Re: [PATCH v3 00/28] Introduce QC USB SND audio offloading support
From: Wesley Cheng
Date: Mon Mar 13 2023 - 21:56:19 EST
Hi Pierre,
On 3/13/2023 5:42 PM, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
On 3/13/23 18:43, Wesley Cheng wrote:
Hi Pierre,
On 3/9/2023 4:37 PM, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
Create vendor ops for the USB SND driver:
qc_audio_offload: This particular driver has several components
associated
with it:
- QMI stream request handler
- XHCI interrupter and resource management
- audio DSP memory management
so how does this 'qc_audio_offload' interface with 'q6usb' described
above? how are the roles different or complementary?
So in general you can think that the qc_audio_offload is a complement to
the USB SND USB class driver, while q6usb is to ASoC. Since the ASoC
Humm, that is far from clear. I don't get how a something that interacts
with the USB class driver can also be in charge of the audio DSP memory
management.
This is because the USB class driver is the entity which is going to
work with the USB HCD (XHCI) in this case to fetch the required
addresses, and map that into memory accessible by the audio DSP. It
would be odd to be doing that from the q6usb end, which is part of the
ASoC layer.
framework doesn't have any communication with USB SND, the ASoC DPCM USB
backend (q6usb) will have to be the entity that maintains what is going
on in USB SND. That way, sessions initiated through the ASoC managed
sound card can evaluate what is available based on information reported
by q6usb.
qc_audio_offload and q6usb will have some interaction between each
other. The majority of communication between qc_audio_offload and q6usb
is reporting the device connection events.
It's already complicated to figure out how the DSP and USB class driver
might interact and probe/timing dependencies, but with two additional
drivers in the mix it's really hard to understand.
I did test some cases based on existence of both these drivers
(qc_audio_offload and q6usb). If either one doesn't exist in the
system, then the offload path would not work. I did improve some of
these potential sequences in the latest revision, such as patch#28. This
would address scenarios where the q6usb ASoC DPCM backend wasn't probed,
while the USB SND (and qc_audio_offload) were still detecting device
connections.
Once the Q6USB driver is probed, then the offload snd kcontrols would be
created, and devices would be properly identified with the rediscover api.
Maybe ascii-art would help describe the concepts and types of
information exchanged. Maintaining a consistent state across multiple
drivers is not an easy task.
Hopefully this might help? I know its a lot to read through.
It's very helpful! Thanks for spending the time to illustrate the
different building blocks.
USB | ASoC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| _________________________
| |sm8250 platform card |
| |_________________________|
| | |
| ___V____ ____V____
| |Q6USB | |Q6AFE | #5
| |"codec" | |"cpu" |
| |________| |_________|
| ^
| | #6
| ___V____
| |SOC-USB |
________ #1 ________ #7 | |
|USB SND |<--->|QC offld|<------------>|________|
|(card.c)| | |<---------- ^
|________| |________|___ #4 | | |
^ ^ | | | ___V__________________
| #2 | #2 | | | |APR/GLINK |
__ V_______________V_____ | | | |______________________|
|USB SND (endpoint.c) | | | | ^
|_________________________| | | | #8 |
^ | | | ___________V___________
| #3 | | |->|audio DSP |
___________V_____________ | | |_______________________|
|XHCI HCD |<- |
|_________________________| |
#1 - USB SND and QC offload:
Initialization:
- Register platform operations, to receive connect/disconnect events
from USB SND.
- QC offload creates a QMI handle, in order to receive QMI requests
from the audio DSP.
Runtime:
- USB SND passes along "struct snd_usb_audio" in order for QC offload
to reference USB UAC desc parsing/USB SND helper APIs.
- USB device disconnection events will result in clearing of the chip
entry.
#2 - USB SND and QC offload endpoints:
Runtime:
- In the non-offloaded path, USB snd will utilize functions exposed by
USB SND endpoint, to help with fetching USB EP references and queuing
URBs.
- In the offload path, qc offload will utilize the functions to fetch
USB EP references, so that it can use that information to query the
XHCI HCD.
- Likewise, both will clean up endpoints when audio stream is not in use.
#3 - XHCI HCD:
Initialization:
- During XHCI probe timing, when the USB HCD is added to the system, it
will also initialize the secondary event rings.
Runtime:
- During USB device plug ins/outs, allocates device slot, assigns eps,
and initializes transfer rings.
#4 - QC offload and XHCI:
Runtime:
- QC offload needs to reference the transfer ring and secondary event ring
addresses by executing XHCI offload management APIs.
- This happens when audio DSP receives a USB QMI stream request.
#5 - ASoC components:
Initialization:
- The SM8250 platform sound card driver fetches DT node entries defining
the ASoC links. This chain/link has the components involved for a
particular Q6AFE path. (not only USB offload)
- "cpu" - this is the ASoC CPU DAI that handles interaction with the
Q6 DSP's audio protocol. (AFE ports)
- "codec" - the ASoC codec (backend) DAI defined
- Registers ASoC platform sound card based on links defined in the DT node.
- Probes DAI components involved, ie Q6USB and Q6AFE
Runtime:
- Q6AFE has the bulk of the interaction w/ the audio DSP to start an audio
session, such as issuing AFE port start commands (part of the protocol
used to communicate the audio session info)
- Q6USB will be there to now check for if format requested is supported by
the device, and maintain offloading status.
#6 - Q6USB and SOC-USB:
Initialization:
- Q6USB will query QC offload for USB device connection states. (through
soc-usb)
- Creates a SOC USB entry, that carries information about resources,
such as audio DSP memory information and requested XHCI event ring
index.
Runtime:
- SOC-USB will receive connect/disconnect events and propagate to Q6USB.
- Q6USB makes devices available for offloading based on these events.
- Sets Q6AFE port configurations to select the USB SND card# and PCM#.
#7 - SOC-USB and QC offload:
Initialization:
- Rediscover USB SND devices when the SOC-USB entry is created (if needed)
- For situations where the Q6USB DAI hasn't been probed.
Runtime:
- Propagate connect/disconnect events.
Is the SOC-USB module or building blocks intended to be generic or
Qualcomm agnostic?
This should be generic.
It's not clear to me how it would handle "audio DSP memory information
and requested XHCI event ring index."
Each soc-usb entry that is created by the ASoC DPCM backend DAI (q6usb)
will be able to hold "private data" that, in QC case, is defined as:
struct q6usb_offload
This is passed within the snd_soc_usb_add_port() call:
snd_soc_usb_add_port(component->dev, &data->priv, q6usb_alsa_connection_cb);
So depending on the user, the private data can contain their own struct
with the information they require.
In addition, it seems to be the "bridge" or means of communication
between qc_audio_offload and q6usb, is this not based on custom events
or triggers?
Ideally, no, it shouldn't be based on custom events. Intention for the
connect_cb() that is defined is just to receive USB device discovery
events from USB SND. From the qc_audio_offload, we call
snd_soc_usb_connect() within our platform op that we register to USB SND.
//Platform connect_cb() - called from USB SND probe (device connected)
static void qc_usb_audio_offload_probe(struct snd_usb_audio *chip)
{
...
snd_soc_usb_connect(usb_get_usb_backend(udev), chip->card->number,
chip->index, chip->pcm_devs);
In the QC situation, we used this to build a list of active devices
connected.
Along the same lines, this SOC-USB entity interfaces with APR/GLINK
which doesn't speak to me so it must be a QCOM interface?
Sorry for not labeling those in the diagram, but yes, those are QC
specific interfaces. You can just think of it as a type of IPC transport.
I am trying to see if this design could be used for other architectures,
and the QCOM-specific and generic parts are not obvious.
#8 - audio DSP and QC offload:
Runtime:
- Handle QMI requests coming from audio DSP. These requests come AFTER
the Q6AFE port is opened by the Q6AFE DAI(#6)
- Returns memory information about resources allocated by XHCI.
- Enables audio playback when this QMI transaction is completed.
When the audio DSP wants to enable a playback stream, the request is
first
received by the ASoC platform sound card. Depending on the selected
route,
ASoC will bring up the individual DAIs in the path. The Q6USB
backend DAI
will send an AFE port start command (with enabling the USB playback
path), and
the audio DSP will handle the request accordingly.
Part of the AFE USB port start handling will have an exchange of
control
messages using the QMI protocol. The qc_audio_offload driver will
populate the
buffer information:
- Event ring base address
- EP transfer ring base address
and pass it along to the audio DSP. All endpoint management will now
be handed
over to the DSP, and the main processor is not involved in transfers.
Overall, implementing this feature will still expose separate sound
card and PCM
devices for both the platorm card and USB audio device:
0 [SM8250MTPWCD938]: sm8250 - SM8250-MTP-WCD9380-WSA8810-VA-D
SM8250-MTP-WCD9380-WSA8810-VA-DMIC
1 [Audio ]: USB-Audio - USB Audio
Generic USB Audio at usb-xhci-hcd.1.auto-1.4,
high speed
This is to ensure that userspace ALSA entities can decide which route
to take
when executing the audio playback. In the above, if card#1 is
selected, then
USB audio data will take the legacy path over the USB PCM drivers,
etc...
I already voiced my concerns about exposing two cards, each with their
own set of volume controls with the same device. It would be much
better
to have an additional offloaded PCM device for card0...
But if the consensus is to have two cards, it's still not clear how the
routing would be selected. In the case where there are two USB audio
devices attached, the offloaded path would only support one of the two.
How would userspace know which of the two is selected?
With patch#24:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-usb/20230308235751.495-25-quic_wcheng@xxxxxxxxxxx/T/#u
Now, userspace can at least choose which device it wants to offload.
Part of doing that would mean userspace knows what USB SND card devices
are available, so it is aware of which devices are shared (between the
offload and USB SND path)
And how would userspace know the difference anyways between two
physical
devices attached to the platform with no offload, and one physical
device with one additional offload path? The names you selected
can't be
used to identify that card1 is the optimized version of card0.
Is userspace currently able to differentiate between cards that are
created by USB SND versus ASoC? How complex can the userspace card
discovery be? Can it query kcontrols at this point in time? If so,
maybe we can change the names of the newly added ones to reflect that it
is an offload device?
SND kcontrol names are currently:
Q6USB offload status
Q6USB offload SND device select
I must admit I've never seen kcontrols being used to identify what the
card is, and in this case it's a pretend-card that's just an improved
version of another. It might be easier to use something else, such as
the component strings.
Its not exactly a pretend card, right? This is part of the overall
platform sound card we have in the system. At the moment, I'm only
testing by adding the USB audio routing, but there can be several ASoC
links defined in the overall platform card.
Sorry, I misunderstood the proposal. I thought there would be one card
for "generic USB Audio", and another one for "DSP-offloaded USB Audio".
I assumed, probably mistakenly, that all local audio endpoints
(speaker,mics) would be exposed as a separate card.
Ah got it. No, that isn't the case here.
It looks like it's more "generic USB Audio" and "DSP Audio", with the
USB offload being exposed as a PCM device of the latter.
Did I get this right? In this case, presumably there can be some sort of
Yep that's correct!
UCM file for the "DSP Audio card" that contains the configuration or
knows which kcontrols to look for. But my point about detection hold.
You could perfectly well have a 'Jack control' that tells userspace when
a device is connected. That way there's no guess work, it's similar to
HDMI for Intel: the device is exposed but only valid when the jack
control is set.
Hmm, ok. Let me see if I can switch up some things. Maybe replace the
current snd_soc_dapm_enable_pin() calls in the q6usb connection_cb and
replace that with a snd jack report. (the snd jack implementation
already takes care of updating the pin if needed)
Thanks
Wesley Cheng
The Q6AFE CPU DAI has multiple audio AFE "ports" they can handle. USB
is only one of those.
Before we review low-level kernel plumbing, it would be good to give a
better overview of how userspace applications are supposed to interact
with the cards and identify the offloaded path. Testing with
tinyplay/tinymix is fine, but that's a developer-level or CI unit test.
we've got to see the broader picture of how a sound server would use
this USB offload capability.
Sure, I think that is fine. I was hoping that at least adding some of
the new kcontrols would help userspace make use of this path in general,
but we can add more information if required.
Can I ask if this solution has been used with a complete userspace stack
already? I could see how this might be used with a relatively fixed
Its been used only with the Android HAL.
ok, that aligns with what I was thinking.
Android HAL, where the platform and routing are relatively controlled. I
don't see how a more generic audio server would deal with the discovery
and routing.
This is why your input is helpful, since it provides another use case
that wasn't considered. I think in our previous discussions the tagging
possibility was a good idea, and was hoping that it could help. Could
tag all USB SND cards to the platform sound card as well, and if the
power saving path is chosen, it would issue the playback on the platform
sound card. (if not in use)
In this case, the offload path wouldn't be the default routing, and only
enabled for power optimized path.
Thanks
Wesley Cheng