Jack Buffer vs Periods Trade-off

[katopan]

I now have my firewire system up and running very nicely and am playing around fine tuning Jack and learning about some of the great music software available.

My question is about Jack settings. As I've read in numerous places sample rate, buffer size and periods/buffer all effect latency. Advise is to reduce settings to get the lowest latency you can without any xruns. I'm finding I can push the limits and get no xruns with either lower buffer or lower periods. Which one is the best to set lower?

I'm using a Dawicontrol DC-1394 express card 34 and Cadence for Jack control.

Thanks.

[khz]

Maybe --help (play with settings):
http://libremusicproduction.com/article ... arted-jack

[j_e_f_f_g]

Set periods to 2. Other values are needed only if other hardware interferes with audio operation such that 2 periods won't suffice. ie, The other settings are intended primarily for badly behaving systems. JACK should default to 2,

[kazakore]

Set periods to 2. Other values are needed only if other hardware interferes with audio operation such that 2 periods won't suffice. ie, The other settings are intended primarily for badly behaving systems. JACK should default to 2,

I've personally often found that 3 is more stable, but as you say it should really depend on your hardware. I have never heard an argument to use anything other than 2 or 3 for periods (number of buffers) though. Experiment with what gives you the best latency with these two figures would be my suggestion.

[katopan]

Thanks for the replies. Yes I am deciding over 2 frames/buffer vs. 3. With 3 it seems I can go a step or so lower in buffer size. Cadence measures latency ignoring the frames, so the lower the buffer the lower the latency. JackCtl includes frames so would measure higher with frames of 3. Maybe I need to test it out a bit more. At the end of the day it looks like I can get nice low latency figures with my hardware so it probably doesn't matter. Didn't know if there was a consensus about using 2 vs 3 frames against higher/lower buffer. Obviously lower in both is better!

I've read that link before but didn't pick up on the suggestion that any interface other than usb should stick with 2 frames.

Thanks again!