Re: [linux-audio-dev] Linux DSP Hardware?

On Tuesday 22 February 2005 05.41, jipi wrote: Because there isn't enough demand for it. Only musicians have any serious use for that kind of hardware, whereas half the planet needs accelerated graphics - especially with all the eyecandy that Microsoft, Apple, the KDE and Gnome people etc have decided we need. ;-) Dito. The state of accelerated audio on Linux should realistically relate to the corresponding on Windows and Mac in the same way as 3D acceleration on Linux vs Windows and Mac - and it pretty much does, I think... Some popular hardware is supported by Free/Open Source drivers to some extent, some vendor has tried to support the Linux community to some extent, and that's about it. Simple: Not possible, unless you'll settle for a toy synth... Cheap: Cheap and good are basically mutually exclusive when it comes to hardware. The best you can do is to use high volume components. Currently, that means standard general purpose DSP chips for small devices, and probably AMD64 chips for heavier gear. Open: Only if you're ready to pay a premium for the "lost revenue" resulting from opening up the "trade secrets". You don't want to design some cool hardware only to have some foreign company make a clone of it, sell it dirt cheap (*you* paid the development costs!) and put you out of business. That doesn't mean you have to close both the design *and* the programming info, but try to explain that to the management of your average company... Also try to explain why they should be taking the risk of making reverse engineering easier for no significant monetary gain. If it's actually supposed to do something serious, it won't be cheap. Really powerful DSPs are nowhere near cheap. If you're into dedicated hardware anyway, why not just hook up a PC (SBC, perhaps; though you still get more power/$ if you buy standard mainstream PC components) running RTLinux or RTAI? Cheaper and much easier to deal with... Well, if you can get any DSP hardware worth using, you might as well get another PC... As an extra bonus, you get a "universal machine", as opposed to some oddball DSP card that you're hard pushed to even get it to do what you purchased it for. Now, if you really don't want to use another PC, and want lots of dirt cheap processing power, how about learning some EMU10k1 asm? :-) Seems to have more DSP power than your average studio sampler - and since it's a high volume product, just like the 3D accelerators, it lets you see some of the "silicon is free" effect. That's the closest audio gets to the state of 3D acceleration currently, AFAIK. //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate .- Audiality -----------------------------------------------. | Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia. | | MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,... | `-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -' --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---