Re: SoundFont/DLS2/Gig (was Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] testing of linuxsampler and cvs activity)

[Mark K. <mar...@co...>]

On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 03:19, be...@ga... wrote:

> Yes, but I think the future lies in formats like Halion and Kontakt use:
> XML for patch/program data plus a bunch of WAV files.
> Monolithic files are a mess to deal with while single WAV files allow
> for much more finegrained editing.
> Ok .... for relatively small files like soundfonts a single file makes sense
> but not for multi GByte sample libraries.
> >From a performance point of view if you stream from a single file or a bunch
> of WAV files it makes virtually no difference (even if you open and close
> the file at each triggering of the sample, it's very fast I did some benchmarks
> and my conclusion is that the performance is exactly the same).

I know nothing, well, less than nothing if possible, about disk
fragmentation on Linux, but wouldn't a collection of files be less
likely to be guaranteed to be collected together on the drive in a
group?

If this is true, then wouldn't individual wave files be more likely to
have playback problems due to disk seek latencies for a single library?

I completely get that if the drive is slow, *some* library will be
placed in the slow position, and that library would have problems, but
for debugging hardware problems and making your system work well, after
adding and deleting libraries for a year, wouldn't it be better to
somehow guarantee that all samples are collected together in a
contiguous disk area?

- Mark