Re: Linux sound (and threads)

[Mads Bondo Dydensborg <madsdyd@challenge.dk>]

On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Jeff Read wrote:

> > I once had three povray processes ,a compile run of some bigger package,
> > and a mp3 player for background music running all simultaneously while I
> > was surfing with Netscape on KDE. Possibly anacron also started the weekly
> > backup in the middle of this, I don't remember exactly.
> > Well, the point is: Netscape was a bit slower as usual, but still perfectly
> > usable. So don't worry much about being interrupted by fetchmail ;)
> > (of course I wouldn't want to play Quake in such a situation, but what do
> > you expect?)
> 
> You must have some screamin' silicon then, pal. :) I could never do a
> stunt like that on my meager little 200MHz Cyrix machine. In particular,
> MP3 players tend to chop up as soon as I start Netscape.

I have a 200 Mhz PPro, 96 MB, dual V2. Until recently, my girlfriend ran
WordPerfect of my machine (I had yet to install it on the network). On
several occasions, I played Quake while she worked. Only when she printed
(while WP spooled the printjob), did I actually notice.

WP is not very hard on the CPU. But, it is an interactive program, so it
does come into the cache etc, fairly often. 

Probably very chip dependant.

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               madsdyd@challenge.dk
  7)  Sacrifice a small animal for Good Luck

 (step 7 of 8 in configuring the Open Source Global File System for Linux)