Real-Time Scheduling
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## Real-Time Scheduling

On Linux, MPD attempts to configure real-time scheduling for some threads that benefit from it.

This is only possible you allow MPD to do it. This privilege is controlled by `RLIMIT_RTPRIO` `RLIMIT_RTTIME`. You can configure this privilege with ulimit before launching MPD:

    ulimit -HS -r 50; mpd

Or you can use the prlimit program from the util-linux package:

    prlimit --rtprio=50 --rttime=unlimited mpd

The systemd service file shipped with MPD comes with this setting.

This works only if the Linux kernel was compiled with `CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED` disabled. Use the following command to check this option for your current kernel:

    zgrep ^CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED /proc/config.gz

### Note

There is a rumor that real-time scheduling improves audio quality. That is not true. All it does is reduce the probability of skipping (audio buffer xruns) when the computer is under heavy load.

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