From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Tue Oct 13 13:45:11 1998
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	Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:43:25 +0200
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:43:25 +0200 (CEST)
From: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
To: Benjamin GOLINVAUX <golinvaux@benjamin.net>
cc: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: Re: OMT
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On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Benjamin GOLINVAUX wrote:

> Hello Jaroslav...
> 
> I am coding a pro shareware audio application (OMT) for NT/Linux that would
> allow for reliable real-time (or not) sound and midi rendering. My goal
> is to provide users with something that is not a toy. No fancy graphics,
> just speed and precision.
> 
> Our platform of choice would be Linux. We have searched the net for info
> regarding driver sets for Linux and found ALSA was a viable solution for
> us. 
> 
> However, our question is : do you plan to add or encourage programmer to
> add support for hi-quality sound cards ? I mean turtle beach, dsp
> factory from yamaha and even SBLive.

Turtle Beach Malibu with S/PDIF output is supported at this moment. ALSA
is open to any soundcard, but my time is limited and my plan for future
are improve support for soundcards which have already driver in ALSA and
work on ALSA API / sequencer.

> We long to JUMP in linux coding with alsa but we are afraid support stops...

What stops? Support doesn't stop, I'm only saying that I willn't add new
drivers probably in near future. Other people can add new drivers to ALSA 
without any limits, of course.

> Unfortunately, We'll have no time to support the code AND the drivers
> ourselves so we need someone else to do it... NT port (for ease of use)
> should work under DirectSound (which is ways too complicated, if you
> know it..).

I'm sorry, but ALSA is developed under GPL. I'm working on it in my free
time (none is paying this MY time).

> We don't know if ALSA is oriented towards pro (or at least prosumer) audio.
> If not, we wonder what are your plans for the future (I suppose you are
> the team leader, aren't you ?) and If you don't plan supporting very good
> cards (TurtleBeach would be great for the moment), which would be very
> sad, We'd like you to send us pointers to such libraries.

You speaking about team. Current ALSA team contains only two members (me
and Frank van de Pol which is working on sequencer). I simply must do some
work for university which is my job and some other work for local
providers (do you know - money). It would be nice if someone can offer me
full time job - work on ALSA - such as RedHat, but at this time is my ALSA
work very very limited.

> Also, do you know the latency of your ALSA drivers (that is, minimal echo
> time) with SB16 if audio app is the only non-system process running on,
> let's say, a P2 266 (just to compare with DirectSound on NT).

Andy posts some information about playback latency - about 10ms. I assume
that echo latency could be about 20ms. These numbers should be probably
improved with another Linux task scheduler (which works above 100Hz).

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@jcu.cz>
Academic Computer Centre, University of South Bohemia
Branisovska 31, C. Budejovice, CZ-370 05 Czech Republic



