How much time from cpu to sound card?

Tril · Nov 9, 2005, 02:03 AM

How much time does it take the audio to travel when going from the cpu to the sound card? I'm not talking about ASIO.

What I mean is, if a program uses waveout or directsound to play something, roughly how much time passes between the time the function is called and the time the sound card receives the audio?

I also whant to know, how does the sound pass from the cpu (or from the memory, you know what I mean) to the sound card. What does the driver do in this? Does the driver give the sound function an address on the card and the sound function write directly to the card or does the sound function copy it's audio to a buffer owned by the driver and the driver copies it to the sound card?

I find this stuff interesting and there must be some people here that know how a sound card works.

laserbeak · Nov 9, 2005, 02:13 AM

i'm no specialist but if i were to ask questions like this i think they'd probably get a quick answer by some nut case in the dsp section(laser wishes he was a nut case)

Nov 9, 2005, 02:03 AM	#1
Tril S-3D enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 1,675 Rep Power: 62 System Specs	How much time from cpu to sound card? How much time does it take the audio to travel when going from the cpu to the sound card? I'm not talking about ASIO. What I mean is, if a program uses waveout or directsound to play something, roughly how much time passes between the time the function is called and the time the sound card receives the audio? I also whant to know, how does the sound pass from the cpu (or from the memory, you know what I mean) to the sound card. What does the driver do in this? Does the driver give the sound function an address on the card and the sound function write directly to the card or does the sound function copy it's audio to a buffer owned by the driver and the driver copies it to the sound card? I find this stuff interesting and there must be some people here that know how a sound card works.

Nov 9, 2005, 02:13 AM	#2
laserbeak DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 153 Rep Power: 0	i'm no specialist but if i were to ask questions like this i think they'd probably get a quick answer by some nut case in the dsp section(laser wishes he was a nut case)