On Fri, 2002-11-08 at 22:39, Vladimir Chalupecky wrote: > To tell the truth, I don't understand the reason why I can't > have this gnome sound server and xmms and other apps > working at the same time? Could anyone explain this?
Because software mixing of multiple sound streams in the sound card drivers are not implemented. The commercial OSS drivers include software mixing (I think). ALSA drivers only implement hardware mixing. That is, if your sound card only accepts one PCM stream, only one application can use the soundcard at a time. Sound daemons attempt to hide this by having applications connect to them instead of the sound device directly, and perform the mixing in software. So, theorectically, if all of your applications would connect to the sound daemons (in the case of XMMS, you will need either an esd or artsd output plugin), you're set. However, sound daemons introduces latencies and that's not so good in games. Also, if your system is loaded, you will get crap output. Best bet is to get soundcards with hardware mixing. See the soundcard matrix at http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/ and look for cards with the notation "(4)" in the Notes column. Either that or splurge for the Commercial OSS drivers. Steven -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
