Octal Issues

[David O'Toole]

I thought I would generate some discussion if I asked for opinions on some
issues coming up:

[1] RUNNING IN PLACE. Usually the input and output buffers for an Octal
machine will be distinct; you read from the input buffer, process, and
write to the output buffer. One optimization would be to allow, in certain
instances, the input and output buffers to be the same buffer in memory,
so that you come in with a buffer, process the buffer in place, and when
you finish the buffer has been reverbed or pitchshifted or whatever.

Now obviously that won't work in situations where the output of the
previous machine is also routed to other destinations (you need the
original copy again) but in the common "chains of effects" it would be a
good optimization.

I imagine many plugins wouldn't care if the input buffer was the same as
the output. If Octal sees that the chain could be optimized (1-1
connections) then it could simply generate instructions for the mixer to
run them in place. But there may be instances where a plugin won't work
running in place.

Could machine developers give feedback on this? What kind of machines
would not work with running in place? Should we have a machine-type
attribute that basically says "don't optimize me to run in place" for
those machines, and just assume it's allowed for other machine types? This
would be trivial to add.

-- 
@@@ david o'toole
@@@ address@hidden
@@@ www.gnu.org/software/octal