envy24 based soundcards to work on earlier Hackintoshes. But the kext had issues like noises, memory allocation problems and not accepting having a large amount of RAM, sleep problems and so on. Also there was some weird tinkering going on with decibels being different on different versions of the kext. I don't know what to make of it.

I personally have tried every modification to the VRSAudioDriver kext that have been suggested and then some. I can make it load earlier, but still I guess not early enough. Removing the bolt part didn't do anything nor adding the boolean bits. Though it still does the initial handshake, just not the secondary, so removing the bolt part didn't break it.

I wonder why does the VRS8AudioDriver want to make a IOPCISecondaryMatch to 0x52413031&0xFFFFFFFF which is a Sub Device / Sub Vendor name for both the VT1720/24 and ICE1712... Or is that their way of "parsing" the two together because the IOPCIPrimaryMatches are different for the two.

DPCIManager tells that both components are asking for AppleHDAController.kext:BuiltInHDA 0x04010000&FFFD0000

I do have Whatevergreen and AppleALC kexts on my setup. Maybe it's a setting thing on the config that could make the difference.

Am I correct to assume, that VT1720 (and maybe ICE1712) needs to be added to the AppleALC.kext audio codecs binary to make things happen? AppleALC codec list has only 2 VIA codecs, VT1802 and VT2020/2021... How should I go about trying to get the right ones added to it? And it seems first I need to find the codec and all the corresponding info.

 

[joevt]

Will get the genuine mac ioreg asap

Your IOREG.txt and Kextstats.txt files appear to be .rtf files. If you use TextEdit.app, remember to use the "Make Plain Text" command in the Format menu.

For ioreg, please use the command described in #47 (so all the properties are extracted and the width is not truncated - because I can't see the id of the device that is connected to Thunderbolt)

ioreg -lw0 > ioreg.txt

For kextstat, include everything so we can see the status of the entire set of loaded kernel extensions

kextstat > kextstat.txt

 

[joevt]

If it helps on the VRS8 issue, the hardware consists of 2 elements from VIA Technologies:

VT1720/24 (Envy24PT/HT) PCI Multi-Channel Audio Controller
ICE1712 (Envy24) PCI Multi-Channel I/O Controller

Am I the only one, who is starting to feel like they have been sold a sack of HS by Slate on how amazing this unit is with all the latest and greatest components? These 2 have been around like at least 17 years and are used in very entry-level products like M-Audio. They seem very cheap and old components to be used in a $2000 + system.

I did a little bit of googling, and it seems that some people have used Envy24PCIAudioDriver.kext to get Envy24 based soundcards to work on earlier Hackintoshes. But the kext had issues like noises, memory allocation problems and not accepting having a large amount of RAM, sleep problems and so on. Also there was some weird tinkering going on with decibels being different on different versions of the kext. I don't know what to make of it.

I was under the impression that Slate created some chips. Seems they just packaged existing stuff. I neglected to look up the vendor and device ids in the PCI database.
ICE1712 [Envy24] PCI Multi-Channel I/O Controller
VT1720/24 [Envy24PT/HT] PCI Multi-Channel Audio Controller

IC Ensemble was acquired by VIA so the ICE1712 is now the VT1712. I found a datasheet for the VT1712 Revision 2.4 May 28, 2002.
There's a data sheet for the VT1720 Revision 1.0 April 14, 2004. I think it also applies to the VT1724 since it specifies the 1724h device-id register (PCI02). The data sheet describes the base registers I mentioned previously.

I wonder why does the VRS8AudioDriver want to make a IOPCISecondaryMatch to 0x52413031&0xFFFFFFFF which is a Sub Device / Sub Vendor name for both the VT1720/24 and ICE1712... Or is that their way of "parsing" the two together because the IOPCIPrimaryMatches are different for the two.

IOPCISecondaryMatch 0x52413031 does a match on the subsystem-vendor-id (0x3031) and subsystem-id (0x5241). A list of subsystems is in the PCI database pages I linked but the VRS8 subsystem is not among them. It seems that the subsystem ids distinguish different devices that use the Envy24 chips.

DPCIManager tells that both components are asking for AppleHDAController.kext:BuiltInHDA 0x04010000&FFFD0000

I do have Whatevergreen and AppleALC kexts on my setup. Maybe it's a setting thing on the config that could make the difference.

Am I correct to assume, that VT1720 (and maybe ICE1712) needs to be added to the AppleALC.kext audio codecs binary to make things happen? AppleALC codec list has only 2 VIA codecs, VT1802 and VT2020/2021... How should I go about trying to get the right ones added to it? And it seems first I need to find the codec and all the corresponding info.

DPCIManager has that message because of the class code (0x040100 Multimedia audio controller) of the 1712 and 1724 which the BuiltInHDA personality of the AppleHDAController.kext (inside the AppleHDA.kext) matches. The 1712 or 1724 don't follow the Intel HDA spec, so the probe routine of AppleHDAController.kext should reject it.

 

[MyTosh]

I'm still a bit unclear of whether or not it might work if the VT1720/24 was added to the AppleALC supported codecs, that after that VRS8 could be recognized? I've been staring at the https://github.com/acidanthera/AppleALC/wiki/Adding-codec-support for an hour trying to figure out if it's something I could do... they say it's easy. Doesn't seem like that at first glance... or second. That would mean installing xcode. I remember somewhere that installing xcode might break something in Hackintosh... was that true or can I safely install it. Or maybe it was that it might not work well in Hackintosh that I read.

Though now that I'm thinking about it, what could that do. @luckyal doesn't have AppleALC in his setup if I have understood correctly and he has a working VRS8. So whatever needs to be found, is found. Or did you go some other root to make audio working on your system?

 

[MyTosh]

Oh, and I just tried the same thing using the PCIe/HDMI and the card initialized without issues with the same driver. Just need the USB ports back now. BTW, here's the strings command and output ran after VRS8 initializes:

[SIZE=3]strings /Library/Extensions/VRS8AudioDriver.kext/Contents/MacOS/VRS8AudioDriver
AEnvy1712Ht[%p]::AEnvy1712Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy1712Ht MT regs
AEnvy1712Ht[%p]::AEnvy1712Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy1712Ht DmaPath regs
AEnvy1712Ht[%p]::AEnvy1712Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy1712Ht Ddma regs
AEnvy1712Ht[%p]::AEnvy1712Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy1712Ht CCS regs
--- esi: fDeviceRemoved(1712) = true, base=%s, offset=0x%x
AEnvy24Ht[%p]::AEnvy24Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy24HT MT regs
AEnvy24Ht[%p]::AEnvy24Ht: failed to create memory mapping for Envy24HT CCS regs
--- esi: fDeviceRemoved(1724) = true, base=%s, offset=0x%x
--- esi: fDeviceRemoved = true, PCIDeviceID=0xffff
net_egosys_driver_VRS8AudioEngine
Out:%llu
Out:%d:%d:%d
IOAudioEngineCoreAudioPlugIn
../../../Library/Extensions/VRS8AudioPlugin.bundle
AEsiAudioEngine[]::initHardware(), failed to create all streams.
AEsiAudioEngine: failed to create analogOutputStream!
AEsiAudioEngine: failed to create spdifOutputStream!
IODMACommand::withSpecification failed
setMemoryDescriptor failed (0x%08x)
AEsiAudioEngine[]::CreateAudioStream() IOAudioStream::initWithAudioEngine() failed!
AEsiAudioEngine[]::CreateAudioStream() failed to create IOAudioStream!
CreateAudioStream() - IOMemoryMap failed
AEsiAudioEngine[]::CreateAudioStream() failed to allocate IOBufferMemoryDescriptor
AEsiAudioEngine[]::performAudioEngineStart(Out) DMAEngines haven't been started correctly.
AEsiAudioEngine[%p]::CompletePendingIoRead fMidiInOverrun!
AEsiAudioEngine[%p]::CompletePendingIoRead memMap NULL
AEsiAudioEngine[%p]::CompletePendingIoRead fPreparedMemDescr NULL
AEsiAudioEngine[%p]::CompletePendingIoRead fMidiReadRequest %p not async!, i %d, IsAsync() %u
AEsiAudioEngine::ReadMidiOnCmdGate: ERROR memMap == 0
AEsiAudioEngine::ReadMidiOnCmdGate ERROR: semaphore posted, but MidiInBufferCount is zero!!
VRS8 Output
ESI Audio Device
VRS8 outputs 1-2
VRS8 outputs 3-8
SpinLock is not allocated!!
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::AEsi192Hardware  AEnvy24Ht::Init() failed !
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::AEsi192Hardware  couldn't create AEnvy24Ht !
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::AEsi192Hardware  AEnvy1712Ht::Init() failed !
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::AEsi192Hardware  couldn't create AEnvy1712Ht !
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::WriteEnvyI2c device %02X busy bit not cleared before write data!!
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::WriteEnvyI2c device %02X busy bit not cleared after write data!!
AEsi192Hardware[%p]::ReadEnvyI2c device %02X busy bit didn't clear before write address!!
AEsi192Hardware[%p]:::ReadEnvyI2c device %02X busy bit didn't clear after write address!!
net_egosys_driver_VRS8UserClient
VRS8DeviceHasMidi
VRS8PciAddr_0
VRS8PciAddr_1
VRS8EngineUID_
net_egosys_driver_VRS8Audio
IOPCITunnelled
Thunderbolt Path
Depth
%s%llu
AEsi::fEngineUID_startNo=%llu, fEngineUID=%llu
Slate Digital
AEsiAudioDevice[%p]::initHardware(%p)  super::initHardware failed!
AEsiAudioDevice[%p]::initHardware: failed!
CreateAudioEngine(), failed AEsiAudioEngine.
CreateAudioEngine(), failed AEsiAudioEngineIn.
CreateAudioEngine: fAudioEngine->init failed!
CreateAudioEngine: fAudioEngineIn->init failed!
Stereo
Mono
Mixer Port Analog
Mixer Port Spdif
S/PDIF Out Format
Consumer
ControlA
ControlB
ControlC
All Channels
Internal
Word
IOAudioControlValue
VRS8
Master Out
Analog Out 1 L
Analog Out 1 R
Analog Out 2 L
Analog Out 2 R
Analog Out 3 L
Analog Out 3 R
Analog Out 4 L
Analog Out 4 R
S/PDIF Out 1 L
S/PDIF Out 1 R
Mix1
Mix2
Mix3
Mix4
Mix5
Mix6
Mix7
Mix8
Mix9
Mix10
Mix11
Mix12
Mix13
Mix14
Mix15
Mix16
Mix17
Mix18
Mix19
Mix20
Mix21
Mix22
net_egosys_driver_VRS8AudioEngineIn
In:%llu
In:%d:%d:%d
AEsiAudioEngineIn[]::initHardware(), failed to create all streams.
AEsiAudioEngineIn: failed to create analogInputStream!
VRS8 Input
VRS inputs 1-8
mcpltnis
mcpltnis
xqke_ZUPLGC@<9520-*(&$"
net.egosys.driver.VRS8Audio
1.00
iMac-i7-2:~ luckyal$[/SIZE]

I see that Envy1724 and Envy24 are mentioned there in the beginning as failing to create memory mapping...

 

[luckyal]

Am I the only one, who is starting to feel like they have been sold a sack of HS by Slate on how amazing this unit is with all the latest and greatest components? These 2 have been around like at least 17 years and are used in very entry-level products like M-Audio. They seem very cheap and old components to be used in a $2000 + system.

Other than this being old tech, I am not sure it plays a role in the audio quality especially with respect to AD/DA conversion, WORD clock, amp quality, etc. I think the reason they went with the chip is that back in 2000's M-Audio Delta 1010 was able to achieve a rediculously low latency which was way ahead of its time. I personally used it for a long while and it had a cult-like following. So much so that Black Lion Audio had it on the list of interfaces that they deemed worth modifying. I think all they did was replace the OP amps and clock.

In order to be able to record through modeling plug-ins, the main selling point of the unit, your audio interface has to be near zero latency. Not telling you what you don't already know but again, it would be completely stupid for Slate to install top of the line components and risk tearing it all down during the final stage.