21 Aug
2006
21 Aug
'06
5:59 p.m.
Hi,
Could somebody please clarify can Ardour and other
Linux audio apps use RAM efficiently? What I mean by
this question is - let's imagine I have 4GB of RAM -
are these applications aware that "oh I see, there's a
lot of RAM available, let's use it" and use RAM
instead of immediately writing to disk which is slow
and can cause latency issues?
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21 Aug
21 Aug
6:07 p.m.
On 8/21/06, Drucer Ninetynine <drucer99(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Could somebody please clarify can Ardour and other
Linux audio apps use RAM efficiently? What I mean by
this question is - let's imagine I have 4GB of RAM -
are these applications aware that "oh I see, there's a
lot of RAM available, let's use it" and use RAM
instead of immediately writing to disk which is slow
and can cause latency issues?
If you are running a realtime kernel and have a fast hard drive, I
don't see where this would be an issue. I am running jack + realtime
kernel + Ardour on a machine with 512MB of RAM, a firewire drive and a
Delta 1010, and never have issues with the writing to disk process not
being able to keep up with the audio (rarely, if ever, get xruns,
either).
--
Brett McCoy: Programmer by Day, Guitarist by Night
http://www.alhazred.com
http://www.cassandrasyndrome.com
http://www.revelmoon.com
6:32 p.m.
On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 12:59 -0700, Drucer Ninetynine wrote:
Hi,
Could somebody please clarify can Ardour and other
Linux audio apps use RAM efficiently? What I mean by
this question is - let's imagine I have 4GB of RAM -
are these applications aware that "oh I see, there's a
lot of RAM available, let's use it" and use RAM
instead of immediately writing to disk which is slow
and can cause latency issues?
no multitrack recorder on any platform can write to disk "immediately".
by default ardour buffers (user-configurable) 5 secs per track for both
playback and capture. it will also, however, utilize the OS smarts in
the sense that the OS is going to use its own buffer cache to speed up
both write to disk and read-ahead from disk. so ardour doesn't try to be
too smart - thats the job of the OS (at least, if the OS is smart enough
to do this) - just smart enough.
8:35 p.m.
On 8/21/06, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 12:59 -0700, Drucer Ninetynine
wrote:
Paul,
I'm guessing that part of the question Drucer was asking was 'Does
Ardour use only the amount of RAM it needs?'
While I cannot speak for Ardour I can say from experience that some
Linux audio apps are not so kind. LinuxSampler had (has?) a tendency
to grab ALL memory whether it needs it or not. This made it hard to
run other apps on the same machine without getting soome swapping. I
don't use LS anymoe so I don't know its current state WRT doing this,
however as for Ardour it's not my inclination to sy I've ever noticed
Ardour doing anything like this.
Cheers,
Mark
Hi,
Could somebody please clarify can Ardour and other
Linux audio apps use RAM efficiently? What I mean by
this question is - let's imagine I have 4GB of RAM -
are these applications aware that "oh I see, there's a
lot of RAM available, let's use it" and use RAM
instead of immediately writing to disk which is slow
and can cause latency issues?
no multitrack recorder on any platform can write to disk "immediately".
by default ardour buffers (user-configurable) 5 secs per track for both
playback and capture. it will also, however, utilize the OS smarts in
the sense that the OS is going to use its own buffer cache to speed up
both write to disk and read-ahead from disk. so ardour doesn't try to be
too smart - thats the job of the OS (at least, if the OS is smart enough
to do this) - just smart enough.
11:33 p.m.
On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 at 15:35 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
Paul,
I'm guessing that part of the question Drucer was asking was 'Does
Ardour use only the amount of RAM it needs?'
Actually, I got the impression that he wanted to get a warm fuzzy from
someone telling him that his 4G would be utilized by the software and
not go to waste. But that's generally a bad thing, and the real answer
is you want the OS to make good use of your available RAM, not the
software. Linux does this, and quite well.
--
Hans Fugal ; http://hans.fugal.net
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the
right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach
22 Aug
22 Aug
4:27 a.m.
--- Hans Fugal <hans(a)fugal.net> wrote:
On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 at 15:35 -0700, Mark Knecht
wrote:
Hey thank you all for your replies! Yes, I had to ask
this question because I wanted to know if it would
make a difference if I installed some more RAM to my
DAW computer. No, I don't need it now, but I'm
considering getting it now anyway. Right now I have
2GB and currently I need 15-20 tracks, but I might
need more tracks later. I have a dedicated box built
for my DAW and I know that the hardware is not going
to get obsolete (how could it?), but would like to
ensure I have enough memory for the future as well
(nobody knows how hard it might be to get DDR RAM
after a couple of years).
Unfortunately I'm not nearly as bright as most of you
guys who actually program these great applications. I
do not know how typical Linux applications handle
memory, but it's good to know that it is OSs job to
take care of most of that. Thanks for clarifying this!
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Paul,
I'm guessing that part of the question Drucer
was asking was 'Does
Ardour use only the amount of RAM it needs?'
Actually, I got the impression that he wanted to get
a warm fuzzy from
someone telling him that his 4G would be utilized by
the software and
not go to waste. But that's generally a bad thing,
and the real answer
is you want the OS to make good use of your
available RAM, not the
software. Linux does this, and quite well.
6723
days inactive
6724
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Brett W. McCoy -
Drucer Ninetynine -
Hans Fugal -
Mark Knecht -
Paul Davis