[PD] SMP Questions

[Tim Blechmann]

> With the small exception that, as Hans mentioned, two cores will be of 
> benefit because the graphics process can run on its own core.

the benefit is that minimal, that it's hardly worth mentioning ... just
run your favorite patch and look at the used cpu time ... (for the
patches that i tested, the cpu time used by the gui process is less than
0.1% of the time used by the kernel)

> > to make use of a multicore machine the only way to utilize all cores
> is
> > to run several instances of pd, that are connected via jackdmp. 
> >   
> 
> Now *there's* an idea.  Would that really work?  What would be the 
> downside -- aside from the memory needed to run multiple copies of
> PD? 

the problems are:
- scalability: you need (at least) as many pd instances as cpu cores...
it is always the question, if you can manually split your dsp graph in a
reasonable way ...
- performance: jackdmp's dsp graph scheduling is less efficient than
pd's (which is less efficient than nova's :) ... so using _many_ pd
instances is probably a bad idea
- communication overhead: you need to synchronize the instances ... easy
for simple controls (OSC or netsend/receive) difficult for shared
resources (buffers, busses)

> I can imagine a very powerful modular system built on this model.

i somehow doubt, that i would make sense to use a jackdmp-style
multicore scheduling algorithm for a max/pd/nova dsp graph, which can
easily contain thousands of nodes (jack graphs are usually rather
small), because of the scheduling overhead ...

however, i was thinking about ways to implement a hybrid system with
automatic segmentation of the dsp graph into parallel dsp chains that
can be scheduled with a dataflow algorithm ... but it would require lots
of performance tests to tweak the heuristics of the graph
segmentation ... for now, i had neither time nor funding ... (but maybe
it is an interesting topic for my master thesis?)

tim

--
tim at klingt.org    ICQ: 96771783
http://tim.klingt.org

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making
something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that
they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative
observation.' Creative viewing.
  William S. Burroughs
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