14 Nov
2007
14 Nov
'07
6:59 a.m.
On Nov 14, 2007 11:38 AM, Daniel James <daniel(a)64studio.com> wrote:
Hi Cory,
Since a few weeks ago, ATI users live in a happier, more free world.
Some have said that moving the drawing of windows
off the the GFX card
would help the load on the CPU and thus keep xruns to a minimum.
I'm sceptical about that, because drawing windows shouldn't be causing
xruns if the system is set up properly. I believe JACK Meterbridge uses
libsdl for drawing the meter needles efficiently, but I believe most
free software audio apps don't do much in the way of graphics
acceleration (yet).
I can think of a number of drawbacks to using Compiz on audio machines
though:
1. Reliance on proprietary drivers for systems that otherwise don't
require them. OpenGL is unusable if you don't have hardware
acceleration, and not everyone has a Matrox card. 2. Requirement for energy-hungry 3D cards (some of
these cards need more
electricity than CPUs which are perfectly usable for audio work). Apart
from any environmental or cost considerations, more energy = more waste
heat = more cooling noise. Which is bad in the studio, of course.
Some GPUs have the equivalent of speedstep. fan-noise stays constant
here with windows stuff going on. Makes some noise only when playing
GPU hungry games.
3. Electrical waste mountain. There are millions of
machines out there
which are perfectly (re)usable as audio workstations, but make Compiz a
*requirement* for using free software, and they'll have to go into landfill.
Agreed, making it a requirement is stupid... I _chose_ to do it
because I find it fun, and because it has no impact on my system.
Cheers,
__________________
Marc-Olivier Barre,
MarcO'Chapeau.