Playback stutters under load [#7146]

[NocturnalOne]

Hi,

I have the latest MM4 beta installed on my Win7 64 machine with an i7-920, SSD main drive and 12GB memory. It's no slouch. I'm playing music from my Acer Windows Home Server connected with Gb ethernet on the same switch. Playback generally works fine but when I run certain compute intensive tasks such as astronomical image processing playback breaks up. I'm pretty sure this did not happen with MM3 running under Vista 64 on this same hardware. I don't have MM3 installed on this system. I did try playing back music using Media Center and it does not stutter when I perform the same actions.

Is this a result of MM4 being a debug build? Is there any way to make the threads operate at higher priority? I have already made sure my astronomy software (PixInsight) does not run at the highest priority but it does not seem to help.

Thanks,

Sander (Lifetime Gold)

[Lowlander]

Did you play around with the output plugins and their settings? This can often resolve the problem.

[NocturnalOne]

No I did not. I would expect the default install to work properly. I did not tweak things under my previous install either. What tweaks do you suggest I try?

[Lowlander]

In MM3 users also had to change the settings in some cases to get things working.

Switching output plugin may help. Increasing buffers may help. Selecting the correct Audio Device (not primary sound driver) may help.

[rovingcowboy]

you answered your own issue.

your using cpu heavy tasks will make monkey slow down because he needs more prioritys you could try to run mediamonkey in the above normal priority and see if that helps. you don't want to go too high in it because it is taking away from the
task your trying to do. but with your system it is not taking that much away.

[NocturnalOne]

Don't say I answered my own issue please. That's nonsense and insulting. As I said, MM3 and Media Center work properly out of the box. MM4 does not. It should work properly. The developers may want to take note and see if there is a regression that causes this or if perhaps the debug version is to blame.

[rovingcowboy]

Don't say I answered my own issue please. That's nonsense and insulting. As I said, MM3 and Media Center work properly out of the box. MM4 does not. It should work properly. The developers may want to take note and see if there is a regression that causes this or if perhaps the debug version is to blame.

not insulting you was just saying what it looks like, and its not nonsense some times posters do really answer their own questions with their posts and not notice it.
but you could have the debug version thing right some of the previous mm 3 debug versions messed things up for some people and when they went back to normal versions they got their issues
fixed. so that is possible to happen.

mm 4 is having some trouble with it as in being buggy, this sounds like it could be the simple stuff like lowlander said
the need for moving to a new output plug in or adjustment of the buffers, but in mm 4 i think its the heavy support for
the videos that is making monkey need more cpu cycles then mm 3 did so that speeding up of the priority might just clear
up the stutters for you.

[NocturnalOne]

Alright, sorry for jumping. You are right that users often post their own solutions.

I only just started using W7 so I'm still learning the differences between it and Vista. I changed the priority of the MM4 process to 'highest' but that didn't help. I will explore this more. I've also alerted the developer of the astro software. There was once an issue where the requested thread priority was not properly implemented. It could have crept back in. It makes the mouse stutter too which is pretty rare on a fast machine like this. At the same time Media Center doesn't have a problem playing back music so I'm not sure what's going on. The W7 install is not even a week old so I sure hope I haven't messed it up yet

[NocturnalOne]

I was using the WASAPI output plugin which is the default. I increased the buffer size to 2000ms and that seems to have resolved the issue. Many thanks for the help!

[rovingcowboy]

glad its the simple answer this time. and glad you got it working.

[Dreadlau]

That was probably why you didn't had this problem with MM3.
Since the wasapi output plugin was introduced in MM4.

The developers already increased the default buffer a bit.
See: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=6702

It seems it wasn't enough in your case tho.

[Nick63]

Wasapi doesn't work right no matter what settings I use. Windows 7 64x Ultimate x48 775 x9650 4gb.
I went and looked at the fix log entry on wasapi and it states;
"The wasapi output plugin stutters whenever any other activity takes place on the test system.

e.g. play a track in MediaMonkey, and
1) Open windows explorer to a directory containing many files and scroll
2) Double-click a jpg file so that a graphics viewer/editor opens

--> Stuttering

Note: switching to the DS output plugin solves this problem."

[rovingcowboy]

Wasapi doesn't work right no matter what settings I use. Windows 7 64x Ultimate x48 775 x9650 4gb.
I went and looked at the fix log entry on wasapi and it states;
"The wasapi output plugin stutters whenever any other activity takes place on the test system.

e.g. play a track in MediaMonkey, and
1) Open windows explorer to a directory containing many files and scroll
2) Double-click a jpg file so that a graphics viewer/editor opens

--> Stuttering

Note: switching to the DS output plugin solves this problem."

idea? not sure but it might just work it depends on if you can see the wasapi listed in the process tab in task manager.?
if you can then right click on that wasapi and set it's priority to above normal. i believe windows 7 will allow that setting to be changed permitly but not real sure if it does? but if the setting stops the stuttering and windows does not keep
that setting just get bill's2 process manager from majorgeeks.com or other freeware site and use it to lock that setting
in to the memory.
becaus that seems like the stutter is caused by the windows system overrideing the wasapi file for its own prioritys.

try that and see if it works. if you can see wasapi in the task manager when mm 4 is running. ?

[jiri]

WASAPI plug-in is going to get quite big changes in the next build, I'd be interested in your results then. The changes are covered in http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=7146

Jiri