Vladimir Mosgalin wrote, On 18/02/07 09:52: > Hi Peter! > > On 2007.02.17 at 22:45:32 +0100, Peter wrote next: > >> 0) linux people don't care about hardware mixing [why? software mixing in >> linux is a big building site and was never capable to provide me the comforts >> and possibilities I got with hardware mixing on the emu10k1 based cards.] > > The truth is, "hardware mixing" isn't the hot thing right now. Just like > hardware MIDI synth, it's more or less deprecated. Low-end (like > integrated ones) sound cards don't support it because they must be > cheap. High-end professional cards for musicians don't need it because > it's better to have practically unlimited amount of streams that you can > mix in software with 32-bit precision on any sampling rate than to be > limited in number of streams, sampling rate and mixing/resampling > conversion quality. This doesn't applies to all high-end devices though, > software processing is preferred now, still there is some use for > hardware processors, but these devices are rare and expensive. As about > middle-ranged cards, they are either about delivering higher quality > sound than onboards cards (models from M-Audio, Terratec) - they don't > need hardware mixing because software works very well nowadays, or about > gaming (Creative cards) - the only ones that truly need hardware mixing, > to unload mixing big amount of streams off processor. > > In other words, if you really desire hardware mixing, buy creative card. > Audigy 2, Audigy 4, then X-Fi.. well you know where it leads. So I > suggest you to rethink, maybe you don't need hardware mixing that much > after all. > > As a former Live! 5.1 and Audigy 2 ZS user that now uses M-Audio > Audiophile USB, I can tell you that problems with software mixing in > linux aren't that big. If you don't need exceptional sound quality, just > use onboard card; if you do, buying Creative card is wrong. As previously discussed here, I'm tending towards an Audigy 4 Pro while I can still get one in Australia - I don't have the free PCI slots or fast enough PC to use another solution whilst keeping hardware synth and mixing. Regards, Arthur. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
