[vlc-devel] [PATCH] decrease alsa buffer size

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le vendredi 13 août 2010 18:48:04 Benjamin Drung, vous avez écrit :
> Am Freitag, den 13.08.2010, 18:34 +0300 schrieb Rémi Denis-Courmont:
> > Le vendredi 13 août 2010 18:08:06 Benjamin Drung, vous avez écrit :
> > > >> Debian/Ubuntu decreases the ALSA buffer size. That improves the
> > > >> behaviour of the alsa output module on pulseaudio system.  You might
> > > >> want to do the same.
> > > > 
> > > > What's the point considering the native PulseAudio output has a
> > > > higher priority than the ALSA one?
> > > 
> > > The user may not have the PulseAudio output plugin installed
> > 
> > Did I misunderstood that Ubuntu always installs PulseAudio? How come then
> > that the plugin is optional?
> 
> PulseAudio is installed by default on Ubuntu, but you can uninstall it.
> vlc recommends vlc-plugin-pulse -> vlc-plugin-pulse will be installed by
> default if you install vlc, but you can remove it.
> 
> > > or may have changed the configuration.
> > 
> > There are hundreds of ways to destroy audio or video rendering with
> > stupid settings.
> > 
> > Anyway, I am not for or against this patch. ALSAlib is so badly
> > documented that I gave up trying to make any sense of it.
> 
> Are there any reasons for not applying this patch except that the user
> can workaround this bug by using the pulseaudio output?

Smaller buffers mean more opportunities for starvation, and higher power 
consumption. We have quite a number of user reports of stuttering audio with 
ALSA already :(

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/
http://fi.linkedin.com/in/remidenis