[Bug 17415] (JSWorkers): JavaScriptAudioNode processing in workers

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=17415

--- Comment #42 from Grant Galitz <grantgalitz@gmail.com> 2012-07-10 09:32:21 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #41)
> (In reply to comment #40)
> > One possible problem with that is we would need to synchronize up to once every
> > two clocks at a sample rate of 4194304 hertz (One sample per clock cycle for
> > LLE emulation).
> 
> My idea here would be to use time-stamped commands (such as
> CYCLE:REGISTER=VALUE), and batch up the commands in a typed array buffer that
> is flushed (sent to the worker) once per frame for example. The worker could
> run at its own clock with a small latency w.r.t the main thread (I doubt that
> it would be noticeable).
> 
> > We also would need to synchronize back part of the audio state,
> > as we expose some of the state back in the emulated hardware registers.
> 
> Read-back is trickier of course. I know very little about the GB/GBC hardware.
> My experience is mostly from the SID chip (from the C=64), which allows you to
> read back values from one of the oscillators. Here, I think I would just
> emulate a very small sub-set of the SID chip in the main thread (those readable
> registers were almost never used, and if they were used, it would typically be
> for random number generation).
> 
> Anyway, these were just some ideas. Perhaps worth trying, perhaps not...

Except latency for reading back would quite literally kill the emulator. Also
the emulator checks how many samples it's under running by in real time do it
can run more clocks over the base clocking amount to make sure we actually run
100% speed without this speed adjustment via listening to the sample count,
browsers would be underrunning the audio like crazy, as all browsers cheat
setInterval timing it seems (aka never call it enough even with extra CPU time
free). This was a major reason for the single threaded design, as async
buffering from the main thread causes us lag in the speed determination
portion, which is unacceptable. It's this measurement that also allows us to
prioritize CPU over graphics when hitting the 100% CPU usage wall. We do frame
skip by holding off blitting until the end of iteration.

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Received on Tuesday, 10 July 2012 09:32:27 UTC