How to optimize JACK (Audio Server)

.

ripped from Linux-audio-tuning@lists.linuxaudio.org (FIX) .

2008/8/9 Robin Gareus robin@gareus.org:

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Hash: SHA1

trece ocho wrote:

Hi there!,

I want to optimize JACK capabilities in running Linux PCs.

Welcome Trece ;)

What JACK configuration parameters do I have to vary (and in what way) to
achieve that?
(by “that” I mean: minimum latency, zero noise and zero xruns).

read `man jackd` - you want to set “-p <num> -n <num>”

-n: usually 2 or 3 - mostly depends on your sound-card
-p: 32,64,128,… 4096 “the period” defines buffer-size and latency

There's no “best” latency settings.

For recording you probably want to use a small period size for low
latency monitoring. But when you master, mix or edit: raise it up to

=1024 (many postprocessing effects are very CPU intense, and you do not

need low latency to listen). Most versions of JACK allow the period to
be changed during runtime: `man jack_bufsize`

Latency and Xruns are related: The higher the latency the less chance of
xruns. To get a 'zero-xrun' system you want to run jackd with
/realtime-priority/ on a realtime-patched linux kernel and lock the it's
pages into memory (no swap):

1. get or compile a realtime kernel
2. set up IRQs
3. permit audio users to use realtime capabilities
4. start jackd as user with realtime capabilities


For (1) I suggest to get a binary for your gnu/Linux distribution.
64studio, musix, ubuntu-studio, gentoo-pro-audio-overlay, CCRMA..

(2) 64studio offers a debian package rtirq for a great script from Rui:
http://www.linuxaudio.org/mailarchive/lau/2006/6/26/127914
There's probably other packages as well.

(3) that's the /etc/security/limits.conf part
http://tapas.affenbande.org/wordpress/?page_id=73

(4) /usr/bin/jackd -R -P 70 -T -d alsa -n 3 -r 48000 -p 128 -d hw:1,0
or use the “Realtime” checkbox in qjackctl's Setup dialog.

zero noise: N/A - check your cables ;)

I'm looking for something like a “standard procedure”…

use qjackctl.

…but sometimes the audio crackles, has xruns, can't get it to work
even with high latency, etc… and I don't have a clue about what to
vary to fix that.

aah, although this sound can be described as /noisy/, x-runs are no
*noise* ;) and are not only correlated to latency.

They're normal: Unix is fair to all users and sometimes does not
see a reason why it should keep playing your sound or even keep it in
memory UNLESS you tell it to do so. (steps 1-4 above)
There's a lot of background-jobs on a default gnu/Linux; fi. `updatedb`
may get in your way..

I'm working..

[..]
That sounds interesting. - I think you should post that to the
Linux-Audio-Users mailing list (or if you have questions about
program-code to linux-audio-dev). Here it is a little off-topic and you
may get more feedback there.

HTH,
robin
—–BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE—–
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkidw0gACgkQeVUk8U+VK0KGAACfSrRPAaVHVTOiIGw3DXi9NqVK
8SYAn1LG2aFjb2A1ONuMFOlCDAy0C5Jf
=Nm4J
—–END PGP SIGNATURE—–
___
Linux-audio-tuning mailing list
Linux-audio-tuning@lists.linuxaudio.org
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-tuning