[PD] Arbitrary buffer sizes in pd, libpd

Max abonnements at revolwear.com
Wed Jan 12 21:32:38 CET 2022


Apparently some applications on some OSes allow the user to set any 
buffer size in their audio settings. Sometimes the buffer size will be a 
slider to set any value small to large.

One user of our VST3 plugin running libpd inside complained about 
sporadic crackles and discontinuities in the audio.

The user was running the plugin in Reaper on the Mac with a buffer size 
of 1200.

It never even occurred to me to even test other buffer sizes than 64, 
128, 512, 1024.

However apparently Reaper allows these settings and they will lead to 
discontinuities since Pd and therefore libpd aren't prepared for such 
arbitrary buffer sizes. We could add more ring buffers in our plugin 
code, but this would introduce latency for everyone else.

Just wanted to share this here, since it is something to consider for 
libpd implementations.

m.





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