Re: [LAU] Advice needed: hardware vendors

On Tue, 8 Apr 2014, Chris Metzler wrote:

> So, I'm looking to find out about hardware vendors. Specifically, I
> want to know about:
>
> 1. folks selling fully-built machines with Linux in mind, so that
> there'll be no real worries about any hardware compatibility issues;
>
> 2. folks selling motherboard/processor combos that they test before
> shipping to the customer, like Monarch did back when they were still
> around and reliable.
>
> In case it matters, I tend to go for as souped-up a home machine as I
> can, and then ride it for a long time. The machine I end up with will
> be used for Linux audio, with an Audiofire 8 interface that'll connect
> to the machine by Firewire. So obviously it's going to need to have low
> latencies in mind. It'll also get used for gaming, and for code
> development for scientific computing. I dunno whether it's even an
> option anymore, but having one legacy PCI slot around would be nice,
> but isn't a dealbreaker if that's just too obsolete.

I am certainly not an expert, but I have learned a few things and tend to
build all my machines rather than buy. The first thing to point out is
that gaming and low latency are two very different needs. Gaming is well
supported, but low latency is not (in any OS). When looking at a cpu for
low latency, the cheaper cpu with no hyperthreading will give better low
latency all else being equal. Most all in one cpu/gpu/etc chips are not
good for low latency (unless something new is any better) because these
kind of cpus the extra stuff on the chip steals time from the cpu outside
of the OS knowledge/control.

I can't remember where right now, but there is a real time site that has
latency results for a lot of mother board cpu combinations, I think I
actually got it from someone on this list.

PCI slots seem to have become a problem, they seem to be PCIe bridged
slots on most new MB.

A flexable BIOS can be very helpful for getting good low latency
performance.

Expect to run your CPU at a lower speed than full for audio work. This can
be set on the fly so speed can be ondemand for gaming and set to 70-80%
full speed for audio. Many people just set performance mode for audio, but
this may make things too hot and the cpu temp sensor may change the cpu
speed on you in the middle of your best take giving a glitch. I have found
that even running my MB at half speed I get better latency/no xruns as
compaired to the faster ondemand setting. The main thing is to force a
single speed for audio while not creating too much heat. The MB/CPU
manufactures seem to have learned a lot from the overclocking crowd and
most new MB effectively over clock all the time and regulate the speed by
temperature. We don't want to do that for audio.

Intel GPUs are open but nvidia seem to perform better and Linux drivers
are available. The choice here is how close you want to stick to all open
SW. I have not heard anything to recomend AMD GPUs and so I have no
experience with them either. The intel video on the atom boards are not
open and poorly supported, but I didn't think you were buying one of these
anyway even though their low latency performance is quite good. (can be
anyway)

Firewire ports don't come on MB that I have seen, Make sure you can get an
interface that will fit whatever MB you want to use.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
_______________________________________________
Linux-audio-user mailing list
Linux-audio-user@email-addr-hidden
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user