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[RD James]

I didn't realize my old post on this was in the MC25 forum, so I'm posting it again here.
When Media Center is playing music, it can cause stuttering in other programs/games.
 
It seems to be a fairly consistent stutter that occurs every second or so.
It does not matter which playback device is being used, or the output method (WASAPI or DirectSound). Even MC's Null Output device causes this.
My suspicion is that it's something to do with the way that MC updates its UI, as it happens roughly every second, and there have been weird bugs with that in the past where MC could cause windows of other applications to flicker.
 
Here is a video example showing these stutters on a frame-time graph while a game is running at 90 FPS in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkkrerKfi8
Note that it only happens with MC, and not any other media player - and also occurs while resizing MC's window.
 
A consistent and easily-reproducible test I have found recently is to load up a fresh profile in Firefox 76 (current version) and visit this web page: https://www.testufo.com/framerates-text#pps=240&count=1
As soon as playback starts in Media Center it is no longer able to sync, and the page stutters quite obviously every second or so.

[Hendrik]

Can you try turning off the spectrum analyzer in the main bar?

That website test seems flaky at best. No matter what kind of audio player I use, it causes it to stutter. foobar2000, or MPC-HC, all cause various degrees of stuttering.

[RD James]

Can you try turning off the spectrum analyzer in the main bar?

I've tried turning everything off and minimizing the window, and it still happens.
Even running Media Server, closing Media Center, and starting playback via JRemote causes the stuttering to occur.

That website test seems flaky at best. No matter what kind of audio player I use, it causes it to stutter. foobar2000, or MPC-HC, all cause various degrees of stuttering.

Even on a clean profile in Firefox? (legacy config options/add-ons may not have Firefox working as it should).
That's no good then. I thought I had found a test which was easy to reproduce anywhere without requiring setups like installing large games/demos and configuring tools to get a frame-time graph like the video linked above.
 
I only get the loss of sync with Media Center here.

[Hendrik]

Even on a clean profile in Firefox? (legacy config options/add-ons may not have Firefox working as it should).

I don't usually use firefox, so i just did a clean install, and as soon as I open eg. foobar2000 and start FLAC playback, the frame rate drops from stable 144 to as low as 126 (with an average at 134 or so).
(For the record, Chrome behaves the exact same way)

With Media Center, for comparison, with the spectrum analyzer turned off, I sometimes get a yellow stutter warning, with dips maybe to 140 at most, but often going back to green.
With the spectrum analyzer on, I get similar behavior to foobar - a tad bit better still even.

In neither case do I observe a stutter every second, it just gets overall a bit less smooth.

[RD James]

I don't usually use firefox, so i just did a clean install, and as soon as I open eg. foobar2000 and start FLAC playback, the frame rate drops from stable 144 to as low as 126 (with an average at 134 or so).
(For the record, Chrome behaves the exact same way)

With Media Center, for comparison, with the spectrum analyzer turned off, I sometimes get a yellow stutter warning, with dips maybe to 140 at most, but often going back to green.
With the spectrum analyzer on, I get similar behavior to foobar - a tad bit better still even.

In neither case do I observe a stutter every second, it just gets overall a bit less smooth.

Ah, try setting the refresh rate lower. I've found that Firefox doesn't handle high refresh rates well and may not even sync properly without anything playing. 100Hz is fine here, but I'd start with 60.

[Hendrik]

At 60 fps its green in any and all scenarios here.

[Hendrik]

Actually even though the website doesnt report any error, I can see an occasional hitch during playback. Might have a lead on whats causing it, discussing it internally.

[jkauff]

I've had stuttering issues dating back a month or so. I spent days trying to eliminate or reduce other activity while my players are active (same list as Hendrik).

I finally found the culprit. Malwarebytes 4.0 has a real-time protection feature that watches for various forms of potentially malicious activity. Turning it off (and the notifications that remind you constantly that it's turned off) eliminated all my stuttering issues.

I've used Malwarebytes for years, so I assume this is a recent feature. Just goes to show that even your trusted applications can't necessarily be trusted forever.

[RD James]

Actually even though the website doesnt report any error, I can see an occasional hitch during playback. Might have a lead on whats causing it, discussing it internally.

That sounds promising. I hope it leads somewhere.
 

I've had stuttering issues dating back a month or so. I spent days trying to eliminate or reduce other activity while my players are active (same list as Hendrik).

I finally found the culprit. Malwarebytes 4.0 has a real-time protection feature that watches for various forms of potentially malicious activity. Turning it off (and the notifications that remind you constantly that it's turned off) eliminated all my stuttering issues.

I've used Malwarebytes for years, so I assume this is a recent feature. Just goes to show that even your trusted applications can't necessarily be trusted forever.

I use Windows Defender and have an exception set for Media Center. This is something else.

[Awesome Donkey]

I'd be interested to know if there's any DPC latency spikes when this occurs.

[RD James]

I'd be interested to know if there's any DPC latency spikes when this occurs.

I'd have to check again to confirm, but I don't believe there were any when I last tested it.

[RD James]

Just checking in to see if there are any updates on this.

[mark_h]

See this all the time.  Usually during track transitions (loading/decoding into memory) or in particular big expansive smartlists making use of lots of variables (heavy load).  Can make games stutter and in-game control go wonky for a second or two.

[RD James]

See this all the time.  Usually during track transitions (loading/decoding into memory) or in particular big expansive smartlists making use of lots of variables (heavy load).  Can make games stutter and in-game control go wonky for a second or two.

That's a separate issue caused by high CPU utilization or disk/network access.
It's something I would love to see solved as well, but can be worked around by using memory playback set to load one track into memory at a time rather than decoding into memory or loading an entire playlist, or by disabling memory playback altogether.
 
This is a constant stutter during playback at all times in many applications/games, unrelated to CPU/disk utilization.

[Hendrik]

Try it out with 26.0.87 and see if it makes a difference

[RD James]

Try it out with 26.0.87 and see if it makes a difference

Well, I'm currently in the process of recovering from multiple drive failures (never buy Samsung QVO SSDs) so I can't test this extensively, or in games yet, but it looks promising. It no longer seems to interfere with Firefox at least.