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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: DocLotus on November 09, 2002, 11:22:32 am

Title: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: DocLotus on November 09, 2002, 11:22:32 am
Not sure how long this has been going on but when playing MJ 9... Every time I bring up a web site MJ stops playing, it produces a digital noise over & over again until the web site is loaded.

Seems like MJ needs a memory buffer so playing can continue while other processes are taking up the CPU's time.

Any ideas?
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: JimH on November 09, 2002, 01:08:50 pm
That's probably coming from the OS or driver level.  Reinstalling the sound card driver might fix it.

Is it an ethernet connection to a gateway?  Or a dialup connection.
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: DocLotus on November 09, 2002, 03:22:16 pm
Hi Jim;

56 K dial up.  Have updated all my Audigy drivers.
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: RemyJ on November 09, 2002, 04:16:52 pm
Does MJ actually stop playing the file or is the sound just interrupted?

You might want to try changing MJ from direct sound to wave out or vice versa.  If wave out, try changing the device from wave mapper to the sound card directly or vice versa.    Also try setting your sounds scheme to "no sounds".

Did you have any of the other Audigy problems (skips or the squeal of death)?

Oh yeah, Is your serial port or internal modem sharing the same IRQ as the Audigy?
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: DocLotus on November 09, 2002, 06:17:05 pm
Hi Remy;

Thanks for your great help.

* MJ does not actually stop playing, it seems to produce a digital "studder" over & over again until the web site loads.

* The audigy & modem have different IRQ's.

* No other Audigy problems (skips or the squeal of death).  It only did that until I installed the Win XP drivers which corrected it.

* Changed MJ from Direct Sound to Wave Out & also changed Device to Audigy.  This seems to fix the problem.

I have always been confused about the use of Direct, Wave, & ASIO outputs.  do you know what the difference is and when each should be used?

Also what is the defference between Wave Mapper & Audigy Device?

Thanks again for you help.
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: RemyJ on November 09, 2002, 07:00:48 pm
I'm not sure of the exact differences but...

ASIO should be the most direct route to the sound card and was designed specifically for music recording and editing where latency is critical.

Direct Sound (Microsoft's DirectX) was designed to provide advanced graphics, animation and sound.  Usually, this is the most reliable way to get sound.

Wave out is the standard Windows sound mechanism which has a lot of overhead.  Bypassing the wave mapper short circuits some of that overhead by directing the data stream directly to a specific sound.

Creative's support of ASIO is pretty spotty but I'm surprised that changing to wave out FROM direct sound fixed the problem.  From a command prompt, run "dxdiag" and run the sound tests.  It sounds like either the DirectX drivers or even the Creative drivers might need to be reinstalled.   Creative is second only to Microsoft in the "reinstall fixes the problem" category.

Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: DocLotus on November 10, 2002, 03:15:05 am
Hi Remy;

Thanks for the ffedback.

Should there be any sound quality differences between the various methods? ?

Over the years (this is my 3rd SoundBlaster) I've had good luck with the Creative drivers; seldom had to re-install but I'm going to look at it anyway.
Title: Re: Can't Surf the Web & Play MJ at Same Time
Post by: RemyJ on November 10, 2002, 09:21:24 am
Some pepole claim they can hear a big difference in quality.   Me?  I spent the 60's and 70's listening to The Who with headphones.  I'm lucky I can hear the phone ring.

I've had lots of Creative products in the past as well, but for some reason the Audigy has been problematic and reinstalling the same drivers has fixed things for me twice now.