some body explain buffer rates?
- Thread starter Malone
- Start date
AlChuck
Well-known member
I've never heard of a buffer rate. A buffer is a section of memory that holds data temporarily; there's a buffer size parameter, which is how much data is held in the buffer.
As to what a buffer is for, I tried to quickly find a "real" definition and failed, so bear with me here. Basically, when data is transferred from one device to another, and the transfer must be smooth, you have to assure that there is always data available for the thing that is getting it from the thing that is providing it. Because of the nature of computers, it's not possible to assure that data will always be coming out of the source right at the moment the destination needs it. (If it's audio that's being streamed to a digital-to-analog converter and out to the speakers, and the stream is interrupted, the waveform is damaged and you get something like a click or a pop in the playback.) So devices are built with buffers that fill with data, and the destination gets its data from the buffer rather than directly from the supplying device. This in theory assures that there will always be data to be pulled to the destination, and the source can always be putting data in there before it's all removed.
You can imagine that if the buffer size is too small, the thing pulling the data can empty if before the thing filling it comes back with more.
As to what a buffer is for, I tried to quickly find a "real" definition and failed, so bear with me here. Basically, when data is transferred from one device to another, and the transfer must be smooth, you have to assure that there is always data available for the thing that is getting it from the thing that is providing it. Because of the nature of computers, it's not possible to assure that data will always be coming out of the source right at the moment the destination needs it. (If it's audio that's being streamed to a digital-to-analog converter and out to the speakers, and the stream is interrupted, the waveform is damaged and you get something like a click or a pop in the playback.) So devices are built with buffers that fill with data, and the destination gets its data from the buffer rather than directly from the supplying device. This in theory assures that there will always be data to be pulled to the destination, and the source can always be putting data in there before it's all removed.
You can imagine that if the buffer size is too small, the thing pulling the data can empty if before the thing filling it comes back with more.
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