timer problems

[Shaun Oliver]

ok I retake it back hahahahahaha.
I have found having read all this that my doubletalk and speakup don't
cause this problem as much when I wanted to play an mp3 file.
I only got the alsa modules because I wanted to be able to use my sound
card with better functionality than was afforded me with the kernel
drivers.
and not only that, I wanted to use speak_freely too. <grin> but that's
now turned into a port forwarding issue.
damn.
but any hoo, I apologise. 
On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Frank
Carmickle wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Shaun Oliver wrote:
> 
> > ok I take that back it was barry that posted about the kernel timing
> > issues.
> 
> I was the one who sent the message of correction.  And I will restate it
> in different terms.  Alsa does not live in user space.  You insmod the
> modules in to your kernel right?  If you don't have a second cpu and the
> one you have is busy your shit out of luck any way you slice it.  It's all
> a compromise.  You need to hear chars from your synth and at 9600 bod you
> get about one char per ms.  So how long do you want to have silence in the
> speech output while your waiting for the next load of chars?  Probably
> none.  This is why the buffers are set the way they are.  So in order to
> not have breakups in your audio you have to send more bits to the audio
> hardware at the times when speakup isn't hogging the cpu to get the chars
> out the port.  It's not very difficult to find the right balance.  But do
> a bunch more disk io and you'll be sitting there for a while.  My machine
> is very much not interactive when updatedb occurs.
> 
> The reason why alsa is better then the open sound system is that alsa uses
> much less cpu load.  Thus getting more work done during those times when
> speakup isn't hogging the cpu.  
> 
> 

-- 
Shaun Oliver.

"We realize we have a problem with communication. However, we're not going
to discuss it with our staff."
email: shauno at goanna.net.au
ICQ: 76958435