[LAU] RME Hammerfall Firmware Rev 10

[Dmitry Baikov]

On 6/12/07, Ivica Ico Bukvic <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, are newer firmware revisions not working with Linux
> because RME has not released proper info/specs or is it because no one has
> bothered updating the driver. I ask this because if there was a newer
> firmware revision released it must've been for a justified reason (i.e.
> bugs) and for us not to be able to use it is a bit disconcerting.

If I remember right, Paul said he can do it, but only if smb will pay
him, as he has no spare time for it. Maybe we start a fund-raising? ;)

Dmitry.


>From the readme for the new firmware:

The driver requires a new flash/firmware because of a completely new
designed hardware. This new hardware combined with new driver routines
offers these advantages:

- Lower system load on start of data transmission (start of record/playback)

- Better performance on playback. We added a small safety buffer of 32
samples on the playback side. To give some numbers from a typical test
machine, crackling starts at:

Old driver 64 samples 60%  128 samples  70% CPU load
New driver 64 samples 85%  128 samples  90% CPU load

So even if you add the 32 samples to the 64 samples, the new driver
still does a better job than the old one at 128! And the 32 samples
are on the playback side only, so throughput monitoring is even more
attractive. Because of this tremendous improvement we removed the
highest buffer size and replaced it with a 32 sample setting as lowest
setting.

- Secure Record Technique. This driver includes a new scheme for
handling record data. It guarantees all record data to reach the
application even when the computer is blocked with 100% CPU load for a
short time. We think this is a real killer feature, as there is
nothing more important than reliability when doing recordings.