BSE and KDE

[Neil Stevens]

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On Saturday February 22, 2003 01:37, Stefan Westerfeld wrote:
>    Hi!
>
> On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 08:36:59AM -0800, Neil Stevens wrote:
> > OK, looking at Jack, they say that they're low-latency and aRts isn't.
> >  If that's true, then I think aRts (especially that capital R) is
> > badly named. I hope Stefan is around and reading this thread to
> > comment on this.
>
> Its true that aRts _currently_ is not able to keep hard realtime
> guarantees like 3ms and down. It could be fixed, as there is code for a
> multithreaded scheduler in aRts, but it would require rewriting all
> calculateBlock functions of all plugins in a threadsafe way.
>
> So basically we come here to parts where aRts does not scale good. The
> MCOP middleware as it is provided by the current libmcop implementation
> is not and will not be hart RT capable. Thus, if you use MCOP, you will
> have no latency guarantee at all, because it is running in a mainloop
> where for instance also wave files are loaded into a cache, which could
> take forever if you're running NFS.
>
> Thus it appears to be useful to have some other server (not aRts)
> running with 3ms latency guarantee. This obviously also defeats the
> concept of using aRts synthesis itself for low latency stuff. This is
> why I have been working with Tim Janik on BEAST (http://beast.gtk.org)
> recently, rather than extending the existing aRts synthesis
> capabilities.

I have some BSE questions:

1. Is the whole system tied to GTK, or just the BEAST UI?

2. Is this a system you'd like to see replace aRts in KDE 4?

3. Would you be able to write an aRts source compatibiltiy layer on it, 
that would allow aRts code to work on the new system?

If aRts dies (I keep waiting for the day to come that you announce you've 
given up, Stefan :-), I think any system that is source-compatible with 
aRts would be a lot easier for KDE to use.  At least source-compatible 
enough for Noatun, Kaboodle, Konqueror Previews, kdegames, and the other 
arts-using KDE apps that don't have the word arts in the name.

- -- 
Neil Stevens - neil at qualityassistant.com
"Distinctions by race are so evil, so arbitrary and insidious that a
state bound to defend the equal protection of the laws must not allow
them in any public sphere." -- Thurgood Marshall
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