[gmpi] Re: Topic 1: Audience for and users of plugins
- From: David Olofson <david@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gmpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 17:11:51 +0100
On Friday 21 February 2003 17.03, Paul Davis wrote:
> >-- are we interested in possible networked plugins? or is the
> > general feeling that by the time GMPI is adopted, CPUs will be so
> > fast that this is irrelevant ((it's already close... Steinberg's
> > System Link does not seem to have had all that wide an adoption,
> > implying it's not an important requirement for most people NOW,
> > and will decline in importance with time ))
>
> SystemLink can't be widely adopted unless Steinberg opens it up
> (though the technology is simple - its the idea that was
> brilliant). But more to the point, i don't think that network
> communication needs to be part of GMPI. its orthogonal to almost
> everything that GMPI needs to concern itself with.
>
> that is, i believe that GMPI will be (and rightfully should be)
> neutral about networked plugins.
It is important to to note that certain kinds of API constructs mean
serious trouble in these kind of environments - and this includes
multithreaded hosts on multiprocessor machines. This means anything
that involves plugin<->plugin roundtrips for real time operations,
basically.
One example would be "virtual" voice allocation for synths. A scheme
where you need a return value from a "Note On" message before you can
send voice control events or a "Note Off" will break down as soon as
you have more than one host thread running plugins, and it will be
totally useless over "high latency" connections.
In short, real time communication must be one-way, and two-way
communication must be asynchronous.
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate
.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
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--- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---
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