clicks in audio performance on the XO

[Simon Schampijer]

Hi all,

while doing testing of the XO audio performance I found out, that when 
using an real-time audio application like csound or the jack server from 
a virtual console and switching to another virtual console resulted in 
clicks ((small) interrupts in the audio playback).
Both csound and jack used small buffersizes (e.g. csound 256 samples for 
the sw-buffer and 1024 for the hw-buffer). Making the buffersizes bigger 
(1024, 4096) helped to get rid of the clicks but is adding latency to 
the audio input/ouput as well. Switching consoles is probably not what 
you want to do in every-day usage but I had clicks as well when testing 
activities like memosono etc.
As far as I understand the situation, these clicks come from the audio 
device not being served in time. I am not a kernel-expert but might 
those issues are related to kernel locks?
I am aware of the limits of the processor power available on the XO but 
maybe there are parts that can be improved to make the audio performance 
as good as possible.

All the best,
   Simon