[LAU] Eee As Synth Engine?

[Paul Winkler]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 11:17:12AM -0700, holotone at gmail.com wrote:
> I've been tinkering recently with my Eee running Xubuntu and a newly
> acquired M-Audio Axiom 49 USB Midi Keyboard; I think it'd be just about as
> great as it could get if I could use the Eee as a synth engine via
> XynAddSubFX or similar - Unfortunately, I've been unable to tweak my JACK
> settings to the point that all stutters and chops have been eliminated. I
> understand that the Eee specs are quite low (900mhz proc, 512MB RAM), but
> watching my resource usage while I'm playing shows the processor at less
> than 50% and RAM holding steady at 60% or so - This would lead me to believe
> that my problem is configuration related.
> 
> Any other Eee users out there had any luck getting JACK fine tuned to the
> Eee? Since we're all working on nearly identical hardware, perhaps we could
> swap configs?

I just found this video - an eee running supercollider and jack!
http://www.mcld.co.uk/blog/blog.php?171

Also I found this benchmark:
http://novosche.blogspot.com/2007/12/eee-pc-benchmark-test-asus-eee-pc-4g.html

It's notated kind of inscrutably but I think it can be translated
thusly. Each cell shows average percentage of CPU to run the given
number of supercollider ugens / synth voices on the given platform.
So lower is better.

           128 ugens/ | 256 ugens/ | 384 ugens/  | 448 ugens/
            32 synths |  64 synths |  96 synths  | 112 synths
HARDWARE              |            |             |
----------------------+------------+-------------+--------------
powerbook    22.2%    |  43.5%     |   64%       |  81%
G3 333Mhz             |            |             |
----------------------+------------+-------------+--------------
powerbook      8%     |  15%       |   20%       |  23%
G4 1.67GHz   	      |            |             |
----------------------+------------+-------------+--------------
EEE PC	       	      |            |             |
4G model       8%     |  14%       |   19.6%     |  22.2%
----------------------+------------+-------------+--------------
macbook	              |            |             |
pro intel     3.2%    |   6.1%     |    9%       |  10.5%
1.84 GHz              |            |             |
----------------------+------------+-------------+--------------


What this appears to show is that the EEE is roughly equivalent to a
powerbook G4 1.67 GHz, for this particular benchmark.  And almost half
the speed of an intel macbook pro 1.84.  That's not bad considering
the G4 *still* costs more on ebay than the EEE does new.

There's also a test of the number of synth voices at which the EEE and
the macbook pro each reach 66% CPU.  If I read it right, the MBP can
do 800 voices (3200 ugens).  The EEE can do 356 (1424 ugens).


-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com