[Ardour-Users] CPU usage of plugins in empty tracks

[Jörn Nettingsmeier]

On 07/20/2010 01:52 AM, Ken Restivo wrote:

> It seems silly to me that a plugin should be using CPU for processing
> silence. Some plugins are more CPU hungry than others, and better at
> dealing with 0 or near-0 input values.

makes no sense. how could you ever save cycles on silence? either you 
add a very convoluted conditional
   if (new_buffer_is_all_zeroes() &&
       no_old_stuff_from_previous_cycles_left()) do_nothing;
or you have something like a noise gate thingy, with all the horrible 
consequences.
in any case, this would create so much overhead that the effect 
negligible, and i for one wouldn't want to use a plugin in my mixes that 
tries to second-guess me and be clever about cpu usage.

i'd even go as far as saying that constant high cpu usage is better than 
erratic cpu usage (even if the latter is less on average), since you run 
the risk of finding your precious rt system unschedulable if there is a 
peak.



-- 
Jörn Nettingsmeier

Audio engineer
Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)

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