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

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

Kris Hartung wrote:
> Except that it is difficult to "tune" your buffer size when you only
> have 128, 256, 512, etc as options, and each program/application has
> different thresholds for producing buffer errors.

Right. It's really a lot more complicated than this, I just tried to come 
up
with a simple conceptual model (inherent latency) to explain why buffer
sizes have to be different from machine to machine, and why saying
"latency = buffer size" is not the whole picture.  Perhaps that's an
over simplification.

Another way to think of it, that's also reasonably accurate is
that with small buffer sizes the processor has to "work harder"
because it is being "called" more frequently to handle little blocks
of audio.  Faster processors will help you keep up with the demand.

I'm not saying processor speed doesn't make a difference, but the
importance tapers off after a point.  You're not going to see
any difference in latency between a 3Ghz processor and a 3.5 Ghz processor,
though you may see one between a 2Ghz and 3Ghz.    I haven't done
any measurements to find where the sweet spot is, but if you're shopping
for a brand new PC most processors should be fine.  I would probably
not get a Celeron though.

Jeff