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[ppataki]

I have been using the WDM driver for a long time and I love it - for me that is one of the most valuable features in JRiver

I have recently noticed that if I play 192kHz content (from Tidal) the audio starts stuttering immensely (totally unlistenable)
There is no issue with content up to 96kHz though

Does anybody else have the same problem?
I hope this can be solved
Thank you

[JimH]

Make sure Windows Defender is configured.  Don't use anything else for antivirus.

WDM should work.

Anything else unusual about your setup?

[mattkhan]

Look at the buffers used for the output device, look at CPU load in MC

I don't think it's that unusual for live input in MC to have audio glitches, it is quite sensitive to load

[ppataki]

I am using Windows Defender only, no other AV software

CPU load when playing 96kHZ content is 6%, when playing 192kHz content it is 8% so that shall definitely not be an issue
No matter what value I set for the buffering the stuttering is all the same

Not sure what counts as unusual I have Dirac Live and Metaplugin VST3 plugins + using a bunch of JRiver's built-in DSP capabilities

[ppataki]

Forgot to add that I have the very same issue with my home office system too
There I use a laptop but again the CPU load is not an issue either

[JimH]

It could also be limited by bandwidth. 

[Manfred]

Do you use WiFi from the Router to your Laptop/PC?
- Then may be as JimH noticed bandwidth could be an issue.

Do you use WiFi to stream from your Laptop/PC to a streamer?
- Many Streamers using WiFi for playback are limited to 96kHz PCM, e.g. my Devialet.

[mattkhan]

isn't this tidal on the same pc playing through WDM to MC and then straight out to an output device connected to the same PC?


what happens if you disable the VST and/or jriver DSP? does it still stutter?

[ppataki]

My PC is the only source and I use wifi, see my Speedtest attached; I doubt that it is a bandwidth related issue

isn't this tidal on the same pc playing through WDM to MC and then straight out to an output device connected to the same PC?
Yes it is

If I disable all the JRiver and all the VST plugins the issue is still there

[JimH]

The speed test tests your speed from some Internet server but not from Tidal.

Other processing may slow it down a lot.

Try testing without MC.

Test without Wi-fi.

[mattkhan]

I can't see what wifi has to do with this, I would think this is driven by something in the WDM driver which doesn't, as far as I know, expose any controls for configuring buffers etc

as I said before, it is v sensitive to what you put into it and which devices it interacts with

@ppataki a test you might want to try is using https://vb-audio.com/Matrix/ as an alternative mechanism to get audio into MC (i.e. route tidal through here to a virtual asio device and then use that virtual asio device as an asio line in input), this would be one way to narrow down the problem to the wdm driver

another alternative, grab HLC (https://accuratesound.ca/hang-loose-convolver-hlc/) and use the free trial with the same DSP pipeline configured in it and see if that is reliable or not

what's the output device and how is it configured?

[Awesome Donkey]

Hasn't this issue with stuttering and the WDM driver been reported by some users since day one? I seem to recall this type of thing was reported multiple times over the years when trying to use high sample rate (e.g. 192 kHz) content like Tidal with the WDM driver and one of the potential workarounds to stutter issues was to mess with buffer settings. What's the specs of the PC you're using? Maybe it's running into a resource issue?

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=116637.0
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=127251.0

[ppataki]

I have exactly the same issue that the others have reported in those earlier threads
In this case I guess the proper solution shall be to fix the WDM driver so that it works fine with higher sample rates too

I have a PC with an Intel Core i5-13400 and 32GB of RAM - it shall not be a resource issue for sure

[mattkhan]

another test, eliminate tidal from the equation and play a 192kHz file via some other playback software and see if it still glitches. If it does, you can rule tidal out of the equation.

fwiw I ran a quick test by playing https://www.audiocheck.net/download.php?filename=Audio/audiocheck.net_pink_192k_-3dBFS.wav via MPC-HC through WDM and out to my usual output device (https://en.antelopeaudio.com/products/orion-studio-synergy-core/ connected via TB) without any glitches, audio path attached to illustrate

I don't use tidal so can't easily test that but you can see that there's no  generic issue with higher sample rates (otherwise it would fail for me)

[JimH]

In this case I guess the proper solution shall be to fix the WDM driver so that it works fine with higher sample rates too

I can guarantee you that the problem is not the WDM driver.  It has worked well for a long time.

[ppataki]

I have tried MPC-HC and that worked fine. The 192kHz file was playing fine locally.

I was wondering if there was an option to be able to change the buffer size for the WDM driver, would that help?

[rogueblue]

I've tried various browsers and MC always stutters using browsers especially. I assume processor is taking away from MC. I tried increasing MC priority to high but doesnt seem to solve the issue.
Anything I can do to prevent stuttering?

[Awesome Donkey]

Web browsers in MC are an external component (e.g. Edge via WebView2 which is the current default on Windows). Perhaps something like an antivirus app or some other app is doing something to cause issues with it?

[Awesome Donkey]

Maybe something (Tidal app itself, perhaps?) is causing a spike in DPC latency which is only apparent when accessing Tidal Max (192 kHz) content through the WDM driver? LatencyMon might be helpful in that case.

It's been years since I've seen this issue mentioned since Hendrik made changes to the WDM driver that seemingly addressed this issue. Anyone else who uses Tidal with the WDM driver experiencing anything like this?

[rogueblue]

It happens specifically when I launch web browsers and open tabs

[mattkhan]

WDM device is configured for exclusive mode?

Did you try the test with a virtual asio device and asio line in?

[ppataki]

The WDM device has exclusive mode turned on (see attachment)
And Tidal is also using Exclusive mode (see attachment)

Unfortunately I could not try VB-Audio, to be honest it is a bit above my head how to configure it properly

Regarding LatencyMon, see the attachment for both 44.1Khz and 192kHz playback
DPC is indeed way higher with 192kHz and the count of hard pagefault is sky-rocketing

[Awesome Donkey]

Try setting the WDM driver in Windows to 192000 Hz from 48000 Hz and see if that changes anything.

[ppataki]

Try setting the WDM driver in Windows to 192000 Hz from 48000 Hz and see if that changes anything.

Unfortunately not, it is the same

[whoareyou]

What processor, sample rates, number of channels, and are you using any dsp?

[Awesome Donkey]

Oh, you mean it happens when using an actual web browser, not when using the embedded browser in MC itself. I've seen this happen on Windows on a lower performing system when Windows Defender's memory integrity feature was enabled. This uses virtualization technology which can interfere with audio playback in MC and cause stutter issues on lower powered systems for example. You can try increasing the buffer for the audio output used and see if that makes a difference, but the case I experienced years ago I ended up having to disable memory integrity in Windows Defender's settings in order to resolve it.

If memory integrity isn't enabled, then it kinda sounds like spikes in DPC latency. In that case try using an app like LatencyMon and see if DPC latency spikes are happening. Like whoareyou mentioned it's probably a good idea to list system specs.

[rogueblue]

What processor, sample rates, number of channels, and are you using any dsp?

i7 Processor, mostly Flac 16-44 or MP3 320kbps, 2 channel, DSP only Volume leveling enabled.

Device name   DESKTOP-1TJAT9I
Processor   12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K   3.60 GHz
Installed RAM   64.0 GB (63.8 GB usable)
System type   64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

[rogueblue]

Oh, you mean it happens when using an actual web browser, not when using the embedded browser in MC itself. I've seen this happen on Windows on a lower performing system when Windows Defender's memory integrity feature was enabled. This uses virtualization technology which can interfere with audio playback in MC and cause stutter issues on lower powered systems for example. You can try increasing the buffer for the audio output used and see if that makes a difference, but the case I experienced years ago I ended up having to disable memory integrity in Windows Defender's settings in order to resolve it.

If memory integrity isn't enabled, then it kinda sounds like spikes in DPC latency. In that case try using an app like LatencyMon and see if DPC latency spikes are happening. Like whoareyou mentioned it's probably a good idea to list system specs.

It's i7 so not low end ... regarding latency, honestly I'm not that techie and wouldn't know what to look for or do about it in LatencyMon

Processor   12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K   3.60 GHz
Installed RAM   64.0 GB (63.8 GB usable)
GPU: 3060ti
System type   64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

[Awesome Donkey]

LatencyMon will tell you if DPC latency spikes are happening and what a basic culprit of it may be. Something's definitely happening on your system though, as it shouldn't happen with a system with that much RAM and a newer CPU like that. It's hard to say what exactly is causing it, I would put my money on a driver or something causing DPC latency spikes or memory integrity being enabled and causing issues but I could be wrong with those guesses.

[rogueblue]

LatencyMon will tell you if DPC latency spikes are happening and what a basic culprit of it may be. Something's definitely happening on your system though, as it shouldn't happen with a system with that much RAM and a newer CPU like that. It's hard to say what exactly is causing it, I would put my money on a driver or something causing DPC latency spikes or memory integrity being enabled and causing issues but I could be wrong with those guesses.

Thanks for your help ... I installed LatencyMon ... initially it said for me to check contol panel for CPU throttling cause of a audio issue. I had it on "balanced", so I changed it to high performance and it definitely improved, however still a slight issue but definitely less than before. It mentioned something about bios but not sure if I want to mess with that ... would bios setting on any CPU throttling be any different that that in Control panel Power settings?

Strangely I got this screenshot after making power "high performance"

[JimH]

Antivirus?

Or something else running in the background.

[JimH]

It won't work to have exclusive mode set in two applications.  Exclusive mode means that the app has control of the audio.

[ppataki]

Exclusive mode is enabled in Tidal, there is no second app

[Matt]

You could try increasing the buffering MC is using in Options > Audio > Device settings...

[ppataki]

I have tried adjusting it here (attached), it actually gets worse

[ppataki]

I guess we would need an option to change the buffer size of the WDM device itself

[AGAWA]

am i right thinking that USBStreamer is an interface between PC and some DAC? If so, perhaps it will be worth trying to remove this unit and see if problem disappears. Not long ago there was similar problem  and interface unit was returned to manufacturer.

[ppataki]

I have mentioned in one of the above posts that I have another system as well where I have exactly the same issue - and it has no USBStreamer (which is actually a miniDSP UDIO-8)

[Awesome Donkey]

It's probably going to be hard to diagnose a cause for this one (unless others can reproduce it), because according to LatencyMon Windows' DirectX kernel module is causing DPC latency spikes (which may be hard in itself to hunt down a cause). I don't think the cause is the WDM driver itself because it's been years since anyone reported that (and Hendrik made fixes to it that seemingly made the issues go away). DPC latency spikes can cause stuttering issues with audio, not just when using the WDM driver and that would be my guess to what's happening here. But what is exactly causing these DPC latency spikes? Have you tried updating all your system drivers, especially audio drivers?

[Awesome Donkey]

Okay, I just tried it out for myself (as I don't use the WDM driver feature normally) and can reproduce the stuttering at Max (192 kHz) on Tidal when playing back music. I used George Harrison's 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe edition of his album All Things Must Pass as the test and indeed it does stutter when Tidal is set to use Exclusive Mode for the audio output. On my machine at least with LatencyMon open there's no spikes in DPC latency when this occurs so all green/good there. If you disable Exclusive Mode in Tidal it plays back at 48 kHz which apparently you need Exclusive Mode enabled in Tidal to playback at higher sample rates like 192 kHz so that's a no good.

Changing buffer indeed doesn't help, and in most cases does indeed seem to make it worse.

[ppataki]

Okay, I just tried it out for myself (as I don't use the WDM driver feature normally) and can reproduce the stuttering at Max (192 kHz) on Tidal when playing back music. I used George Harrison's 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe edition of his album All Things Must Pass as the test and indeed it does stutter when Tidal is set to use Exclusive Mode for the audio output. On my machine at least with LatencyMon open there's no spikes in DPC latency when this occurs so all green/good there. If you disable Exclusive Mode in Tidal it plays back at 48 kHz which apparently you need Exclusive Mode enabled in Tidal to playback at higher sample rates like 192 kHz so that's a no good.

Changing buffer indeed doesn't help, and in most cases does indeed seem to make it worse.

I really appreciate this, thank you!
Now at least we know that I am not alone with this

Actually in the meantime I did another test: if I don't use the WDM driver but just play 192kHz content in Tidal directly to my UDIO-8 it plays fine, absolutely no glitches

So I guess this ultimately means that something must be wrong with the WDM driver indeed

[mattkhan]

I tried this out and can confirm same behaviour, 192kHz is v bad as there are constant micro dropouts so it's a bit different (or just loads loads worse) to usual buffer related problems

no dpc latency issue here at the time btw, system is completely healthy so it's either a WDM issue or a tidal desktop app issue

[mattkhan]

to rule out tidal, I tried qobuz which also offers 192kHz via a desktop app to wasapi exclusive and which gives you more control over buffers at their end

made no difference, 192kHz is a total fail

I think this concludes that it must be a WDM issue

[ppataki]

Thank you for checking from your end too, really appreciated!

I hope this issue will be taken up by the dev team and fixed in due course

[Hendrik]

The WDM driver has a bit of a hidden feature to change its buffer size, maybe try this and see if it helps you at all.

Save the attached file as a .reg file (eg. WDMBufferSize.reg) and run it. The MC27 reference in it is intentional, keep that as is. You can change the value for the frame size, its in hexadecimal, 64 would be 100ms (the default is 10), the maximum is 1000 (000003E8 in hex)

[mattkhan]

first impressions

250ms is a lot better for tidal but not perfect (the odd glitch here and there)
qobuz is totally unreliable with any value

fwiw, after changing this, I went to change the live playback latency and MC hung (reports as apphang). No idea if related.

btw, when does it take effect? it doesn't seem that restarting playback is sufficient nor restarting the source app (nor even restarting MC individually) but it's hard to tell (e.g. I changed it back to 10ms to check it failed again, restarted various things but it still seems reliable)

I had no such reg key btw so presume there is some internal default used in that case?

[Awesome Donkey]

You can also open a Windows Terminal, Command Prompt or PowerShell window as an administrator and copy/paste the following line in...

Edit: Removed because it doesn't work like that

Using this you don't need to convert normal (decimal) values to hexadecimal so you can use 10, 50, 100, 200, 1000, etc. instead of 100 in the example (and it'll set the correct hex value for the registry key automatically).

[Hendrik]

You can also open a Windows Terminal, Command Prompt or PowerShell window as an administrator and copy/paste the following line in...

Code: [Select]

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JRiver\Media Center 27\WDM" /v FrameSizeMS /d 100 /t REG_DWORD /f
Using this you don't need to convert normal (decimal) values to hexadecimal so you can use 10, 50, 100, 200, 1000, etc. instead of 100 in the example (and it'll set the correct hex value for the registry key automatically).

Don't post it on the forum, the replacement rules ruin the path. Its supposed to be J<dot><space>River, not JRiver

[Awesome Donkey]

Oh, you're right, oof.

[kr4]

to rule out tidal, I tried qobuz which also offers 192kHz via a desktop app to wasapi exclusive and which gives you more control over buffers at their end

made no difference, 192kHz is a total fail

I think this concludes that it must be a WDM issue

I tried this with Qobuz and it works just fine with WASAPI (no stuttering) but not with WASAPI Exclusive.