[qppo]

Why do you need kernel extensions for realtime audio on Mac? If anything, CoreAudio is a dream to work with compared to the shitshow of APIs on Linux and Windows.

Not to mention there are plenty of cross platform libraries for real time audio where you would never need to care about the difference.

[klik99]

Anything that needs to create input/output devices for routing into other apps “in the box” requires kernel extensions. I’ve heard some hack together more real time guarantees for performance purposes (mac os has a habit of regressing on audio stream stability) but most people who need that guarantee will build on an open source os anyway.

CoreAudio is great, but since everyone just uses cross platform libraries will rarely be utilized to its fullest.

[nikanj]

Big Sur doesn't even support kernel extensions, so this sounds unlikely.

[klik99]

Quick google shows that subset of kexts still allowed. I updated to Big Sur last week and installed kernel extensions for exactly this reason.

[user-the-name]

You might be confusing this with the fact that Big Sur, on Apple Silicon, does not support x86 kernel extensions. It still supports them elsewhere, and it supports arm64 kernel extensions on Apple Silicon.