On Mon, 2004-10-25 at 10:54 -0700, John L Fjellstad wrote: > Eric Gaumer <gaumerel@ecs.fullerton.edu> writes: > > > Alsa cannot play multiple audio streams simultaneously. From what I > > understand, this is more of a hardware limitation than an alsa > > limitation. They claim that some sound cards can do automatic hardware > > mixing. If your card can't do this then there is a plugin called "dmix" > > that does software mixing (i.e. allow sounds to play simultaneously) . > > I've never tried it. Just search "alsa dmix" for plenty of how-to's. I > > would imagine just using esd or arts would be easier and work flawlessly > > at the moment. I think a lot of Gnome apps are probably programmed to > > use esound. Give it a try... it can't hurt. > > Actually, that's what I meant. With my Soundblaster card, I had > hardware mixing with ALSA. On my laptop now, I do software mixing with > the dmix plugin, also with ALSA. And it works fine. So, doesn't that > mean that Alsa can play multiple audio streams, as long as you set it up? > > And I guess I was wondering what a 'real' sound daemon would bring to > the table above this? Portability and network transparency are two strong advantages that come to mind. You are looking at it from a users perspective. Consider it from a programmers point of view and it will be clear that even with Alsa, a good sound daemon is important. This is why projects like Jack exist. > > I actuall run esd when running gtk windowmanagers (GNOME, > Enlightenment), and it sounds terrible, so I usually just pipe the xmms > output directly to ALSA. I actually do it everywhere if an app supports > it. > > -- > John L. Fjellstad > web: http://www.fjellstad.org/ Quis custodiet ipsos custodes > -- Eric Gaumer <gaumerel@ecs.fullerton.edu>
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