On Jan 26, 2009, at 1:46 AM, Scott wrote: > This may answer your questions about xruns, > latency, etc. > > http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/SomeNotesOnLatency > > Pay attention to the section titled "So why is the latency higher > than on OS XYZ?" In > any case,
Thanks, that was very informative. (And I looked up xrun on wikipedia - duh - don't know why I didn't think of that before asking...) > >> Now this is very interesting. RT means "real time", right? Is >> there some real >> time capability that Linux has for processing audio that Mac does >> not? > > I don't know. I can run Linux on commodity hardware but a Mac > costs bank. Woo hoo! I will shamelessly adopt that phrase into my vocabulary. "_____" costs bank! 10 coolness points... > A recent > email thread on the ffado-users list (or was it this list?) > discussed why Apple and > Microsoft wouldn't devote the resources to making an RT version of > their OS because > the proaudio community is too small to bother supporting, or > perhaps they just can't > do it. Again... I'm not a kernel hacker, I'm just good at > following directions. As the link you posted above suggests, Apple may think that < 10ms latency is good enough - and hence no need for an RT version of Mac OS (do I sound like I know what I'm talking about yet??... :-) This brings up the question of why RT capability is needed in the first place. Again based on your link above, latency below 10 ms may be undetectable when playing soft synths (since it takes about 3 ms for sound to travel 1 m - can you notice a difference in latency if you move closer or further from your speakers when plugged directly into an amp? I can't...) So that leaves the ability to playback and record at the same time (forgot the fancy term for that ...). I can see the usefulness of that for punching into a multitrack recording, but Digital Performer 4 on my old powerbook can do that very easily if I tell it where to punch in beforehand (which is not a big limitation) - it just preloads buffers or whatever so that there is no glitch/delay when the punch happens. Seems like a Linux DAW could be programmed to do the same thing - so what is the great benefit of RT? > >> I really want to be convinced that Linux is the way to go - >> cheaper machine and >> free SW - can't beat that with a stick. But I'm very skeptical - >> you get what you >> pay for and all that... > > You can always contribute to the cause. Donate buttons are on the > right side of the > page at http://ardour.org. Hehe, well thanks for the tip, but I was actually not so concerned about the "pay" part as much as the "get" part. Ardour is what it is whether I pay for it or not. (And I would gladly make at least a token donation if I ended up using it.) I'm more concerned about how functional it could be if it is developed for free - I mean a man's gotta make a living and that sounds like more than a full time job. > >> ld > > BTW, I loved Curb Your Enthusiasm. :^) Thank you. I have moved on to other things now, obviously. I had my fortune in the stock market and now live in a van down by the river; hence my interest in a Linux machine for music, since a new Mac costs bank, baby! ld > > -- > Ubuntu-Studio-users mailing list > Ubuntu-Studio-users@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/ > listinfo/ubuntu-studio-users -- Ubuntu-Studio-users mailing list Ubuntu-Studio-users@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-studio-users
