Re: [linux-audio-dev] Re: Plug-in API progress?

New Message Reply About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Other groups

Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Re: Plug-in API progress?
From: David Olofson (audiality_AT_swipnet.se)
Date: ke syys   29 1999 - 20:07:43 EDT


On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Paul Barton-Davis wrote:
> >> real hardware consoles, and its going to be a while before Linux or
> >> any other non-custom OS is going to be capable of running that kind of
> >> beast with 48 or 64 channels of 48KHz+ audio.
> >
> >Why? Lack of DSP power in workstation CPUs, lack of hard RT support with
> >protected memory, or what?
>
> Mostly too much multitasking for a CPU-like system. Digital mixers
> don't use 1 or 2 or 4 or 16 processors: there are hundreds of little
> doo-hickeys in there handling switch inputs, doing displays,
> etc. along with the DSP's that actually chomp the data. Dealing with
> all that stuff *correctly* on, say, 1-4 CPU's is going to cause too
> much interrupt overhead/task switching to guarantee good audio
> streaming.

Latency... That's why I want to run my engine on RTLinux. And, different jobs
should be split over separate machines, or at least locked to specific CPUs, not
distributed over all CPUs. True, now we're not talking about a normal
multiuser, multitasking desktop/server OS, but it's still the same (main
stream == cost efficient) hardware. And most of these "tricks" can already be
done with RTLinux.

> >Hah! Well, I don't blame them... And in this case, it's the _Paris_ doing the
> >processing with dedicated DSPs. (That's why it's actually rather usable,
> >compared to most all native solutions.) The P-III 800 is only doing the disk
> >I/O and the GUI! What a waste...
>
> Heh. Remember: Windows on *4* monitors ... thats why the system was
> cryo-cooled :)

*hehe* I see...

But what about one box for the audio work, and one for the GUI? Oh, right,
Windoze... :-)

//David

 ·A·U·D·I·A·L·I·T·Y· P r o f e s s i o n a l L i n u x A u d i o
- - ------------------------------------------------------------- - -
    ·Rock Solid David Olofson:
    ·Low Latency www.angelfire.com/or/audiality ·Audio Hacker
    ·Plug-Ins audiality_AT_swipnet.se ·Linux Advocate
    ·Open Source ·Singer/Composer


New Message Reply About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Other groups

This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : pe maalis 10 2000 - 07:27:12 EST