[Jack-Devel] Jack Problems

[John Rigg]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 03:44:07PM +0100, Kjetil Matheussen wrote:
> Clutterered or not, this functionality is something
> pulseaudio/windows/osx all provide, but not jack. Is jack better
> because it doesn't provide this? No, it's worse.

No, it's decidedly better IMO. Complexity isn't always an improvement.

> Probably not. You would need many many thousands of jack ports, or run
> some kind of tiny embedded device, for the memory usage to be of any
> size anyone would care about.

Memory usage isn't the only concern. There's also the additional
processing time involved. I already have occasional problems
with jack clients unable to finish executing in time and getting
kicked out of the graph, and that's with large buffers and port
numbers only in the hundreds. CPU load doesn't have to be high
for this to happen, so I'm assuming it's a scheduling problem,
which can only get worse with an extra gain stage for every
port.

> Most people probably have no more than
> around 20 custom ports + sound card ports at any time.

In 14 years of jack use I've hardly ever used such a small
number of ports. I'm probably not 'most people', but I'd
expect a pro audio application to cater for typical
multichannel recording and mixing as encountered in a
professional studio. If you want to make it easier for
more casual use fine, but please don't hobble it for more
serious use.

John