[LAD] Faster context switch

[Michael Ost]

Hi list,

I am seeing what appears to be a 4 - 7 usec context switch time on a 3 
GHz Core 2 Duo machine with the 2.6 kernel, and 10 - 15 usecs on a 1.66 
GHz Atom. Is that reasonable? Does anyone have any tips on how to speed 
that up, if possible?

The background is that I have two apps --- one a straight Linux app and 
the other a Wine one. The Linux app is doing the mixing and the Wine app 
is hosting Windows VSTs.

During audio processing I use a sem_t to signal from the mixer app to 
the vst app. Once the vst app is done processing, it signals back to the 
mixer app over another sem_t.

I believe this is roughly the approach taken by other linux audio apps 
to host Wine vsts. And is also something like how Jack does IPC.

But it takes about 4-7 usecs on the faster machine to signal another app 
and have it wake up again. I assume this is the time needed for a 
context switch.

Since this has to happen twice per buffer, at a 32 sample buffer size 
and with 10 VSTs, overhead accounts for about 14% of the CPU. On the 
slower Atom machine, it would account for 33% of the CPU.

Any hints on how to reduce that time, or an alternate IPC design to look 
in to?

Thanks for any help,

Michael Ost
Muse Research, Inc.