How to minimize latency when reading audio with ALSA? - latency

Question

When trying to acquire some signals in the frequency domain, I've encountered the issue of having snd_pcm_readi() take a wildly variable amount of time. This causes problems in the logic section of my code, which is time dependent.
I have that most of the time, snd_pcm_readi() returns after approximately 0.00003 to 0.00006 seconds. However, every 4-5 call to snd_pcm_readi() requires approximately 0.028 seconds. This is a huge difference, and causes the logic part of my code to fail.
How can I get a consistent time for each call to snd_pcm_readi()?
I've tried to experiment with the period size, but it is unclear to me what exactly it does even after re-reading the documentation multiple times. I don't use an interrupt driven design, I simply call snd_pcm_readi() and it blocks until it returns -- with data.
I can only assume that the reason it blocks for a variable amount of time, is that snd_pcm_readi() pulls data from the hardware buffer, which happens to already have data readily available for transfer to the "application buffer" (which I'm maintaining). However, sometimes, there is additional work to do in kernel space or on the hardware side, hence the function call takes longer to return in these cases.
What purpose does the "period size" serve when I'm not using an interrupt driven design? Can my problem be fixed at all by manipulation of the period size, or should I do something else?
I want to achieve that each call to snd_pcm_readi() takes approximately the same amount of time. I'm not asking for a real time compliant API, which I don't imagine ALSA even attempts to be, however, seeing a difference in function call time on the order of being 500 times longer (which is what I'm seeing!) then this is a real problem.
What can be done about it, and what should I do about it?
I would present a minimal reproducible example, but this isn't easy in my case.

Answer 1

Typically when reading and writing audio, the period size specifies how much data ALSA has reserved in DMA silicon. Normally the period size specifies your latency. So for example while you are filling a buffer for writing through DMA to the I2S silicon, one DMA buffer is already being written out.
If you have your period size too small, then the CPU doesn't have time to write audio out in the scheduled execution slot provided. Typically people aim for a minimum of 500 us or 1 ms in latency. If you are doing heavy forms of computation, then you may want to choose 5 ms or 10 ms of latency. You may choose even more latency if you are on a non-powerful embedded system.
If you want to push the limit of the system, then you can request the priority of the audio processing thread be increased. By increasing the priority of your thread, you ask the scheduler to process your audio thread before all other threads with lower priority.
One method for increasing priority taken from the gtkIOStream ALSA C++ OO classes is like so (taken from the changeThreadPriority method) :
/** Set the current thread's priority
\param priority <0 implies maximum priority, otherwise must be between sched_get_priority_max and sched_get_priority_min
\return 0 on success, error code otherwise
*/
static int changeThreadPriority(int priority){
int ret;
pthread_t thisThread = pthread_self(); // get the current thread
struct sched_param origParams, params;
int origPolicy, policy = SCHED_FIFO, newPolicy=0;
if ((ret = pthread_getschedparam(thisThread, &origPolicy, &origParams))!=0)
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ret, "when trying to pthread_getschedparam\n");
printf("ALSA::Stream::changeThreadPriority : Current thread policy %d and priority %d\n", origPolicy, origParams.sched_priority);
if (priority<0) //maximum priority
params.sched_priority = sched_get_priority_max(policy);
else
params.sched_priority = priority;
if (params.sched_priority>sched_get_priority_max(policy))
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ALSA_SCHED_PRIORITY_ERROR, "requested priority is too high\n");
if (params.sched_priority<sched_get_priority_min(policy))
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ALSA_SCHED_PRIORITY_ERROR, "requested priority is too low\n");
if ((ret = pthread_setschedparam(thisThread, policy, &params))!=0)
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ret, "when trying to pthread_setschedparam - are you su or do you have permission to set this priority?\n");
if ((ret = pthread_getschedparam(thisThread, &newPolicy, &params))!=0)
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ret, "when trying to pthread_getschedparam\n");
if(policy != newPolicy)
return ALSA::ALSADebug().evaluateError(ALSA_SCHED_POLICY_ERROR, "requested scheduler policy is not correctly set\n");
printf("ALSA::Stream::changeThreadPriority : New thread priority changed to %d\n", params.sched_priority);
return 0;
}