Hi,
searching the laa/lad/lau web archives is back online!
Let me know if you notice any problems.
links:
http://www.eca.cx/laahttp://www.eca.cx/ladhttp://www.eca.cx/lau
On Sat, 24 Aug 2002, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
> The htdig-installation that is responsible for the search
> functionality of LAD/LAU/LAA web archive, is temporarily disabled.
--
http://www.eca.cx
Audio software for Linux!
i thought this was pretty insightful. vst-plugins has had a little
debate over whether or not VST should provide an integer sample
format. actually, not much of a debate. one person suggested it,
everybody else jumped on him. this post, however, is the most
detailed on why you should forget about thinking of float arithmetic
as slower than integer ...
--;p
------- Forwarded Message
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 14:21:52 -0700
From: Vesa Norilo <vnorilo(a)siba.fi>
To: <vst-plugins(a)lists.steinberg.net> (VST PlugIns)
Subject: [vst-plugins] Re: SDK buffers from host
Ah, good ol' Mike Abrash. But do yourself a favour and update your
knowledge: I'm pretty sure Mike has also done just that. BTW, I did
learn a huge amount from his Zen of Code Optimization, but almost
everything in it has become irrelevant by superscalar processing and
vector engines.
> > i think you are seriously and dramatically underestimating the
> > incredible benefits provided by a standardized
> I haven't count cpu instruction cycles recently. But last time
> I did, the difference between floating point operations and
> integer operation was from 15x to 100x speed difference. I
> think though with the last few generation of cpu's they have
> significantly narrowed the gap.
On AMD 3DNow, all floating point instructions take 2 cycles, and two of
them can be run in parallel, meaning that a total of 4 floating point
additions or multiplies can be executed in 2 clock cycles. These also
include sine, cosine, reciprocal and square approximations. Can you beat
that with integer asm?
> Again in my very limited audio processing experience so far
> I'm finding that I can apply many of the same asm techniques.
> And I know things are changing with new hardware I guess it's
> possible in the future that floating with equal or, I don't know how,
> but I suppose could even exceed int speeds.
Since I have AMD, I'm fluent with 3DNow and not SSE. But from what I
know, SSE is very similiar in functionality and power to 3DNow, and SSE2
offers even more capabilities.
To beat the vector engines, you would have to go MMX. This is for two
reasons: the saturating adds would eliminate the need of overflow
checking, and due to its SIMD nature it can match or outdo 3DNow/SSE.
Unless you are willing to drop to 16 bits (so that MMX can do 4
operations per instruction) it will not.
> But when you get right down the heart of the matter, the
> computer really is only doing bit manipulations anyway -
> floating point or int. The difference with IEEE floating is the fact
Which is why integer bit mask operations are still usable with floats,
making many neat tricks possible. Such as really fast logarithms, which
is again impossible with ints unless you use lookup tables (which you
don't want to do for 32 bit resolution)
> that the cpu has to decode the register to get at the exponent.
> And that is going to add extra clock cycles. 2 sign bits have
So, if an instruction that performs two floating point multiplies costs
2 cycles (and can run parallel with another such), each floating point
multiply will consume 0.5 cycles. I don't really see any "extra cycles"
here. Do you?
> Still the ideal speed approach is a flat bit array with no decoding
> and a big register, big enough to handle that largest number
> you will ever have to deal with.
That's very untrue. Consider how much memory speeds are limiting
processing speed. Processing 32 bit floats is faster than 64 bit ints
largely for that reason. The optimal speed approach is not simple. It
has to do with optimizing memory for cost/benefit, optimizing cache and
processor for speed, and trying to strike a balance.
Consider floats as a hardware accelerated compression method that saves
memory bandwidth.
> What's wide enough for audio processing (64 bit???, 128 bit???).
> At some point need for an exponent simply disappears.
And the need for a 4GHz bus appears.
> But you all are right. In reality it seems my lack of experience
> has jump up and bit me in the ass. And I was only looking at
> things from my self-absorbed world of the plug-in I'm trying
> to build to do some specific things I personally would like to
> accomplish.
That's nice, but to recapitulate, don't really talk about optimization
before you know several SIMD sets by heart. Nowadays, that's mandatory.
> For the above reasons under optimized assembly language
> conditions, I just don't see how float speeds can exceed int
> speeds. But considering all of the other points you all have
> brought up my suggestion seems to have been short-sited.
If your most recent knowledge is of x87 floating point asm, I understand
this perfectly. However, a speed and assembly enthusiast should keep
himself updated.
Best regards,
Vesa
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Howdy, all. I've sent a similar message to comp.music.midi and
rec.music.makers.synth, but I don't think I'll get many replies. I hope
this isn't OT for the list (and that someone here knows the answer!)
In any case, I'm trying to write an application that "does stuff" (not
necessarily an editor/librarian, but with a small feature overlap) with
the user bank and performance data on my TX81z here, and I'm confused
about the VMEM bulk data format.
1. Page 74 of the manual states that address 6 (and 16, 26, and 36)
is occupied by AME (b6), EBS (b4-2), and KVS (b1-b0) data.
However, it also states that KVS data ranges from 0-7, which is
clearly impossible in 2 bits. Where's the mistake? Should EBS
be bits 5-3 and then KVS as bits 2-0?
2. How would one compute VMEM checksums? Heck, as long as I'm at
it, what's the method for computing all of the checksums
(i.e. VMEM, PCED, PMEM, SYS, microtune, etc.)?
I have looked at the sourcecode for JSynthLib (which, for some reason,
doesn't run properly in my environment -- too bad, because it seems to
be a good program), but the answers to these questions were not really
clear to me from an examination of its TX81z driver. (In its defense,
very little bit-twiddling Java code is particularly clear.) In
particular, either their checksum implementation is wrong or the TX81z
manual is wrong (my money's on the latter).
In any case, I'd be glad to hear from anyone with experience doing this
kind of junk to the TX81z. It seems that most of the TX81z sysex info
available on the net is for real-time control.
best,
wb
--
Will Benton | "Die richtige Methode der Philosophie wäre eigentlich
willb(a)acm.org | die: Nichts zu sagen, als was sich sagen läßt...."
Anyone made autoconf macros for libsndfile?
Specifically ones that could test for the
appropriate version of libsndfile? I have
completed the initial integration of libsndfile
into gwc and am working on the configure scripts,
would rather use someone else's before I hack one
together myself...
Thanks,
Jeff Welty
Hello,
I´m new to this list and i´m not sure if i asking on right forum.
I´m looking for information for Ripping a CD to a non compressed format into as good as possible format for audio-playback.
Anyone have suggestion on thisone. I´m goona play from a Linux-box with a Semi pro Soundcard with external DAC.
Best regards /Lasse - from Sweden
Hi everyone,
I have now set up a new mailing list at gnome.org for discussing GNOME
multimedia development. The list is meant to allow multimedia developers
all across the GNOME and GTK+ world to come togheter to discuss issues
of interoperability, library development, and general issues related to
developing multimedia applications for GTK+ and GNOME. I hope as many as
possible of you will join the list and the effort to bring multimedia
support under GNOME 2 forward.
You find details on the list at:
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-multimedia
Sincerely,
Christian
any new and updated info on the cardbus interface, for the HDSP. Mine
should be in the post today, and I am chomping at the bit
On Fri, 2002-07-05 at 17:03, Paul Davis wrote:
> >Just unwrapped my new thinkpad, so I am thinking of ordering the cardbus
> >interface for my hdsp. Has anyone gotten the cardbus to work with the
> >digiface box?
>
> it works (orm has reported it working). it seems very dependent on the
> kernel, cardbus utilities and possibly the underlying hardware. if
> these 2 succeed with their task of making the pcmcia card appear like
> a normal PCI device, then everything proceeds as normal. several
> people have combinations of these 3 that fail at this goal.
>
> >As for the pci/digiface system I currently have, it seems that even
> >with the latest cvs code, I still need to unload/reload the hdsp module,
> >before Jack is able to use the device. I dont remember the exact
>
> i believe i have already told you that i fixed this, but have not yet
> submitted the patch because i am trying to fix the lack of output issue.
>
> >message, but I can post it later if it would help. There is no audio
> >output, until I load the rme modules, reboot, and reload the modules.
> >After which everything seems to work fine. Any ideas on where to look
> >for debug info would be greatly appreciated.
>
> orm did some great detective work. the cardbus/pcmcia version works,
> but when it stops, it seems necessary to eject the card then reload it
> again. this fixes the output problem. i am hoping to try out an
> equivalent process (which you have outlined above), one way or
> another, tonight.
>
> --p
>
--
drh(a)niptron.com
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds.
-- Albert Einstein
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But
they
also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
-- Carl Sagan
http://plugin.org.uk/lrdf/
I had to bundle up libraptor with the LADSPA specific stuff for complicated
reasons, so the auto* stuff is nasty. It builds OK on my RedHat and
RedHat+Planet CCRMA machines though.
There are no docs yet, but there are some fairly clean exmaples in the
examples direcory.
The API and subclass heirachy of plugins is far from fixed, so tell me
what you think.
- Steve