[linux-audio-user] Re: question about jackd/qjackctl options

[Kjetil S. Matheussen]

Dan Mills:
>> On Sat, 2006-04-01 at 13:27 -0500, Eric Dantan Rzewnicki wrote:
>>> Thanks Paul. This is what I was hoping to hear. At RFA they probably
>>> don't want Rivendell's caed (core audio engine daemon) getting kicked
>>> out by jack in the middle of a broadcast.
>>
>> Soft mode is an OK workaround, but you should still try to get the
>> bug(s) in Rivendell fixed that are causing JACK to kick it out.
>
> There are caed bugs causing this!  Please tell!
>
> As far as I can see the process callback is completely lock free, if
> not I want to know...
>
> Now if you are setting soft mode for insurance that is another thing,
> but please report any instances of caed getting kicked by jack (I have
> never seen it happen).
>

One very big reason for adding the soft mode was that alsa stopped
processing for a significant amount of time when alsa was not set to
ignore xruns. I don't know if that behaviour has changed now though. But 
at least back then, soft mode made sense because you could get away with a
few xruns without hearing anything.

And because of this, it does makes sense to set softmode in realtime 
mode, in case you are occacionally or continously close to running at 100% 
cpu usage.