Re: All-Laptop live?? (was RE: RE: A poll--shoes off?)

[Jeff Larson <Jeffrey.Larson@Sun.COM>]

Some clarifications on what "latency" means for PC audio software:

There is a certain amount of inherent latency in any computer that is
independent of buffer sizes.  Among other things this is affected by
the operating system, processor speed, sound card driver, the amount
of memory, the speed of the disks, and the applications you have
running.

When we set buffer sizes in an application, what we're doing
is compensating for this inherent latency.  If the buffer size
is less than inherent latency you will get "dropouts" or "clicks".
If the buffer size is greater than inherent latency, things will run
smoothly you will just be over compensating.    The goal is to tune
your buffer size so it is as close as possible to inherent latency
without being less.

Jeff