[linux-audio-user] xruns from ardour + softsynths

Hi I played a bit with ardour to the extend that I ended up with 12 tracks of backing vocals (playing at the same time) + a lead vocal + some talk + zynaddsubfx (running two pads + bass) + specimen (drums) + ams (lead) + seq24 for midi. This is too much for my setup, I get audible xruns every now and then (just after loading the song often, after a while about every minute, with no window activity) and qjackctl reports them all the time. However the cpu usage is below 50% so I'm led to believe that with some fine tuning it should be possible. My computer is a Pentium M 1.6 w 1G ram, 100G 7200 RPM HD running xubuntu/dapper/6.06 and I use the (I know shitty) onboard i8x0 . Basically all I did was: echo @audio - rtprio 99 >> /etc/security/limits.conf echo @audio - memlock 250000 >> /etc/security/limits.conf echo @audio - nice -10 >> /etc/security/limits.conf I think my soundcard works at 48000 hz, but I run jack at 44100 because of previous (now resolved) problems with zynaddsubfx. Could this be the cause of my problems? hdparms says: root@ajstrup:~# hdparm /dev/hda /dev/hda: multcount = 0 (off) IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 256 (on) geometry = 16383/255/63, sectors = 195371568, start = 0 And: root@ajstrup:~# cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 0: 1435743 XT-PIC timer 1: 3861 XT-PIC i8042 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 3: 28534 XT-PIC irda0 7: 0 XT-PIC parport0 8: 3 XT-PIC rtc 9: 916321 XT-PIC acpi 11: 2391090 XT-PIC uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb3, ehci_hcd:usb4, ath0, yenta, Intel 82801DB-ICH4, yenta, eth0, radeon@pci:0000:01:00.0 12: 2488 XT-PIC i8042 14: 82500 XT-PIC ide0 15: 98767 XT-PIC ide1 NMI: 0 LOC: 0 ERR: 0 MIS: 0 This is how jackd is setup (run through qjackctl): atte@ajstrup:~$ cat .jackdrc /usr/bin/jackd -v -R -P65 -dalsa -dhw:0 -r44100 -p256 -n2 -S Any ideas? -- peace, love & harmony Atte