[chuck-users] benchmarking chuck

[Graham Percival]

On 19-Feb-06, at 7:29 AM, Perry R Cook wrote:

> 3) As long as ChucK writes soundfiles without clicks,
> we can revisit that most magical time in computer
> music history when everyone used an algorithmic,
> text-based language, and listened to the result
> after it was rendered.  Real-time is awesome, but
> expressive code is universally powerful, and the
> latter will become the former if we just wait a
> spell.

That's certainly true for certain types of projects, but it means that 
chuck is locked out of the interactive music area.  This whole 
benchmarking idea was sparked when I was trying to get three shepherd 
tones whose speed changed in realtime (a human with a KiOm, if you're 
interested).  I was using 7 sine waves per tone, so a total of 21 sine 
waves.  Add in a bit of math (to determine frequencies, set gains, and 
handle midi input), and my poor 1Ghz CPU was overloaded.  In the end I 
had to make do with only two tones.  That's not a terrible thing in and 
of itself -- this was just a weekly assignment -- but I was 
disappointed that a modern laptop couldn't handle 21 (interesting) sine 
waves.

I even considered doing all the sound processing in pd -- have chuck 
send OSC messages to pd to control sine wave generators in pd.  For 
this project it wasn't necessary, but I might revisit this idea.

> PS: Wonder how many sines Max/MSP will spin?

I just did some tests on a lab computer.  CPU usage was set to 
"automatic"; I couldn't change that to automatic due to lack of 
administrator access.  G5, 2 ghz, 10.4.something

chuck 150
Max/MSP approx 580


Cheers,
- Graham