4 Jun
2020
4 Jun
'20
5:09 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 3:26 AM <nik(a)parkellipsen.de> wrote:
Hmm I never felt any advantage using RT kernels,
either, at least in the
recent
years, so I wonder if they still have any advantage in 2020 ? And that's
not a rhetorical
question, I really wonder what contemporary use cases for RT kernels in
the audio world are.
I feel like these kernel-tuning approaches date back to times when desktop
responsiveness
etc. were much more serious issues. Might be wrong here, of course.
This is wrong. The behavior of a "normal", "low latency" and
"preempt-RT"
kernel are all different, and for realtime audio work, the correct behavior
is only going to happen with a "preempt-RT" kernel.
However ...
The behavior of the normal and "low latency" kernels have changed over the
years too, and on *some* systems (from a hardware perspective), they will
function similarly enough to a "preempt-RT" kernel that a realtime audio
workflow will be just fine. In addition, the "behavior" gap between a
"preempt-RT" kernel and a normal kernel will be less and less apparent as
the latency settings (buffer/period size) become more relaxed (i.e. grow
larger).
How do you know which systems this is true for? You just have to try it. It
is a complicated mixture of many different aspects of the hardware. There's
an overview of the kinds of things that can contribute to the need for a
"preempt-RT" kernel here:
https://manual.ardour.org/setting-up-your-system/the-right-computer-system-…
<https://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user>