On Thursday 12 January 2006 16:56, Jay Vaughan wrote: > > > >exciting, but it will be completely divergent from the intel/ppc > >world because of the floating point issue. > > > > so? any particular reason a linux hacker should give a damn? are > intel/ppc the only CPU's worth writing audio software for? should > linux become platform-homogenized, just because of this issue? i > think not!
Well, the only problem is that you have to write all DSP code twice, basically. Then again, the DSP code usually accounts for just a fraction of the code of a full application. And heavy duty, DSP centric applications (ie ones with lots of DSP code) probably won't be of much use without a GFLOPS class CPU anyway. > >this is really a great shame. > > its not a shame, its an opportunity. nothing less! > > >floating point versus fixed point samples > >will reach deep into most audio/music software, and certainly deep > >in JACK. i can just about begin to imagine how one might write a > >JACK and a JACK client that could run on fixed or floating point, > >but beginning is where i give up. > > good thing you aren't the only one writing code then, isn't it .. i > mean, sure, JACK is lovely, Ardour too, but its really a shame you > can only run them on intel/ppc .. > > </CHEtongueEEK> I would think you can compile and run them on just about anything - but without proper FP support (that is, an extremely fast integer CPU + FP emulation, or "anything" with a proper FPU), they won't run fast enough to do anything useful, unless all DSP code is translated to integer/fixed point. I can certainly understand why someone who isn't seriously interested in the odd few platforms with enough oomph but no FP, would lack the motivation to write and/or maintain code that is relevant only on these platforms. //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate .------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------. | http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine | | http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine | | http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting | '-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --'
