Re: torture-testing -z:nodb scenarios

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 04:00:57PM -0700, linux media 4 wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've seen many post here about enabling/disabling double buffering and 
> I'm still confused about what can go wrong with -z:nodb set.
> 
> I've been writing an Front End to Ecasound for about 8 years (and 
> therefore running on a regular basis as I test new features). It's a 
> 'Jack Only' program. So everything I say pertains to Ecasound/Jack.
> 
> I'm currently running ecasound v2.8.1 but have not had any unusual 
> behavior the whole 8 years of testing my front end with prior versions 
> of ecasound with -z:nodb set.
> 
> I need to say several things. First, I have the most well tuned system. 
> I run Fedora + CCRMA and that addresses just about any issue necessary 
> to allow for most well tuned system for audio work. I also run Jack and 
> Ecasound in 'Realtime Mode'. Also... the 'Recording Hard Drive' is 
> separate so that the only Input/Output is from Ecasound (all System 
> Activity happens on the other Hard Drive).
> 
> So far, I've not seen anything unusual with normal use. What kinds of 
> things could go wrong by using -z:nodb? I would be glad to torture-test 
> any scenarios if you can point me to what can go wrong using -z:nodb.
Firstly, I think it is unlikely you woould run into trouble using nodb
on a modern system set up as you describe. Double-buffering was added to
ecasound in the early 2000s at a time when hardware (no SATA then) and
software (before a lot of the block layer rework) were a long ways away
from what they are now. At the time, double-buffering was crucial to
offering reliable multi-track performance on Linux. If your number of
IO fils is modest, there probably is little reason to use db today, but
it may still offer a good degree of protection as the number of open
files increases or if the working conditions are suboptimal (such as
working from the system HD).

Cheers,
S.M.

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