alsa software mixing

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

I was astounded today when my laptop was able to play a mp3 while I was
running a game with sound effects. I don't use esound; I do use alsa
with the snd-card-ymfpci module. 

I didn't realize alsa did software mixing. This rules! Am I just
particularly lucky about the sound card in my laptop[1], or is this a
standard alsa feature for many cards?

-- 
see shy jo

[1] How ironic that would be, it was a bugger waiting for it to be
    supported in alsa and then getting it working..