[linux-audio-dev] XAP: a polemic

[David Olofson]

On Thursday 19 December 2002 21.17, Steve Harris wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 04:15:26 +0100, David Olofson wrote:
> > They actually make *more* sence as an audio format, since there,
> > it can have a real effect on performance. That's only really
> > relevant for old or low end hardware, though. (That's why
> > Audiality does it - but only in the real time synth. I'm simply
> > not motivated enough to implement the off-line oscillators in
> > fixed point... *heh*)
>
> Right, but on current (PIV and AthlonXP) float is slightly faster,
> and significantly so on the next generation Intel chips.

Yeah - and I'm not even sure I'm going to do much integer stuff in 
Audiality from now on, *despite* scalability being a major priority. 
Performance isn't really a problem until you're on old Pentium 
processors - and then you can't really use Audiality anyway, because 
rendering a few sounds takes "ages".

The only other audio format that could be of interest for XAP could 
be double, but I think that can wait until people actually start 
complaining about float being insufficient. :-)

Double *controls* might actually be useful in some cases, though. 
Song position demonstrates the weakness of float, but the question is 
if that applies to many other things.


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`---------------------------> http://olofson.net/audiality -'
   --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---