Mazz
100+ Head-Fier
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Except that you can. With ASIO4ALL you can handily bypass the Windows mixer. And applications can use the new audio APIs in Windows Vista to request exclusive use of a device which also bypasses the Windows mixer. And there are other kludgy ways to get around the kmixer if you don't have Vista.
And mixing by itself doesn't degrade the sound terribly much - I bet most would be hard pressed to detect the difference in a double blind test.
And BTW, the Windows HAL is a different beast than the audio device drivers that talk to audio devices (but that's probably getting too deep).
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Well, that's a bit of a contentious statement. (And yes, I run both Windows and Linux and have written software professionally for both.)
Windows has 32 priority levels underneath, 16 of which are kind-of reserved. Yes, you can only specify SIX different levels through the UI, but you can specify all 16 (or 32) programmatically. And Windows does a fairly decent job under most circumstances of dynamically modifying priority levels in response to user input so that UIs remain responsive without requiring the app presenting the UI to remain at a permanently high priority. Yes, there are situations where it doesn't do what you want - but the same applies to Linux (I say that after waiting 20s for my MythTV box to skip ahead 30s during video playback last night.)
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It depends which process is generating that signal, because that process has to feed data to ALSA at a reasonable rate. Renicing that process would indeed have an effect.
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...which is functionally equivalent to using ASIO4ALL or Vista APIs to direct audio in Windows to a device in exclusive mode.
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And if you don't do that, you have a mixer enabled - just like Windows!
It's simply not true that the architecture of the OS is what makes the difference - it's the configuration of the audio stack and apps!
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(...which is true only if you have ALSA. There are other options - although becoming less common).
I run MythTV on Ubuntu with my audio server, but ASIO4ALL had fewer issues (not zero!) when setting it up on Windows than ALSA had on Linux. Admittedly I have more than one device on my server, but that's true on my Windows boxes too once I plug in my USB DAC.
You can certainly get both OSes to do what you want them to do.
Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Windows has a layer of API call HAL that sits on top of all media devices, and windows mixer sits on top of that to do...yes...mixing. [...] Problem is it's another software layer with ~86dB sensitivity, which degrade the sound, its like running a real bad preamp, and you cannot turn the mixer off. |
Except that you can. With ASIO4ALL you can handily bypass the Windows mixer. And applications can use the new audio APIs in Windows Vista to request exclusive use of a device which also bypasses the Windows mixer. And there are other kludgy ways to get around the kmixer if you don't have Vista.
And mixing by itself doesn't degrade the sound terribly much - I bet most would be hard pressed to detect the difference in a double blind test.
And BTW, the Windows HAL is a different beast than the audio device drivers that talk to audio devices (but that's probably getting too deep).
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Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Plus windows has a bad priority management system (notice you only get 5 levels of user priorities). |
Well, that's a bit of a contentious statement. (And yes, I run both Windows and Linux and have written software professionally for both.)
Windows has 32 priority levels underneath, 16 of which are kind-of reserved. Yes, you can only specify SIX different levels through the UI, but you can specify all 16 (or 32) programmatically. And Windows does a fairly decent job under most circumstances of dynamically modifying priority levels in response to user input so that UIs remain responsive without requiring the app presenting the UI to remain at a permanently high priority. Yes, there are situations where it doesn't do what you want - but the same applies to Linux (I say that after waiting 20s for my MythTV box to skip ahead 30s during video playback last night.)
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Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif renice the application do nothing as well. Because the signal would be in ALSA already, ... |
It depends which process is generating that signal, because that process has to feed data to ALSA at a reasonable rate. Renicing that process would indeed have an effect.
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Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Linux by design does not have such inferior design, you sound goes straight into ALSA, and it pass straight into device. (Notice how u specify "hw:x,y" in ALSA, or even in your player). |
...which is functionally equivalent to using ASIO4ALL or Vista APIs to direct audio in Windows to a device in exclusive mode.
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Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Also you can turn off multiple sources by deselecting it from volume control in ubuntu or in ALSA config, which tells ALSA it'd only accept one source only. |
And if you don't do that, you have a mixer enabled - just like Windows!
It's simply not true that the architecture of the OS is what makes the difference - it's the configuration of the audio stack and apps!
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Originally Posted by btbluesky /img/forum/go_quote.gif I believe Linux gives you the shortest path, with highest priority handling of signal in audio without much tweaking. EVERY players eventually hand the signal off to ALSA in exact same manner, so when choosing player, you should only be concern of the functionalities. |
(...which is true only if you have ALSA. There are other options - although becoming less common).
I run MythTV on Ubuntu with my audio server, but ASIO4ALL had fewer issues (not zero!) when setting it up on Windows than ALSA had on Linux. Admittedly I have more than one device on my server, but that's true on my Windows boxes too once I plug in my USB DAC.
You can certainly get both OSes to do what you want them to do.