[chuck-users] Low-latency in Windows, Dynamic LInking and UI Idea

[Veli-Pekka Tätilä]

Spencer Salazar wrote:
>>>> 3. Is there any way to decrease the latency on WIndows platforms
>>>> for tru realtime MIDI playback and audio processing similar to
>>>> Reaktor?
>> just read that ChucK is based on SDL and
>> DirectSound
>> meaning a 20 ms latency is quite an achievement in many cards.
>> would be great if the WIndows port of SDL had native ASIo support
> ChucK does use DirectSound on Windows, which indeed makes attaining
> realtime latency problematic.
Yeah, for all the hassle and worries about legacy sound APIs like OSS and 
hardware mixing, this is about the first time I'm envious of Linux users for 
their sound support, <smile>. That is to say ALSA does give low latency if 
you have the drivers, although incidentally I've heard the TerraTec drivers 
for LInux have some extra latency issues, oh well.

Quoting joerg  here:
you could use asio4all
http://www.asio4all.com/
is supposed to be working with all soundcards
End quote.

Yeah, that works fine for SoundMAX cards such as the one in this laptop. But 
the problem is not the lack of low-latency ASIO but DirectSound itself. Does 
anyone know how apps like Sonar can achieve low latency by using MS 
technology? I've heard the names WDM and kernel streaming but neither says 
much to me as I'm not a driver developer.

>> having constructor support would rock.
>> As well as the ability to declare abstract or interface classes
> Yes--real constructors are definitely on the todo list, and ChucK
> actually reserves the "interface" and "implements" keywords for
> potential future use.
Ah, nice. Speaking of future extensions, does this snippet in the ChucK 
manual mean I can actually already load code on the fly much like using a 
DLL or a shared library? That is:

Quote:
ChucK Standard Libraries API these libraries are provide by default with 
ChucK - new ones can
also be imported with ChucK dynamic linking (soon to be documented...).
End quote.

I wonder when this will be, in fact, documented.

> OpenGL support (GLucK) is currently in development limbo, but its
> something we'd very much like to make available in the near future.
I see, which  reminds me of another thing entirely. Will ChucK have some day 
in the future a sufficiently powerful, cross-platform toolkit for 
effortllessly building synth panels as in Reaktor? If it would also support 
presets, MIDi learn, respect user color and font preferences and would be 
keyboard and screen reader accessible, I'd be chucKed into virtual analog 
heaven then, <grin>.

Here are some thoughts as to what might need to be implemented:.
Coarse value adjustements: knobs and sliders with a keybord interface 
modelled on sliders.
Exact value adjustements: text entry boxes and spinners
Toggle buttons: much like small push buttons
Radio buttons: AKA switches in synth speak, again the kbd interface could be 
lifted from a radio group
output: analog meters and read-only edit boxes AKA read-only displays
Not to mention groups for putting controls into. This is about the controls 
early Reaktor's had and was quite sufficient for a long time. If the native 
controls could be used, I wonder if WX WIdgets would be sufficiently 
portable and powrful.

>From an accessibility point of view, I do wish controls would have a proper 
auto-generated but overridable tab order, the concept of keyboard focus and 
labels that are clearly defined for assistive technology (e.g. using native 
accessibility APIs), as well as hotkeys for both moving to controls like 
groups and interacting with them. But I'll stop here before this turns into 
an accessibility rant, <smile. Truth be told, Reaktor had, it does not any 
more, one of the most keybord-usable panels and most VST plugs are horrible 
in that regard. Apparently most hosts don't even handle the keyboard 
messages so the plugs could process them.

-- 
With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila at mail.student.oulu.fi)
Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/