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[Phydeaux]

Please take the time to download and listen to this example file to hear what I'm talking about.

I have made a recording (using Windows Sound Recorder) - it sounds exactly accurate and Sound Recorder is not adding any distortion in the recording process. This is an mp3 file (64kbps mono, 467KB) of a minute in length.

I started playing the original track in MJ with no other applications running. At the 20s mark, I launched a low priority disk defrag. I stopped it at 50s. You can hear the difference!!!

These same stutters are heard when screensavers kick in, when launching other applications, updating tags etc.

I have installed the latest drivers from Creative Labs for my SB Live! Value (17Sep2002) to no avail.

I have tried using DirectSound and WaveOut, both with different combinations of bit-depths, including the source depth, and nothing seems to improve the situation. Skip resistance also has no effects.  

I have put a list of MP3's into Windows Media Player and ran the diskdefrag on high priority and experienced no stuttering. To confirm, I also used Winamp3 and have had no playback problems with that either...  :-/

The file is located at [link]http://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~pogilvie/mj/stutter.mp3[/link].

Thank you in advance!  

[Matt]

We actually had one of our Win98 test machines do exactly the same thing.  At first, we thought it was only in Media Jukebox.  However, after playing around enough, it started to happen in other players too.  We never did figure out what was happening, but weird behaviour like that can really only come from driver / hardware interactions. (I think)

Does it always happen, or just sometimes?  Are you playing the exact same file (from the same drive) in WMP?  Have you tried it a few times?

Has anybody else seen anything like this?

Sorry we're not more help Pydeaux.  Please let us know if you figure anything out...

[Phydeaux]

Now that's quick support!!

Thanks for listening to the file.

It happens whenever something is using the processor. Generally, anything that kicks the processor usage above 20% will cause a slur...

When I play in WMP or Winamp3, they're exactly the same files, exactly the same HD -- everything... It's fun playing them at the same time (MJ & WMP). MJ finishes about 30 - 50 seconds after WMP!!

I am going to reinstall WinXP sometime in the next few days (as soon as I can find something to back up stuff on...) so once the new install is up and running, I'll let you know if the problem is still there.

The only thing that I can think of is that there might be a priority switch for your playback engine which is sitting at "idle" or similar instead of normal..... That's a stab in the dark for you. That's what it sounds like. I remember ages ago with Winamp2 I fiddled around with the priority switches for the decoder and heard something similar (I think... which is why I suggest it....)... Oh well. Probably not!!!



Thanks again for trying to help!!

P.

[Matt]

Well, I just checked the thread priorities, and they all look good.

The main playback thread runs at "time critical" -- maybe that somehow fights with one of the threads in the driver.

If the problem persists, I'll make a special playback engine for you to download and test with.

Just let us know...

[Phydeaux]

Matt,

I'm speaking out of turn here because I don't know a hell of a lot about thread priorities etc. and even less about programming them...

As I recall with Winamp, if you set the priority too high, it cause skipping problems because it "couldn't keep up with itself". I know that sounds rubbish, which is why I hesitate to mention it in a semi-serious forum!!!

Is it possible to lower the thread priority to "highest" or even "high"?

It doesn't make logical sense -- I will be the first to admit that!! But Winamp definitely did not recommend that their decoder (I think that's what it was) be set at "time critical"...

Hmm... Along those lines, though: I have tried raising MJ's priority in the Windows System Manager window (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and that doesn't help either...

Hmm... I wonder... Oh well... Thanks again for the prompt response!!

[NoCodeUK]

I have had this exact same problem.  I too am using Windows XP and have an SB Live card.  I never had this with version 8 it is only since installing version 9.  Like Phydeaux said anything that takes CPU time causes MJ to stutter.  For me it was running a powerpoint presentation with MJ playing in the background...

Adam

[Matt]

Stuttering and slowing down are different, I think.

If it stutters, adjust the "skip resistance" in Playback -> Options -> Advanced.  It'll normally do the trick.  If it doesn't, we'll dig some more.

[NoCodeUK]

I think I tried that. I am not at my home PC at the moment but will try later and let you know the results...

Adam

[Phydeaux]

When I say "stutter" what I mean is what you hear in the file... ? Does that clear it up? What word should I be using instead?!



Cheers all.

[JimH]

Please try a google search for driver problems with creative sound cards.   It's likely that the problem is at the driver level.

[NoCodeUK]

Any more clues Jim??? I have the latest drivers as far as I know and the only thing I could come up with was that it may be dwon to the IRQ configuration which is unchangeable in Win XP... What should I sarch for on Google? I looked for Creative Driver problems and didn't find anything particularly useful

Adam

[JimH]

Please keep looking.  You can also try a search here to find some other starting points.  Here's an example of what you will find:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1032533590;start=4

[Phydeaux]

Don't know if it's fluke or not, but playback seems a lot better on this build (beta 3), although updating tags etc. still cause "glitches" in the sound.

Here is an example of what the glitches sound like: [link]http://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~pogilvie/mj/GLITCHES.MP3[/link].

This is a low bitrate compression of it, but don't let the sound quality get in the way of your judgement!

This example was recorded while updating the tags on 400 or so mp3 files. I also ran a few disk defrags and got the same sort of (improved) responses.

However, I hope you'll agree, it's far from OK!

P.

[Phydeaux]

Hi JimH,

I don't think it is a problem with drivers. As mentioned initially, every other audio playback program that I've tried (from SoundRecorder, WMP to Winamp2 & 3) all play perfectly under some pretty trying conditions. MJ 8 did too. However, since installing 9, these problems have been happening.

I only updated my drivers after hearing the problems with MJ 9. Still, everything else plays perfectly.

If you have any other ideas, I'd be happy to hear them and try them. MJ is too good a product for me to abandon you just yet!!

P.

[NoCodeUK]

I am checking out a new freeware driver for creative cards which implements ASIO and is supposed to improve latency issues with these cards...I will post my results

Adam