Can someone teach me how to read these results?

[K.I.L.E.R]

Tested with latest nVidia beta 6.11 drivers and latest Realtek drivers which came out yesterday or the day before.

Audio transfer speed (hardware). I assume higher is better?

What's the difference between having more hardware buffers?

Realtek's drivers consume 6% CPU time consistantly and nVidia's 8% consistantly. There are very minature dips and rises less than 0.01% CPU time on the graph.
So my CPU usage is nearly a mathematical exact 6%/8% respectively meaning there are virtually no performance fluctuations.

If one has less audio transfer speed but more hardware buffers does it make it better?

nVidia:

Device: NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio (nvapu.sys)

Features:
DirectSound 3D Hardware: Yes
DirectSound 2D Hardware: Yes
EAX 1: Available 
EAX 2: Available 
EAX3: N/A
EAX4 Advanced HD: N/A


Rates:
  dwMinSecondarySampleRate 200 
  dwMaxSecondarySampleRate 100000 


Free buffers stats:
  dwFreeHw3DAllBuffers 48 
  dwFreeHw3DStaticBuffers 48 
  dwFreeHw3DStreamingBuffers 48 
  dwFreeHwMixingAllBuffers 49 
  dwFreeHwMixingStaticBuffers 49 
  dwFreeHwMixingStreamingBuffers 49 


Max buffers stats:
  dwMaxHwMixingAllBuffers 52 
  dwMaxHwMixingStaticBuffers 52 
  dwMaxHwMixingStreamingBuffers 52 
  dwMaxHw3DAllBuffers 48 
  dwMaxHw3DStaticBuffers 48 
  dwMaxHw3DStreamingBuffers 48 


Misc stats:
  dwFreeHwMemBytes 0 
  dwTotalHwMemBytes 0 
  dwMaxContigFreeHwMemBytes 0 
  dwUnlockTransferRateHwBuffers 0 
  dwPlayCpuOverheadSwBuffers 0 


Audio transfer speed (hardware): 5.682 Mb/sec.

Realtek:

Device: Realtek AC97 Audio (ALCXWDM.SYS)

Features:
DirectSound 3D Hardware: Yes
DirectSound 2D Hardware: Yes
EAX 1: Available 
EAX 2: Available 
EAX3: N/A
EAX4 Advanced HD: N/A


Rates:
  dwMinSecondarySampleRate 100 
  dwMaxSecondarySampleRate 192000 


Free buffers stats:
  dwFreeHw3DAllBuffers 32 
  dwFreeHw3DStaticBuffers 32 
  dwFreeHw3DStreamingBuffers 32 
  dwFreeHwMixingAllBuffers 32 
  dwFreeHwMixingStaticBuffers 32 
  dwFreeHwMixingStreamingBuffers 32 


Max buffers stats:
  dwMaxHwMixingAllBuffers 33 
  dwMaxHwMixingStaticBuffers 33 
  dwMaxHwMixingStreamingBuffers 33 
  dwMaxHw3DAllBuffers 33 
  dwMaxHw3DStaticBuffers 33 
  dwMaxHw3DStreamingBuffers 33 


Misc stats:
  dwFreeHwMemBytes 0 
  dwTotalHwMemBytes 0 
  dwMaxContigFreeHwMemBytes 0 
  dwUnlockTransferRateHwBuffers 0 
  dwPlayCpuOverheadSwBuffers 0 


Audio transfer speed (hardware): 10.000 Mb/sec.

 

[pcchen]

If you have 10 hardware mixing buffers, that means the hardware mixing is limited to 10 sound streams. i.e. if you have more than 10 monsters each make their own noises, you'll have to do some mixing in software.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

If you have 10 hardware mixing buffers, that means the hardware mixing is limited to 10 sound streams. i.e. if you have more than 10 monsters each make their own noises, you'll have to do some mixing in software.

I thought there are 32/48? I don't get how you came up with 10 buffers.