dmix asoundrc

darkleaf · 04-04-2005, 10:46 AM

I had some trouble with skipping audio so I started changing parameters in there. Now it looks like changing period_time from 0 to 128 helped for me. Now I'm interested in what this option actually does. All the alsa sample configurations just set it at 0 but I can't find a definition nor can I find one for period_size. So if anybody could point me to a site which does say what it is or tell me what it does

Thank you in advance!

foo_bar_foo · 04-05-2005, 09:12 PM

here are some interesting notes
http://www.sabi.co.uk/Cfg/ALSA/asound.conf

it might be better to try dmix with the defaults first rather than continuing to adjust
unless you can understand your sound card very well
(try this as an alternative to setting the buffers in a wrapper plugin for dmix)

Code:

pcm.dsp0 {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix"
}
pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "dmix"
}

foo_bar_foo · 04-05-2005, 09:48 PM

hey -- i was just messing with this cause you got me thinking
do this
run xmms the way it works best without dmix with a good file format whatever
then look at
/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params

there you find the proper period_size: setting and buffer_size

oh yea i forgot to add i think the period_time setting is just another way to set the buffer size -- setting it to 0 doesn't seem to have any effect here and doesn't show up in hw_params -- buffer_time also doesn't seem to have any effect

this is most likely all hw specific

darkleaf · 04-06-2005, 03:11 AM

I changed it to how it should be without asoundrc and it didn't work. That link you gave is really useful so I think I'll start in there as well. Strange things go on when I have asoundrc. Multiple xmms showing up in ps -aux but I guess there was a difference between them so I'm going to check it out too. Thanks for the help!