Re: [Jack-Devel] Can't bring F/P below 128

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DateMon, 19 Dec 2011 09:40:56 -0500
From jordan <[hidden] at gmail dot com>
ToNikos Chantziaras <[hidden] at arcor dot de>
Cc[hidden] at jackaudio dot org
In-Reply-ToNikos Chantziaras Re: [Jack-Devel] Can't bring F/P below 128
hi,

I'm going to pipe in here as well.

>> 1) "desktop multimedia" != "specialized music creation applications"
>
> Not specialized.  Simple stuff, like hooking up a MIDI keyboard to your
> average FL-clone (I use LMMS on Linux, which is a wannabe FL clone.)

Yes, specialized!

if you were using FL in windows, you would be installing ASIO .. if
you are using an audio and/or midi interface, that is most certainly a
'specialized use'...  Proaudio apps ARE specialized! what are you
going to tell us next? That Protools or say Logic Pro are just regular
desktop applications?

and FYI - if you think 128 f/p @ 48khz (roughly 5ms of latency) is too
much for playing keys, you would be wrong... that is lower latency
than an acoustic piano. I could understand if you had said 20ms is too
much, but 5ms?? really?

>>> People expect to be able to play notes on their MIDI keyboard without
>>> audio delays on their non-specialized computers.

again, 5ms of latency should be fine for any serious 'player/musician'
to manage, without issue at all.

> What are we arguing about here exactly?  My point was that an RT kernel
> might have some negative effects on average desktop systems, affecting
> performance and throughput.  I've lost the ball by now :-P  Are you saying
> that pretty much everyone should be using an RT kernel?  Or that I should be
> rebooting to an RT kernel when I need to work with audio?

I suppose it depends on what you are doing. But generally speaking, RT
will be better for the majority of use-cases, and if your system is
setup properly, should deliver lower latencies, in a more reliable
way.

> If yes, then I disagree.  I think you can have both a stellar desktop
> performance *and* low latencies with the same kernel (which is the case with
> BFS.)  But my issue is not a matter of vanilla kernel vs RT vs BFS.

BFS works okay, but there are many use-cases where it doesn't work as
well as RT. I would know too, being as i used BFS for a really long
time (successfully, for proaudio type stuff - when RT was stuck at
2.6.33-rt). On all of my hardware RT is better. the only exception
*may" be my old laptop, which still uses BFS, only because i
refuse/will not update my system, and thus haven't tested the 3.0
series of RT, on that machine. (but it is only running a handful of
apps at a time).

BFS can't scale upto the amount of stuff that i am using on my
desktop/rackmount. RT is *required* in order to give the stability and
low latency that i require (recording and playing live with a band).

> It's about the on-board sound chip being quite lame latency-wise, while a
> cheap-ass, ancient PCI card I have lying around unexpectedly turns out to be
> quite the low-latency monster.

on-board sound chips usually suck, i would expect a pci soundcard to be better.

is that all that surprising, really?

jordan
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