On 05/22/2010 07:59 PM, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 1:21 AM, Nikos Chantziaras<rea...@arcor.de> wrote:
Latency is the delay between giving the order to play a sound and the sound
actually being played. It's usually around 30ms here with ALSA/dmix, and
around 10ms with OSS/vmix. It's not funny trying to play something in a
software synth with a keyboard when having a 30ms latency.
As I said, you're doing it wrong. No "normal" (average desktop, media
center, laptop, linux-phone) user needs 10ms of latency in audio.
That's overkill. Yours is a special case, and you need special
software. Try Jack.
I don't do professional audio. I have a normal PC. And just like I
sometimes use a synth in Windows (I'm just a hobbyist), I'd like to do
the same in Linux.
Windows: I don't need Jack there. Audio latency is low even with
non-ASIO drivers.
Linux: I suddenly need "Jack" and specialty hacks and must do without a
mixer! No thanks. OSSv4 allows me to use my machine in the same manner
as Windows: It just works and does the right thing regardless of the
application I'm running.
ALSA/Pulse needing third-party stuff just to get basics right
(acceptable latency; not *ultra* low latency, just acceptable one) is a
sign that they're not designed right.
And OSS4 dying because of kernel-mixing is a bit far-stretched. "No FP
mixing in kernel" is Linux-specific. Other kernels don't have a problem
with that.
And in the end, you know what? Even if OSS4 had a broken design, it's
still better, because it works better. At least it gets the basics
right. Other operating systems are much more advanced in that manner.
It's ALSA that holds Linux audio back.
