Hi,
I believe that the -rt flag is still ignored in extended version 0.42.5. To debug this, I am using my own version of ps which lists the threads and also RTPRIO priorities:
ps -eLo pid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,pcpu,stat,comm --sort -rtprio
Depending on your kernel settings, it might be harder for you to verify this, but I imagine you might find in the source code where it parses "flags" in .pdextended that it simply doesn't check for -rt.
If I start pd with -rt specified neither in ~/.pdextended nor on the command line, I get these priorities:
PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
1299 TS - 0 19 19.8 RLl pd
1299 TS - 0 19 0.0 SLl pd
1299 FF 57 - 97 2.1 SLl pd
1299 TS - 0 19 0.0 SLl pd
but if I start with -rt "flags" field of ~/.pdextended I get the same realtime priority for all the pd threads!
PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
1263 TS - 0 19 23.3 RLl pd
1263 TS - 0 19 0.0 SLl pd
1263 FF 57 - 97 1.8 SLl pd
1263 TS - 0 19 0.0 SLl pd
(I even tried putting -rt in two different places in "flags")
However, if I start using -rt on the command line I get the following priorities, for which all of the pd threads have at least RTPRIO 6:
PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
1237 FF 6 - 46 30.9 SLl pd
1237 FF 6 - 46 0.0 SLl pd
1237 FF 57 - 97 1.1 SLl pd
1237 FF 6 - 46 0.0 SLl pd
and then I don't get dropouts anymore. So for me, it is essential to use this option.
For the time being, my workaround is simply to put this shell script in ~/bin to add -rt to the flags every time the user calls pd:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Shell script to make pd always start with -rt, no matter what
# the user types.
/usr/bin/pd -rt $*
Warm regards!
- Edgar