[LAU] Trying to get rid of xruns

[garryo]

Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 10:57:28PM +0100, garryo wrote:
> 
>> you can set the rt priority as high as 99, but i found that this
>> made my box sluggish and unresponsive ( but not the soundcard!).
> 
> Isn't that kind of strange ? Assuming the soundcard interrupt
> takes a tiny fraction of the available CPU time, it shouldn't
> slow down your system even at the highest priority.
> 
> If this happens, and it does not happen with your current
> (lower) setting, wouldn't that mean that 
> 
> 1. it takes a more than trivial time to execute,
> 2. with the current setting it's still being 
>    pre-empted, and not just occasianally, but
>    in a systematic way.
> 
> Ciao, 
> 

yes, kind of strange,  i see your point.
nevertheless this was the observed behaviour with ardour playing back  a 
project of 16 stereo tracks. the ardour gui was very jerky and slow to 
update. reducing the rt priority of soundcard improved UI response,
BUT i must admit that i was not very systematic in my efforts to improve 
latency on my box, often twiddling several knobs at once.

regards, G.