One could think about using 3D graphics hardware for audio DSP purposes. There are commercial projects which do that (only for Windows AFAIK).
Cheers, Andreas ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Olofson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "The Linux Audio Developers' Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 10:21 AM Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Linux DSP Hardware? > On Tuesday 22 February 2005 05.41, jipi wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > I was thinking, > > > > we always have dedicated graphic cards for gaming/3D rendering etc.. > > why don't we have some h/w optimised audio algos running on some > > FPGA/DSP/ etc... > > Because there isn't enough demand for it. Only musicians have any > serious use for that kind of hardware, whereas half the planet needs > accelerated graphics - especially with all the eyecandy that > Microsoft, Apple, the KDE and Gnome people etc have decided we > need. ;-) > > > > on linux... > > Dito. The state of accelerated audio on Linux should realistically > relate to the corresponding on Windows and Mac in the same way as 3D > acceleration on Linux vs Windows and Mac - and it pretty much does, I > think... Some popular hardware is supported by Free/Open Source > drivers to some extent, some vendor has tried to support the Linux > community to some extent, and that's about it. > > > > look at these.. are there simple/cheap/open versions of these? > > Simple: Not possible, unless you'll settle for a toy synth... > > Cheap: Cheap and good are basically mutually exclusive when it comes > to hardware. The best you can do is to use high volume components. > Currently, that means standard general purpose DSP chips for small > devices, and probably AMD64 chips for heavier gear. > > Open: Only if you're ready to pay a premium for the "lost revenue" > resulting from opening up the "trade secrets". You don't want to > design some cool hardware only to have some foreign company make a > clone of it, sell it dirt cheap (*you* paid the development costs!) > and put you out of business. That doesn't mean you have to close both > the design *and* the programming info, but try to explain that to the > management of your average company... Also try to explain why they > should be taking the risk of making reverse engineering easier for no > significant monetary gain. > > > > http://www.lyrtech.com/DSP-development/audio/index.php > > http://www.zpeng.com/Articles/Section1/digitalaudio.html > > http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/partners/kit-ate-dmck.html > > http://lts1pc19.epfl.ch/repository/Simeonov2004_737.pdf > > > > what we require is a separate card which can take a few channels of > > audio lines and process them in a cheap FPGA/DSP (put in your > > favourite > > **HW LADSPA** algo).. and route them back to the main audio card.. > > If it's actually supposed to do something serious, it won't be cheap. > Really powerful DSPs are nowhere near cheap. > > If you're into dedicated hardware anyway, why not just hook up a PC > (SBC, perhaps; though you still get more power/$ if you buy standard > mainstream PC components) running RTLinux or RTAI? Cheaper and much > easier to deal with... > > > > of course I am for the idea of using clusters of linux PCs while > > some of them do different types of audio processing, > > but not everyone has access to more than 1 PC.. : > > > Well, if you can get any DSP hardware worth using, you might as well > get another PC... As an extra bonus, you get a "universal machine", > as opposed to some oddball DSP card that you're hard pushed to even > get it to do what you purchased it for. > > > Now, if you really don't want to use another PC, and want lots of dirt > cheap processing power, how about learning some EMU10k1 asm? :-) > Seems to have more DSP power than your average studio sampler - and > since it's a high volume product, just like the 3D accelerators, it > lets you see some of the "silicon is free" effect. That's the closest > audio gets to the state of 3D acceleration currently, AFAIK. > > > //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate > > .- Audiality -----------------------------------------------. > | Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia. | > | MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,... | > `-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -' > --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se --- >
