[LAD] PortAudio experience

[Victor Lazzarini]

The only issue I currently have with PortAudio is that it does not  
work very well with pulseaudio. It seems to have problems using the  
alsa-plugin mechanism. I have mentioned this on the portaudio list,  
but none of the developers responded, only a couple of other users  
said they had similar problems.

To use portaudio on Linux, I always have to kill pulseaudio.  
Otherwise, it's fine.

Victor

On 12 Jan 2010, at 20:11, Olivier Guilyardi wrote:

> On 01/12/2010 07:15 PM, Michael Ost wrote:
>> We are considering using PortAudio for Linux hardware support (and
>> Windows/Mac as well). What's the word on the quality, reliability,
>> ease-of-programming, latency and performance in Linux?
>
> PortAudio on Linux is very reliable in my experience. It's rather  
> easy to
> program with, although I personally dislike its massive-camel-case  
> syntax.
>
> Latency is quite ok. PortAudio actually gives you hints on low and  
> high
> latencies for a particular device. For instance, on a HDA Intel  
> consumer
> soundcard, it ranges from 10ms to 45ms. I'm using the high one in my  
> app,
> although I can't remember exactly why ATM.
>
> But as others are saying in this thread, nowadays a Linux app really  
> needs JACK
> support, and you shouldn't rely on Portaudio for this purpose,  
> because it
> doesn't play well with the JACK ports paradigm.
>
> Another reason you might want to add JACK support (perhaps in  
> addition to
> PortAudio) is that unless I missed something it is still required by  
> FFADO for
> firewire devices support.
>
>> Our product (Receptor) is used in live situations by non- 
>> programmers, so
>> the support can't be "tweaky" if you know what I mean. The product  
>> only
>> needs to support a couple of sound cards, though, so it won't have to
>> target lots of hardware.
>
> I've now maintained a JACK app, namely Jackbeat, for several years,  
> and although
> it doesn't have a massive user base, I can tell you that JACK can  
> indeed be
> tricky for some linux/audio newbies.
>
> This is why I've added extra options: PortAudio and PulseAudio. This  
> way, the
> user can get the app up and running in seconds. But if he/she wants  
> more (lower
> latency, connecting with other JACK apps, etc..), then he can switch  
> to JACK,
> which is easily performed in many cases.
>
> I think this is the way it happens in many circumstances, not only  
> on Linux: an
> easy default is provided, and one can optimize his/her setup with a  
> few efforts.
>
> --
>  Olivier
>
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