Optimizing Pi3 for Pure data and audio in general

[Jaffasplaffa]

Hello!

I just got a Pi3 b a few days ago which I want to use for Pure Data, kind of "build my own syntheseizer project". I got Raspbian + Pure data vanilla installed and it seems to work semi decent, though I do experience audio performance could be better.

I ordered a Behringer UCA 202 audio interface, which is supposed to work well with PI3. So I am sure that it will make audio from PD more stable...It should arrive today or tomorrow.

But I am thinking which other steps I could do to optimize PI3 for working with Pure data and audio in general?

I know SD-card speed plays a huge role in performance. I am thinking getting a GOOD SD-card is essential. Are there any SD-cards that are recommended over others for PI3? Which SD-card do you guys have? Which ones have you tried that worked well and which ones didnt work well?

My config file is attached if you have any suggestions for optimisation.

Untitled.jpg (61.66 KiB) Viewed 1736 times

Again ANY tip to optimisations would be appreciated.

Jaffa

[fruitoftheloom]

http://www.pidramble.com/wiki/benchmarks/microsd-cards

[Jaffasplaffa]

Thanks Fruits of Loom, this what one of the things I was looking for

[Jaffasplaffa]

I read in the link to the USB Benchmark tests that it is possible to overclock the SD-card speed.

Does anyone have experience with that? Does it compromise the systems stability a lot?

[bensimmo]

I use Samsung EVO cards.
I also have EVO+ and they are that little bit nicer (a newer faster version has/is just being released, looks the same but has a different MB/s number on it iirc, at least on Amazon.

Anyway, yes overclock to 100 from the 50 and it has never missed a beat. Don't think I've had a UHS1 designated card complain yet.
Though you can use USB drives/SSD etc.

[bensimmo]

As for other optimizations, I guess there is the main overclocking.no idea what will benefit you (or cause problems with the audio).
Perhaps stick a little heatsink on the Pi3 they do get quite warm, one of mine with a Google AIY hat on gets pretty hot in it's cardboard box warming everything up around it.

[Jaffasplaffa]

The SD-card I have now is a Verbatim U1 Class 10 SDHC 16gigs. I tried making a benchmark test on OSX, but since I all ready installed Jessie, it says that there is not enough space free to make a benchmark test. So I am not sure how mine compares to the others in the list. I think I'll make a quick image of my install and format the SD-card and do the test, so I have something to compare it with, if I need to get a new one or not.

Doing the benchmark test: Can i do this on any platform, like OSX for example? Or must I do it on the PI3 to get the right numbers?

Thanks for the answers for now

[runboy93]

Tweaks from my guide.