Re: [LAU] Linux mint for audio?

On Sun, 17 Feb 2019, david wrote: My experience is that HT is ok at 64/2 but starts to have problems at lower latency. This doesn't matter for most recording where the audio can be run at 1024/2 but when using the computer as a live synth or guitar effects unit, it matters. My general thought is that if something matters at a lower latency... sooner or later it will bite with a "stray" xrun even at a higher latency. In recent intel chips with "Boost", Performance mode means set the cpu speed to rated speed. However, at higher cpu use the speed will still go up and down between the limmits of rated speed and max boost speed. Going up does not seem to be a problem, but going down does. Also, Boost is temperature controlled... this means that the cpu is running closer to the maximum temperature and if it gets too close the speed will go below rated speed to cool down. Temperature control uses cpu time... but the code is not controlled by the OS and over temperature events tend to do bad things to audio. So it is worth turning Boost off to give a steady clock frequency. (I have in the past found that setting speed to 800Mhz does better audio than "ondemand" at 1.6Ghz) By watching temperatures while running the cpu(s) at 100% (build Ardour for example) I have found that I could actually run at a higher speed than preformance by setting min/max speeds rither than a governor. However, I don't do this because I know that things like dust and wearing fans will change this over time and rated speed does give some headroom. Anyway, I set jack to 16/2 and tweak for (hopefully) no xruns or best case. Then I am pretty sure I have done the best I can do at higher latency. (I turn cron off too while recording) I have a PCI audio device, USB devices will not do 16/2... 16/3 maybe, probably 32/* is a better target for USB. -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net