Post #3511806

2026-06-30 12:38 UTC

@sobek@social.linux.pizza @samaaron@mastodon.social @mafe@layer8.space @ercanbrack@mastodon.online there is no plugin API that requires a power-of-2 buffer size (LV2 has an extension that allows to plugins to say that they require it, but this will cause many LV2 hosts to refuse to load it). Any host can create random buffer sizes for any reason (including, for example, automation). In short, plugins that absolutely require power of 2 buffers need to manage that internally - they cannot rely on the host (on any platform) to do that for them.

Replies (1)

@sobek@social.linux.pizza 2026-06-30 14:05

@PaulDavisTheFirst@fosstodon.org @samaaron@mastodon.social @mafe@layer8.space @ercanbrack@mastodon.online In offline applications like DAWs, yes. In online applications outside of Windows audio it is *rare* to come accross a buffer that is not a power of 2 size. There the buffer size is dictated by the audio device driver and for all devices I have come across so far, the drivers let you set buffer sizes in powers of two (for good reasons). Windows doesn't care however and sometimes rebuffers regardless of what the audio device does. E.g. pipewire will only change buffer size (they call it quantum IIRC) if explicitly required by an application. Windows just does as it pleases. As you stated, it is not smart to make power of 2 buffer sizes a hard requirement for robustness, however for some codepaths, it is immensely beneficial for runtime performance.

Open ##3511807