OT: Accelerated 3D GFX cards with Free drivers (was Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: The best distro for music creation)

[Paul Davis]

> > Currently, I am trying to decide between an RME
> > Hammerfall and an M-Audio Delta 1010 audio card.  Just
> > as the 3D provides video performance, the RME
> > Hammerfall does the same for audio, off loading the
> > audio processing away from the main cpu.  The alsa
> > project also says both cards are supported.

this is an unfortunate reading of BS marketing text.

the hammerfall series (digiXXXX and HDSP) do nothing of the sort, they
never did, they don't on any other OS, etc etc etc.

all that RME is referring to here are 2 things:

	a) direct monitoring without CPU involvement
	      - well yeah, except that even consumer analog
	        cards do that

        b) the card is a DMA busmaster, and so the CPU doesn't 
	   need to be involved in transferring data to the 
	   card, it just stuffs it into host-side RAM
	      - well yeah, except that almost every other
	        PCI card on the planet *except* RME's
	        earlier designs do this too. this is 
	        really just an apology for the incredibly
                stupid design of the digi96 series, which
	        require active participation by the host 
	        CPU to move data to the card.

--p