Re: [orca-list] Fw: Playing multiple sounds?

[Tomas Cerha <cerha brailcom org>]

Hello Anthony,

playing multiple sounds with ALSA and SD should not be a problem.  ALSA
uses DMIX for software mixing so even with single channel sound cards,
Speech Dispatcher should share the audio device with other applications.

If it doesn't work, the problem may be either in Speech Dispatcher not
really using ALSA output or your ALSA setup not supporting DMIX.

See also
http://alsa.opensrc.org/home/w/org/opensrc/alsa/index.php?title=DmixPlugin

Best regards, Tomas

Anthony wrote:
> I have managed to get speech-dispatcher and alsa working following
> Darragh's
> instructions and it does significantly improve the performance, I can
> overcome the admin apps issue in the recommended way, however once I have
> configured Alsa and Speech-Dispatcher I am then unable to play any other
> sounds. I assume that this is because speech-dispatcher is using the sound
> card. With PulseAudio this is not a problem. Is there a way round this that
> will enable the playing of multiple sounds through Alsa with
> speech-dispatcher running, or is this the sacrifice I must make for better
> performance? I have configured speech-dispatcher as a service rather
> than as
> a user - is this the cause of the problem?