Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] RE: [Swami-devel] RE: Hi - Very quiet list - my first post

[David O. <da...@ol...>]

On Tuesday 21 January 2003 21.11, Josh Green wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-01-21 at 11:42, David Olofson wrote:
> > On Tuesday 21 January 2003 20.32, Josh Green wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > > velocity. Once the Python binding is completed in Swami (not
> > > really that much to do I think) writing scripts to do these
> > > types of things should be fairly easy :) Cheers.
> >
> > Speaking of scripting, are you planning on actually running
> > Python in RT context, or just use it for "rendering" maps?
>
> For just editing operations, the idea of real time is not of
> importance. For doing real time control of effects and MIDI, it
> might be. It really remains to be seen in practice what kind of
> latency is induced by calling Python code in real time. In the MIDI
> realm it might not matter too much.

Well, MIDI may not suffer as much from unbounded latency as audio,=20
but I'm not willing to take chances. We're talking about *unbounded*=20
worst case latency here, and it's really as bad as it sounds. If you=20
*can* have memory management stall MIDI processing for half a second=20
in the middle of a live performance, it *will* happen sooner or=20
later. (You know Murphy...)

Either way, Audiality runs all event processing in the same context=20
as the audio processing, so I can't realistically use anything that=20
isn't RT safe anyway. Even the slightest deadline misses would cause=20
audible drop-outs.


> I'm not yet fully familiar with
> using Python embedded in a program, but I'm sure there is probably
> a way to compile script source into object code. Anyways..

That might work, but I suspect it will only improve throughput=20
without making worst case latencies bounded. If the compiled code=20
could still uses malloc(), garbage collection and other=20
non-deterministic stuff, you have gained next to nothing WRT RT=20
reliability.


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

=2E- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`---------------------------> http://olofson.net/audiality -'
   --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---