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Topic: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds (Read 1627 times) previous topic - next topic
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MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Hi, FB2K seems to buffer exactly 30 seconds of MP3-audio (I have not tested other music formats). Can I increase this value somehow?

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #1 –
Sorry, but absolutely noone noticed that an MP3 is buffered to exactly 30 seconds? So it is probably my specail Windows constellation? Any hint?

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #2 –
I'm not certain what you mean. Have you increased the output buffer to its maximum length of 30 seconds and want to increase it? Or are you talking about something else? What exactly is the problem?

If you are talking about the output buffer it affects all audio formats. That buffer contains the decoded audio that is ready to be played. I'm quite confident the MP3 decoder input doesn't have other buffers that would keep 30 seconds of data in them. And if you are playing MP3s locally Windows should cache the entire source file into memory as soon as foobar2000 touches it, so entire file should be playable even if your hard drive went to sleep. foobar2000 has advanced preferences options to also manually read ahead local and network data, but I'm not certain of their usefulness. And there's also a legacy option to force foobar2000 to preload entire source file, but it's best left unused.

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #3 –
I have put the buffer lebgth to 30000ms (maximum).
My problem is exactly that short after my computer starts the harddrives go to sleep for one or two minutes.
I am aware that it would be best to fix this issue, but so far I had no success in localizing it.
And that means: I start my computer, start Foobar, play music, and 30 seconds later the music stops. At that time I cannot see any harddrives in taskmanager at all. As if Wndows miraculous started without harddrives...
No help from Windows here caching the whole file.
Now I have to wait for one or two  minutes, than the music is back.
This only happens after a restart (cold or warm). So if I could increase the buffer to a few minuttes I would not even notice this, but it seems 30 seconds is all I can get. Not enough, unfortunately.

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #4 –
That's a weird issue. It sounds like the moment foobar2000 outputs audio all file I/O in your machine gets frozen. The source file should definitely have more data in memory and playback should continue beyond the buffer length even if hard drives were in sleep, but something is blocking things on your setup.

You could try if the same issue happens when you use the Null Output playback device. That won't actually output any audio but you can use it to see if the problem is triggered by audio device.

I don't think longer output buffer would help you at all. It would just delay the freeze to happen later.

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #5 –
You can try option "Full file buffering". File->Preferences->Advanced->Playback->Buffering->Full file buffering up to (kB)
Or foo_ramdisk component (only available for 32 bit version of fb2k)

Re: MP3 buffer: 30 seconds

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Bogozo on
You can try option "Full file buffering". File->Preferences->Advanced->Playback->Buffering->Full file buffering up to (kB)
Or foo_ramdisk component (only available for 32 bit version of fb2k)

Thanks! That helps!