"PulseAudio Is Still Awesome"

[GreatEmerald]

About X-fi xtremegamer fatl1ty, this soundcard supports d3dsound and directsound so it should be provided by hardware mixing. It's enough to run DXDIAG to see if osundcard uses hardware mixing.

http://techreport.com/review/8884/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-audio-processor

CA20K1 supports audio mixer...

It does, on Windows. But not on Linux, because nobody worked on the ctxfi driver other than to get it in a basic workable state (it's based on an official Creative driver which was really terrible and nobody really wanted to figure out the details of how it worked).

[Azrael5]

Haaaa! I have an X-Fi XtremeGamer, and what you said is completely false. One, it does not have hardware mixing, which you would see quite easily by looking at the ALSA wiki: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...-Creative_Labs Two, while its support on Linux is quite poor, it doesn't come close to how utterly terrible their drivers are on Windows. Those cause BSODs, as well as terrible noise while recording unless set in a peculiar way.

I have been hearing good things about Xonars too, and I wish I had known sooner so that I wouldn't have bought the X-Fi...

About X-fi xtremegamer fatl1ty, this soundcard supports d3dsound and directsound so it should be provided by hardware mixing. It's enough to run DXDIAG to see if osundcard uses hardware mixing.

http://techreport.com/review/8884/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-audio-processor

CA20K1 supports audio mixer...

[mdias]

It doesn't sound like you realize that your ears are far more sensitive to latency than your eyes. 50ms is very near the threshold that your eyes will notice, but it's waaaay over what your ears will notice. 15ms is probably close to an absolute maximum, with 1 or maybe 2ms being a more realistic maximum.

Oh, believe me, I know that. What you're missing though is that software knows how much latency there is and compensates for this by playing sounds earlier by whatever amount of latency you have.
Again, for most people (who watches movies, plays music and game a bit) a bit of latency in sound doesn't matter because in practice you will not notice and sound will be playing exacly in sync with video.
It only matters when you really need precise sync with your input, such as playing a MIDI keyboard. For an FPS shooter (example), earing your gun with a little delay might be a little annoying but the fact is that you already shot and you either missed or hit.

[duby229]

Well, the amount of importance low-latency audio should have is subjective. For my needs I don't mind having 50ms of latency in exchange of higher quality resampler.
I don't see many scenarios where low latency is important for the average user.



I disagree. I prefer very high quality audio with some CPU performance impact rather than low quality resamplers with low CPU overhead. Again, this is subjective.



It's one of those things that are easier said than done. For that to happen, PA needs a completely new codepath and after that is done, it's one more codepath to maintain. Factor in the rate at which hardware mixing is becoming obsolete and you have very few reasons to do it.

It doesn't sound like you realize that your ears are far more sensitive to latency than your eyes. 50ms is very near the threshold that your eyes will notice, but it's waaaay over what your ears will notice. 15ms is probably close to an absolute maximum, with 1 or maybe 2ms being a more realistic maximum.

[mdias]

That's exactly PA's second biggest problem. Normal people don't know that they should care about audio latency. And yet, since they don't know the PA devs use it as an excuse. It's always excuses. The PA devs should care in place of the normal people, because they -do- know that they should care about audio latency.

Well, the amount of importance low-latency audio should have is subjective. For my needs I don't mind having 50ms of latency in exchange of higher quality resampler.
I don't see many scenarios where low latency is important for the average user.

EDIT: Very few people need highend audio hardware. Less than 100mhz of modern day CPU cycles should be more than plenty.

I disagree. I prefer very high quality audio with some CPU performance impact rather than low quality resamplers with low CPU overhead. Again, this is subjective.

It couldn't possible to optimize sound driver for integrated audio cards during installation phase enabling HARDWARE AUDIO ACCELERATION in those systems provided by audio hardware suport!? It's so simple...

It's one of those things that are easier said than done. For that to happen, PA needs a completely new codepath and after that is done, it's one more codepath to maintain. Factor in the rate at which hardware mixing is becoming obsolete and you have very few reasons to do it.

[Azrael5]

It couldn't possible to optimize sound driver for integrated audio cards during installation phase enabling HARDWARE AUDIO ACCELERATION in those systems provided by audio hardware suport!? It's so simple...

[magika]

Haaaa! I have an X-Fi XtremeGamer, and what you said is completely false. One, it does not have hardware mixing, which you would see quite easily by looking at the ALSA wiki: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...-Creative_Labs Two, while its support on Linux is quite poor, it doesn't come close to how utterly terrible their drivers are on Windows. Those cause BSODs, as well as terrible noise while recording unless set in a peculiar way.

I have been hearing good things about Xonars too, and I wish I had known sooner so that I wouldn't have bought the X-Fi...

That page is simply outdated. For once, it says Titanium HD is not supported but it is since 2012. Secondly I had XtremeGamer in the past and it had all of its (128?) hardware voices available to ALSA.

The only true thing is that ALSA does not support useless whistles like Crystalizer and shit.

[duby229]

See erendorn's reply. At least for most hardware, the only thing that's better is the speed. Normal users don't care if their sound takes 25ms or 4ms to reach their speakers though...
In any case, you're conceding that it's a matter of processing power to be able to do a better job than specialized hardware. Why is it so hard to believe that in 2015 we already have enough CPU power to do it in realtime?



They target first what most people use. And most people don't use xonars or other high-end audio hardware.

That's exactly PA's second biggest problem. Normal people don't know that they should care about audio latency. And yet, since they don't know the PA devs use it as an excuse. It's always excuses. The PA devs should care in place of the normal people, because they -do- know that they should care about audio latency.

EDIT: Very few people need highend audio hardware. Less than 100mhz of modern day CPU cycles should be more than plenty.

[GreatEmerald]

xonar d2X or x-fi xtreme gamer are not able to manage multiple sound mixing!? cmi8788 ca20k1 audio chips should be let hardware mixing. Or not!?

I use both xonar d2x and x-fi xtreme gamer but what the important are the chipset used. Next month I shoould replace my xonar d2x with x-fi xtreme gamer which is excellent on managing both audio and gaming switching from audio controller in windows system.

Haaaa! I have an X-Fi XtremeGamer, and what you said is completely false. One, it does not have hardware mixing, which you would see quite easily by looking at the ALSA wiki: http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...-Creative_Labs Two, while its support on Linux is quite poor, it doesn't come close to how utterly terrible their drivers are on Windows. Those cause BSODs, as well as terrible noise while recording unless set in a peculiar way.

I have been hearing good things about Xonars too, and I wish I had known sooner so that I wouldn't have bought the X-Fi...

[mdias]

You are stating obvious things again: offline renderer provides better quality. But we are talking about realtime, and specialized hardware does better job here.

See erendorn's reply. At least for most hardware, the only thing that's better is the speed. Normal users don't care if their sound takes 25ms or 4ms to reach their speakers though...
In any case, you're conceding that it's a matter of processing power to be able to do a better job than specialized hardware. Why is it so hard to believe that in 2015 we already have enough CPU power to do it in realtime?

If you target lowest hardware possible then that is given.

They target first what most people use. And most people don't use xonars or other high-end audio hardware.