> > I'd like to limit it to only hardware that has 32 and 64 bit float > > support, not all things do (eg. palmtops, some games consoles). > > That seems like a severe limitation. > Well, we have to make a decision: (1) create a universal plugin framework which supports everything and has all the bells and whistles one could imagine. This is the classic trap in software design. Result: either nothing at all or an over-complicated spec that won't be used. Or (2) use common sense and pick the parts of existing standards that "work" to create an open and useful framework, which works in 99% of the cases. My vote goes to (2). Don't forget that this is 2003 and even palmtops and game consoles have floating point support. I don't think choosing 32 or 64 bit floats only is a severe limitation. It's more about moving forward. The question is rather to support fixed-point or not. And I'd say no, because there are not too many good and cheap compilers out there, which support it. Yes, the GNU C/C++ compiles to 56k, but it's not very efficient. Efficient fixed point code is written in assembler. So if this standard is going to reach a wide audience, I'd vote against fixed-point and for 32 or 64 bit floating point support only. IMHO the plugin should not care about bit depths. It should deal with floating points only, say 64 bit floating points. If the host maps that onto say 16 bits, then it's the host's task to convert it before it fills the buffers and to convert back when it reads the buffers. It's not feasible for a plugin to provide different code snippets for different bit depths, e.g. one piece of code for 8 bits, one for 16, one for 24 and one for 32. Oh no. MH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Generalized Music Plugin Interface (GMPI) public discussion list Participation in this list is contingent upon your abiding by the following rules: Please stay on topic. You are responsible for your own words. Please respect your fellow subscribers. Please do not redistribute anyone else's words without their permission. Archive: //www.freelists.org/archives/gmpi Email gmpi-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx w/ subject "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe