VLC 2.1.0 and Windows 98 - not quite working (?)

[Nomen]

A little while ago I installed VLC 2.1.0 over-top (or replaced) 2.0.6. Other than setting the install file to kernelX win-XP/sp2 compability mode, and also vlc.exe to the same, I haven't done anything else.

VLC seems to run fine - except that it plays flac and mp3 files horribly - like it frequency-shifts the audio and it sounds really bad. I haven't tried to play any video with it yet.

Is there anything I need to do (mess with codecs, edit a kstub file, etc) to get this to work?

Edit: I've played various types of video files, and the video is fine, but the audio is horrible.

PS: Is there any way to enable a "simple" text editor when creating or editing posts on msfn? I can't seem to type anything in the edit window using my default browser (Firefox version - Bon Echo) so instead I'm using Opera 12.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Nomen

[schwups]

You must choose compability mode XP for the installation, but don't run VLC Player with that mode . KernelEX is enabled (default) should work . You also have to replace the msvcrt.dll by msvcr70.dll (see Wiki).

[Nomen]

You must choose compability mode XP for the installation, but don't run VLC Player with that mode . KernelEX is enabled (default) should work . You also have to replace the msvcrt.dll by msvcr70.dll (see Wiki).

My current version of msvcrt.dll is 7.10.3052.4. The file is located in \windows\system and is 360,448 bytes (Apr 5/2004).

I have msvcr70.dll also in \windows\system. It is version 7.00.9466.0 and is 344,064 bytes (Jan 5/2002).

From DOS, I renamed msvcrt.dll to msvcrt.old and copied msvcr70.dll to msvcrt.dll and re-started windows. I made sure that vlc.exe kernelEx property was set to enabled (default) and tried again to play some music files. There was no change - audio playback was essentially noise (technically, not "white" noise or static, but strange frequency-shifted or maybe 4-bit audio instead of 16-bit?).

I then downloaded the .zip version (stand-alone?) file vlc-2.1.0-win32.zip, unpacked it, then ran vlc.exe and tried to play an audio file - and again it was noise. Yesterday I downloaded vlc-2.0.8-win32.zip (again, I think this is stand-alone) and it plays audio just fine.

Regarding msvcr70.dll - did I follow the instructions correctly? Do I have the right file?

[Drugwash]

After having compared a few msvcr???.dll versions, I've reached the conclusion v7.0.9981.0 is the optimum choice for my system.

Replacement was much more easier: open RegEdit, navigate to

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\KnownDLLs

and add/modify a String value called MSVCRT to read MSVCR70.DLL as Data (or whatever version/path you may have to it).

Personally I renamed a copy of msvcrt70.dll to msvcrx.dll in the System folder and that's the Data I set in the above-mentioned registry key.

Paths are relative to the System folder, so if you deploy your library in a different folder, you'll have to use standard relative path naming. I believe absolute path may work too. If you have KernelEx installed, you'll notice a few relative paths leading to its folder.

Personally I use Trout as audio player and GOMPlayer for video (beware of 2.2.53.5169, it's buggy even on XP - last 98-compatible is 2.1.43.5119 I believe and haven't tried newer versions under KernelEx).

Edited November 11, 2013 by Drugwash

[Nomen]

Here is the direct download link for what I think is the stand-alone (no installation required) version of VLC 2.1.0:

http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/vlc/vlc/2.1.0/win32/vlc-2.1.0-win32.zip

Or use what-ever mirror you're comfortable with. It would be useful to know what other experiences are for this version in terms of audio playback.

[schwups]

I assume that your problems still persists.

Did you try a clean install (delete preferences and cache)? Did you run after uninstall a registry cleaner?

Vlc 2.1 runs on all of my machines without these problems (default settings). The player doesn't need external codecs. Probably it works best with the internal codecs.

Maybe there is an incompatibility with another app.


https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:Audio:Crackles/

[DougB]

It would be useful to know what other experiences are for this version in terms of audio playback.

FLAC, MP3, WAV, WV, WMA all playing ok for me.

I'm using the portable/zip version of VLC 2.1.0.

For MSVCRT.DLL, i have v7.10.7031.4 copied over to MSVCRT.DLL in the Windows\System\ folder.

Here's the VLC on-site URL for the portable (.zip) download: http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/

Have you tried setting VLC to run at a higher priority in Tools > Preferences?

- Doug B.

[Nomen]

Ok, I think I've solved the problem. First, I had to realize that changing settings in the advanced preferences always seems to require closing and then opening VLC for the changes to take effect.

I found that the default setting for VLC 2.1.0 for Audio - Output Modules - DirectX and Waveout both enable "Use float32 output". Once I de-selected those (removed check-mark) the audio plays fine.

I went back and looked at the settings for the stand-alone VLC 2.0.8 and float32 options WERE NOT CHECKED.

So if someone wants to see if their win-98 system will play audio with the float32 option enabled, that would be useful to confirm if it needs to be disabled. Remember that you need to restart VLC after making these changes.

[schwups]

My setting for float32 is enabled (default).

High-quality float32 audio output isn't well supported by some soundcards:

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=48799

https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/directx_aout/

https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Modules/waveout/

[MiKl]

No audio problems with float32 enabled on my systems but I do not like 2.1.0 at all.

As soon as I experimented a little bit with codecs and settings that version always crashed - even on XP !!

I didn't even count how many crash reports were sent.

So I kept the browser plug-in and went back to 2.0.8. Hopefully the next build will be better.

[schwups]

Yesterday I tried some nightly builds 2.1.1 and 2.2.0, unfortunately without success to run them. http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/?C=M;O=D

Error: Vlc causes an error in Libvlccore.dll

I haven't examined the problem more closely yet.

[schwups]

VLC 2.1.1 released: http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/2.1.1/win32/

There are a lot of changes and fixes.

Changes between 2.1.0 and 2.1.1:
--------------------------------

Core:
* Fix random and reshuffling behaviour
* Fix recording
* Fix some subtitles track selection

Decoders:
* VP9 support in WebM
* HEVC/H.265 support in MKV, MP4 and raw files
* Fix GPU decoding under Windows (DxVA2) crashes

Demuxers:
* Fix crashes on wav, mlp and mkv and modplug files
* Support Speex in ogg files
* Fix some .mov playlists support
* Support Alac in mkv
* Fix WMV3 and palette in AVI
* Fix FLAC packetizer issues in some files

Access:
* Fix DVB options parsing
* Fix DeckLink HDMI input
* Fix HTTPS connectivity on OS X by loading root certificates from Keychain

Audio output:
* Fixes for DirectSound pass-through
* Fixes for OSS output, notably on BSD

Interfaces:
* Fix HTTP interface infinite loop
* Fix D-Bus volume setting

Qt:
* Reinstore right click subtitle menu to open a subtitle
* Fix saving the hotkeys in preferences
* Fix saving the audio volume on Win32, using DirectSound
* Fix play after drag'n drop
* Fix streaming options edition and scale parameter

Stream out:
* Fix transcoding audio drift issues
* Fix numerous audio encoding issues

Win32 installer:
* Important rewrite to fix numerous bugs, notably about updates
* Simplification of the upgrade mechanism

Mac OS X interface:
* Reintroduce the language selector known from pre-2.1 releases
* Fix fullscreen behaviour and various crashes
* Fix about dialog crash in Japanese
* Fix crashes on proxy lookups
* Fixes on the playlist and information behaviours
* Fixes on the streaming dialogs
* Improves interface resizings

Translations:
* Update of Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French,
Galician, Gujarati, Hindi, hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean,
Lithuanian, Marathi, Modern Greek, Norwegian Bokmål, Occitan, Persian,
Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish,
Swedish, Telugu, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek
translations

Now flac is rendered ugly for me.

I get the same poor audio quality when playing flac on XP SP2 on the same machine. So I guess the reason is the old soundcard (Creative SB PCI128 (Ensoniq ES1371) PCI) or a new bug.

Edited November 14, 2013 by schwups

[schwups]

VLC 2.1.1 on another machine (VIA VT1612A @ VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller PCI onboard): Flac is rendered with that nasty sound, too. The other formats I tested seem to be ok, also mp3.

There's no problem with Flac using version 2.1.0. I performed the tests with default settings.

[Nomen]

VLC 2.1.1 on another machine (VIA VT1612A @ VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller PCI onboard): Flac is rendered with that nasty sound, too. The other formats I tested seem to be ok, also mp3.

There's no problem with Flac using version 2.1.0. I performed the tests with default settings.

Does it make a difference if you turn off the float32 setting?

I just downloaded this: http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/2.1.1/win32/vlc-2.1.1-win32.zip It doesn't seem to require installation - vlc seems to run directly from the directory you unpack it from. So I ran it, and immediately checked the float32 settings and they were off. I then played a flac file (Acoustic Alchemy - Reference point) and it played fine. Bit-rate showed anywhere from 800 to over 1000 kbits/sec. I then played Yellowjackets - Live Wires (.wav file) 720 mb .wav file (I believe this is a DTS 5.1 file) with VLC reporting input bitrate of about 1400. Sounded great.

But all is not well. I then played another .flac file (Pools - Steps Ahead) - with VLC showing only about 800 kbits/sec input bit-rate. It played in a sort of stuttering way - as if someone was opening and closing a switch connecting my PC to the speakers, with no noise or poping during the switching. I stopped the playback and ran VLC.exe from version 2.0.8 and played the same file - and it sounded fine.

I played a few more large .flac tracks (Pat Metheny) with 2.1.1 and they seemed to play fine, but something I noticed is that there is a single stutter at the very start when playing many flac files.

[schwups]

I've done two more tests with version 2.1.1.

The first configuration: Vista SP1 / soundchip is the integrated Via VT1708 High Definition Audio controller.

The second configuration: XP SP2 / onboard chip is the Realtek ALC 888s.

The result is I get the same poor audio quality again when playing flac.

It played in a sort of stuttering way - as if someone was opening and closing a switch connecting my PC to the speakers, with no noise or poping during the switching.

The same here.

Does it make a difference if you turn off the float32 setting?

It doesn't matter on my systems.

It doesn't seem to require installation - vlc seems to run directly from the directory you unpack it from.

Of course it runs without installation.

Accidentally my flac test files are Acoustic Alchemy, too.

Edited November 15, 2013 by schwups