[linux-audio-user] hardware mixing - what it _actually_ is?

[Lee Revell]

On 1/22/07, ) - <cunnilinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi community.
>
> i am choosing a sound card for my new box, an i found myself totally obscured about such thing as hardware mixing. so, please help me to clarify:
> (0) what it _actually_ does? and
> (1) in particular, (how) can it help in live performance?
>
> some details: i'm choosind between echo (mia midi or gina 3g) and m-audio (delta series) cards. the only thing used for live performance is csound driven by hardware midi controllers.

Hardware mixing means that multiple applications can output sound at
the same time without the need for a sound server or ALSA plugin to
mix the streams in software.

Basically nothing supports hardware mixing these days except the
emu10k1 devices and some VIA onboard chipsets, because the hardware is
designed around Windows which does software mixing in the kernel.

For professional audio use hardware mixing is basically irrelevant
because no pro interface supports it, and all apps will be using JACK
which mixes the streams in software anyway.

Lee