[Ardour-Users] Denormals

[Paul Davis]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Q <lists at quirq.ukfsn.org> wrote:

> Is this an option I would set when building Ardour, or is it something to do
> with the kernel so that Ardour knows the processor can deal with denormals?

no, its determined with a couple of specific instructions that query
the CPU for its capabilities.

> Ah, that might explain why when I observed the session, the CPU load would
> rise and fall over a course of several few minutes even when the session
> wasn't playing.

are you using active frequency scaling (ie. power management)? this is
not compatible with low latency realtime audio, JACK or otherwise.
whatever tools your distro provides to manage this, you should disable
it or set it to "performance" or something similarly worded.