[gmpi] Re: ramps vs audio-rate controls

On Friday 16 January 2004 01.17, Tim Hockin wrote:
> It was asked to me this week (by someone who may or may not turn up
> here) why we're spending time on ramped controls, instead of just
> providing audio rate controls.
>
> It seems that audio-rate controls for float/real values *might* be
> a good answer.  We could either provide point-value and audio-rate
> controls, or require all float controls to be audio-rate.
>
> Pros:
>       Same end result as ramps
>       More flexible than ramps
>       No issues with long-running ramps beyond a buffer

        * Lower communication overhead than ramps when actually
          running at audio rate.

> Cons:
>       Memory bandwidth
>       Host needs to enable hooking up point-value controls to audio-rate
>         controls

        * Must be processed at full audio rate at all times.

        * Fewer optimization tricks.


Audio rate controls definitely seem like the best choice for high end 
modular synths and the like, but for consumer audio (games, media 
players etc) and for large networks where most controls are only 
ramped every now and then, I have a feeling that the cost is a bit 
too high.

"Computers will only get faster and faster" he said, and adviced his 
students not to worry about performance when coding. And no one is 
optimizing code these days, right!? ;-)


Any benchmarks to look at?


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.- Audiality -----------------------------------------------.
|  Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia.  |
| MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,... |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -'
   --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---


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