[pulseaudio-discuss] Some info on the RME Hammerfall DSP

[David Kastrup]

Daniel Chen <seven.steps at gmail.com> writes:

> [I don't know whether this was moderated or whether you're a
> subscriber, so I added you.]

Reading through gmane.

> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 7:52 AM, David Kastrup <dak at gnu.org> wrote:
>>    amixer -D hw:DSP cget numid=23
>>
>> now displays
>>
>> numid=23,iface=CARD,name='Precise Pointer'
>>  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=1
>>  : values=on
>>
>> where the default is 'off'.  Which does not appear to disturb Jack.  But
>> pulseaudio most certainly does not seem to like it, with tsched=1
>> suffering much worse than tsched=0.
>>
>> Setting this to 'On' makes pulseaudio work worse with tsched=0, and
>> apparently have no problems with tsched=1.
>
> There are two places where this control can be set (i.e., the
> "default" changed), via alsactl's init db or in the driver itself.
> Because Maverick is in deep freeze, and because Lucid is in an even
> deeper freeze (having been released months ago), the best thing to do
> at this point is to file a bug using "ubuntu-bug alsa-base" so that
> the appropriate mixer information can be uploaded to Launchpad, and a
> patch can be generated for one of the above contexts.  Personally, the
> former makes more sense and is less likely to cause regressions in the
> short term.  The main thing to test then becomes confirming that jackd
> works correctly with that setting.  After "sufficient" testing, the
> driver could be updated.

Well, I have no idea how to do this right.  One obvious snag is that a
setting like "Precise Pointer" is likely there for a reason.  Why would
anyone ask for "imprecise pointers" (the default) without there being an
actual advantage?  I have not yet found a rationale why this setting is
there in the first place.  I can't just believe there is a "shoot
yourself in the foot" variable in a driver with a default of "yes".

I also have no idea about Maverick at all, and how it would cater for
the Hammerfall with regard to Pulseaudio, defaults and so on.

Would it be considered useful if I made the jump to Maverick prerelease
right now?  Who will then be doing the testing for a putative backport?

-- 
David Kastrup