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Topic: winamp 5.5 stuttering (Read 9874 times) previous topic - next topic
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winamp 5.5 stuttering

I installed winamp 5.5 recently. However, when playing back mp3 files it stutters. It might possibly be fragmentation of the hard disk, however, the files are tiny. Anyone else have this problem? When playing mp3 and aac files, the winamp will stutter every 40 seconds or so.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #1 –
Quote from: adlai on
I installed winamp 5.5 recently. However, when playing back mp3 files it stutters. It might possibly be fragmentation of the hard disk, however, the files are tiny. Anyone else have this problem? When playing mp3 and aac files, the winamp will stutter every 40 seconds or so.

yes me too!

although i was blaming it on the hot weather and the old specs of my PC, and possibly something stupid i did with my last nlite XP install, but if someone ele is having probs it might be a winamp thing (which i gut feeling guessed it was all along)

happens most often when i'm using firefox with multiple tabs.

have you tried to roll back to an older version and see if it fixes it?

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #2 –
Quote
It might possibly be fragmentation of the hard disk, however, the files are tiny.

An MP3 doesn't have high enough bitrate to make an issue out of fragmented disc.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #3 –
Does this problem occur with other audio players like Windows Media Player or foobar2000?

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #4 –
I don't know if this is related or not, but Mediamonkey 2.5 often stutters on me when I'm using firefox, especially with pages that have flash on them.

(Using Windows 2000)

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #5 –
it stuttered with firefox closed. I'm aware that file fragmentation isn't the issue...

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #6 –
yes mine stutters with or without firefox open, it seems to be related to CPU, at least at my end.

i'm thinking maybe realtime in winamp 5.5 doesn't really do realtime properly.

i rolled back to 5.094 and have no issues at all anymore.  and i've tried my best to recreate it.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #9 –
I got Winamp stuttering at me when I used to have a 400 MHz Celeron running Windows 2000.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #10 –
I don't know exactly what the problem is, and I don't even use WinAmp.  But I do know that this type of problem is usually caused by buffer underflow.  The buffer is running empty, because the CPU or data bus are too slow, or because another process in using-up all of the CPU cycles.

There may be a process running in the background (or foreground) that's eating-up all of the CPU cycles (as in the Firefox example).  This could be an anti-virus program that's checking all of the audio-data for a virus as it passes over the CPU bus.  Or, it could be an actual virus!  Or, it could be something else.

Your computer, may simply be too slow (Not likely to be the problem).

There could be a defect (bug) in your soundcard/soundchip drivers.

An overheated CPU chip can slow-down, to save itself from burning-up.  This can happen if your CPU fan fails.  (Not likely - If this was the problem, the problem would get worse as the system heats-up.)

------------- COMPUTER THEORY -------------
Because Windows uses "non-premptive multitasking", you can't send data over the data bus at a smooth-constant rate. The sound data is retreived from the hard drive in "chunks", and sent to a buffer.  The buffer is a reserved bit of in RAM, that's is directly accessable by the D/A converter without going over the shared data bus.  Usually, the goal is to re-fill the buffer when it's half-empty.  (Sometimes dual buffers are used.  One is being filled while the other is being emptied.)

So, the CPU has to be fast-enough on average to re-fill buffer before it runs out.  And, it also has to fill the buffer frequently-enough, so the buffer doesn't run-out.    This is actually a very tricky thing to do with something as unpredictible as Windows.  Having unknown applications and drivers all running in the background makes it even more tricky.  The only reason it works at all, is that the CPU and data bus is normally way faster than regular audio bitrates.

Note that MP3 files require decoding by the CPU.  WAV files don't have to be decoded, but they still travel over the data bus.  This problem may not show-up with WAV files.

Also note that a buffer is also a delay.  The buffer has to be filled before the sound starts playing.    A few milliseconds of delay is not an issue unless you are doing real-time audio processing.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #11 –
I suspected that it was a buffer issue, however, all my fiddling with the buffer led to naught.

winamp might actually replace itunes for me because on my system it seems to be faster, plus it has library functions which foobar just won't develop.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #12 –
at all the people suggesting solutions / possible reasons why it's stuttering, thank you.

however:
my PC has been the same specs for over 3 years, and has run winamp and all my apps fine up until a few weeks ago.  the only change was upgrading to winamp 5.5 from 5.35 something or other.

at first i was sceptical of winamp being the problem, as i've used it for many years upgrading every now and then with no issues. but to test, i rolled back to some old versions:

1.82 - all good.
2.04 - all good.
2.95 - all good
5.094 - all good, and currently running.

so i am positive that it's an issue with 5.5 (and possibly some very closely related versions) and either a buffer problem or a CPU priority handling problem.

side issue - does anyone know the first release of winamp where the option to enqueue a file with the middle click was first introduced?  it was somewhere between 5.094 and 5.5 and is the only feature i'm missing out of my current winamp version!

edit:

i tried copying the ml_playlist.dll and gen_jumpex.dll files from my 5.5 installer into the plugin directory of my 5.094 install to get the middle click enqueue functionality.  it worked, but also a few hours later as i was pumping my PC with 1.5MB/sec of torrents downloading while browsing and having winamp on realtime playing flacs, it started stuttering.  not as bad as before on normal 5.5 install, but noticeable.  i thought maybe i was just pushing my system too hard, fair enough, but just incase i went back and did a fresh install of 5.35 instead to fix the problem, and it has!  still driving my PC into the ground but no stuttering, and the middle click enqueue function working.

i don't know if it is mainly those two .dll's, or if it's a feature i'm using that creates the stuttering that is found in those .dll's or if most of winamp 5.5 was built a slightly different way which is more sensitive to load and CPU / buffer issues, but it seems to be where the bug is.

oh yeah my PC specs: XP w/ SP2, intel pentium III 930MHz, 512MB ram, 110GB maxtor HDD, not sure what else would be relevant to winamp stuttering.


-trev (happy with winamp 5.35 currently playing problem free)

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #13 –
It's not winamp. I just got the exact same problem in foobar. I suspect one of two things. One is that it's something to do with the external hard drive.

The other is that when it's not connected to the internet, there is a program that locks up the computer every 40 seconds or so as it pings the net for updates.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #14 –
I found the solution.

My problem was that the wireless connection was searching for wireless networks. Disable the wireless and problem solved.

winamp 5.5 stuttering

Reply #15 –
Try this...  In Winamp Preferences...
Code: [Select]
General Preferences;
Priority Class = High

General Preferences --> Playback;
Playback Thread Priority = One Tick Less Than "Highest (default)"

and see how that treats ya.

I noticed in v5.5 this happened too, and My fix from my usual settings was to reduce the playback thread priority by 1 tick.  They definitely integrated a bunch more of the input plugins into that.  Another thing to be careful of is the new in_wav plugin.  v2.06 is the last version that played the wav files in the bit depth of the file.  Since then it forces the output to be 16bit or 32bit, and by default it's set to 32bit and if the new dithering was set to enabled in the playback section, this could add noise shaping signal (i dunno if it uses it) even when playing back 16bit files - or even 24bit files even if the playback settings are allowing 24bit playback.  I haven't tested Nullsoft's in_flac for this, as I use the VS2005 compile on Rarewares.

I've uploaded in_wav v2.06 to my server, if anyone wants it;
http://ictybtihky.com/winamp/in_wave.Winamp.Plugin.v2.06.zip

Then, when you upgrade to newer versions of winamp, just disable wav support, and it won't touch the old in_wav plugin, and it still keeps your file associations too.    (sorry for getting so off topic)