Topic: Suddenly, a drastic increase in WDM latency (Read 8484 times)

Paul W · « **on:** October 12, 2016, 01:41:55 pm »

Everything was working perfectly and then, from one session to the next, there was a drastic increase in latency with apps using the WDM driver. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the WDM driver and then upgraded to 22.0.31 with no change in results. All other sources still work fine.

Suggestions?

RD James · « **Reply #1 on:** October 12, 2016, 03:54:53 pm »

Every time I update JRiver it reinstalls the driver. This resets the WDM device to 2ch 16-bit 44.1kHz.
Since practically all video on the web is 48kHz, and my playback device runs at 48kHz, I get a lot of extra latency due to the resampling to/from 44.1kHz. As soon as I switch the driver back to 24-bit 48kHz all that latency disappears.
But I have to do this every single time they update the program.

terrym@tassie · « **Reply #2 on:** October 12, 2016, 04:46:43 pm »

Try this:

Exit JRiver MC, Use Windows Control Panel and uninstall the JRiver WDM driver from there.

Re-install MC22 by double clicking the MediaCenter220031.exe executable(located in C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 22\Install), follow the usual install/upgrade process.

Restart system.

Not guaranteed to fix your issue but it has worked for me in the past.

Terry

Quote from: RD James on October 12, 2016, 03:54:53 pm

Every time I update JRiver it reinstalls the driver. This resets the WDM device to 2ch 16-bit 44.1kHz.
Since practically all video on the web is 48kHz, and my playback device runs at 48kHz, I get a lot of extra latency due to the resampling to/from 44.1kHz. As soon as I switch the driver back to 24-bit 48kHz all that latency disappears.
But I have to do this every single time they update the program.

This is my biggest gripe about JRiver MC.......

Paul W · « **Reply #3 on:** October 12, 2016, 08:50:33 pm »

RD...you were right! I keep forgetting the little quirks!

Terry...thanks! I'll keep that in mind the next time I have problems with WDM.

mattkhan · « **Reply #4 on:** October 13, 2016, 02:33:26 am »

I forgot to reset the default device for the umpteenth time the other day (such a WAF fail every time). I googled a bit and came across https://github.com/DanStevens/AudioEndPointController which is a few lines of code that sets the default audio device.
Another similar app is http://www.microsoftnow.com/2013/05/creating-a-shortcut-to-change-the-default-audio-device-in-windows.html which uses nircmd

Why can't jriver do this as a post install step? It seems like a fairly trivial change in dev terms.

astromo · « **Reply #5 on:** October 13, 2016, 04:45:26 am »

I've got no drama with the WDM driver being updated and reinstalled with each build installation. What I don't understand is why the OS defaults are overridden without a check question to the user.

The users here make a fair point. What's the word from the devs?

Hendrik · « **Reply #6 on:** October 13, 2016, 05:07:37 am »

We just tell windows to update the driver, we do not change any of its settings (which are stored by Windows, not the driver), or change the default device.
In fact, Windows does not have any official APIs to change the default device at all, those tools you refer to use unofficial and undocumented calls into the OS, which I definitely do not feel confident about using.

In the future we will try to only update the driver when it actually changed, but it might be a few more builds before we can make that change.

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #7 on:** October 13, 2016, 09:27:17 am »

Looking forward to it! And please add a message/warning when it _is_ updated, maybe with a suggestion for the user to check audio device settings.

mattkhan · « **Reply #8 on:** October 13, 2016, 12:39:02 pm »

How often has it actually changed in the past? I am guessing not often at all.

RD James · « **Reply #9 on:** October 13, 2016, 01:44:21 pm »

Not reinstalling the driver unless there's actually a change will definitely make a big quality of life difference for the people using the WDM driver.

NVIDIA are doing something to set the HDMI output automatically when you connect a new device. Whatever they're doing to update the driver doesn't seem to be resetting any changes you make either.
So even if there's not an official API for it, if a company like NVIDIA are using these undocumented API calls, it doesn't seem unreasonable for JRiver to do the same.

I'd love if I could configure the WDM format options in JRiver and have them "stick".

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #10 on:** December 14, 2016, 12:16:16 pm »

But the wdm driver still disappears from the audio device list every time a new build is installed. Now today, after updating from 22.0.41 to .48. And then it has to be reconfigured again..

BTW thanks for the tip in this thread about latency increasing when resampling. I was under the false belief that 44.1->48 should make no significant latency increase.

Matt · « **Reply #11 on:** December 14, 2016, 12:17:40 pm »

Quote from: Trumpetguy on December 14, 2016, 12:16:16 pm

But the wdm driver still disappears from the audio device list every time a new build is installed. Now today, after updating from 22.0.41 to .48. And then it has to be reconfigured again..

This should stop with the latest builds. We now version the driver and only install it if the version changes.

22.0.36 (10/21/2016)

Changed: The WDM driver is versioned so that it's only reinstalled when something meaningful changes (instead of always).

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #12 on:** December 14, 2016, 12:20:34 pm »

Ok, but as stated above, updating from .41 to .48 did remove the driver. Was it reinstalled in this update?

EDIT: The driver was removed from my htpc, win10 pro. On my office pc, the driver was not removed when doing the same update this morning, win7 enterprise. On the win10 pc, I am not logged in as admin and get an UAC prompt for the admin user. On the win7 pc, I am logged in with admin rights, and uses my own credentials in the UAC.

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #13 on:** February 23, 2017, 01:04:11 pm »

Quote from: Matt on December 14, 2016, 12:17:40 pm

This should stop with the latest builds. We now version the driver and only install it if the version changes.

22.0.36 (10/21/2016)

Changed: The WDM driver is versioned so that it's only reinstalled when something meaningful changes (instead of always).

Bringing this old thread up again. The WDM driver still disappears from audio devices every time a new build is installed (now on 22.0.75). But it only happens on one of my four computers, and only one the one running with non-admin user. The phenomenon also started occurring at the same time as I changed my htpc user from admin to non-admin some time in 2016.

As an example of the opposite, this does not happen on my company office desktop computer (where I have admin rights).

Could you please look into this again? Thanks.

CountryBumkin · « **Reply #14 on:** February 23, 2017, 02:03:33 pm »

I don't know if this matters/helps - but a while back it was said to run the JRiver installation .exe with "administrator rights".

So now every time I update I always right click on the file and select "Run as administrator".

I haven't had any weird installation problems since. But that may just be a coincidence.

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #15 on:** February 23, 2017, 02:33:21 pm »

I was thinking along the same lines. I now tried the trick described by terrym@nz further up (uninstall WDM audio device in control panel), and had to do that through the admin account login. Then, after the reinstalling MC22 step, I got UAC prompted when disabling/enabling WDM in the standard user account.
I this does not help, I'll reinstall MC as admin. Even if I don't see why that should be different from entering admin credentials in the UAC prompt.

Paul W · « **Reply #16 on:** April 03, 2017, 04:26:56 pm »

Cruised through several updates over several months and haven't had any problems with latency. Immediately after an update to 22.0.88, the problem with increased latency came back.

Have tried reinstalling the WDM driver, reset sound devices, etc, but nothing I've tried fixes it. Ideas?

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #17 on:** April 04, 2017, 06:50:01 am »

Quote from: Paul W on April 03, 2017, 04:26:56 pm

Cruised through several updates over several months and haven't had any problems with latency. Immediately after an update to 22.0.88, the problem with increased latency came back.

Have tried reinstalling the WDM driver, reset sound devices, etc, but nothing I've tried fixes it. Ideas?

Check if audio is resampled, this increases latency in my system, especially if SOX is used. Many streaming sources are 48/24, so you can set the WDM driver to default to that.

Hendrik · « **Reply #18 on:** April 04, 2017, 06:51:47 am »

Quote from: Trumpetguy on April 04, 2017, 06:50:01 am

especially if SOX is used.

Actually, SoX has a far lower latency then the alternative resampler we use normally.

Trumpetguy · « **Reply #19 on:** April 04, 2017, 07:01:26 am »

It does? Well, I may be confusing it with CPU usage.

Anyway, WDM driver is (or at least was) often reset to 44.1/16 on build update, and resampling from 44->48kHz introduces uneccesary latency. Especially when source most often is 48.

Paul W · « **Reply #20 on:** April 04, 2017, 04:41:22 pm »

Yes, the 44.1/48k reset is the quirk that got me the first time this happened. Unfortunately, not so easy this time around.

Really puzzled as it worked fine until v088. Now, downgrading to previous versions or updating to the current Beta version doesn't help either so, at this point, I'm stuck.

daveman · « **Reply #21 on:** April 05, 2017, 10:36:27 pm »

I was having problems where my computer would almost pause for 5 seconds. Also, my WDTV units kept on crashing. I decided to uninstall and reinstaal MC and voila, everything works perfectly now.

The only issue is that all of my settings were removed and I had to reset all my views and other settings.

thanks for the suggestion regarding the lag issue

dave

Paul W · « **Reply #22 on:** April 22, 2017, 02:12:46 pm »

Gave up on reliability of the WDM driver and went to a ROKU/splitter/capture card solution for NF etc.

This link may be of use to some...I didn't see it until after switching to the HW solution:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/drivers/audio/low-latency-audio?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396&ranMID=24542&ranEAID=TnL5HPStwNw&ranSiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-Zub4gOHaj31ZUHqJvCNmmQ&tduid=(33894c218f9e3fcf1c6fb8daf53e1bdd)(256380)(2459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-Zub4gOHaj31ZUHqJvCNmmQ)()

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Author Topic: Suddenly, a drastic increase in WDM latency (Read 8484 times)