Sound problems during load

[Doug White]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Tobias Aigner wrote:

> I have noticed some sound-playback (through xmms) problems during I/O
> load for example extracting a big tar/gzip/bz2 archive. While extracting
> the sound slows down, starts to stutter and gets very distorted on both
> soundcards. The same thing when I try to load a kernel module. I've
> already done some testing with my bios and irq settings but no success.
>
> This happens on FreeBSD 5.2.1(-p8) and on todays -CURRENT. I just wanted
> to know if there is any fix or workaround available? Would be great.

Are WITNESS and INVARIANTS enabled?  If so, those drag down interrupt
latency enough to cause sound disruptions.  I can get my home -current box
(athlon 3000+) to do the same thing, but even setting
debug.witness_watch=0 makes a massive improvement, and that doesn't
entirely disable witness.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite at gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org