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Slight audio irritance


Tommy

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I have a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi extreme audio sound card and there's a slight issue that's been plaguing me for a long time. It's nothing major to speak of, but still annoying and I don't even really know how to search for it because whatever I put into Google, is not my problem. Okay, so here it goes.

 

Say I play an audio file, but then I stop it in the middle of the file and play something else, I'll get a fraction of a second worth of the last audio that I was playing before what I just selected starts. Sometimes it's almost a slight little pop sound but other times you can really tell it was what you last played. I don't know if it's the sound card/drivers doing this or what but I don't remember my 24-bit audio soundblaster doing this. Anyone else experience this?

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Audio output is usually double or even triple buffered by the playback app. The buffers can be in software or on the hardware.

If you're not switching apps when you switch files, it's probably the app's fault (reusing existing buffers without reinitializing them). Try switching apps as well (play file 1 in app A, then file 2 in app B). If the problem remains, it's the drivers fault.

Either way, try using DirectSound instead of waveout (or vice-versa) and different bit depths and other driver options. Changing output settings between files should also force the buffers to be cleared. You can also test with DXDIAG.exe.

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I took video and audio and uploaded it to my YouTube channel, so it should visualize what the problem is.

 

Sometimes it's a bit more aggravating than this, but this is basically what it does.

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If you're not switching apps when you switch files, it's probably the app's fault (reusing existing buffers without reinitializing them). Try switching apps as well (play file 1 in app A, then file 2 in app B). If the problem remains, it's the drivers fault.

The video shows playing sound clip 1 in WMP, then stopping. Then play sound from Windows volume control. Then play another clip in WMP. Sound from clip 1 plays for 1-2 seconds before actually playing sound from clip 2.

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Thanks. I don't know what you mean by "play sound from Windows volume control" but it doesn't seem like Tommy's loading a new clip in another app. He should try using WinAmp or Quicktime or ffplay or something other than WMP/front-end for it.

I assume Tommy's doing this on Win98se. On Win98se the volume control is just a slider with a mute button--no way to play/pause audio output much less load another clip....

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Thanks. I don't know what you mean by "play sound from Windows volume control" but it doesn't seem like Tommy's loading a new clip in another app. He should try using WinAmp or Quicktime or ffplay or something other than WMP/front-end for it.

I assume Tommy's doing this on Win98se. On Win98se the volume control is just a slider with a mute button--no way to play/pause audio output much less load another clip....

It's in Windows 2000 actually, which is my main system but I'm using the Windows 98 color scheme. But I can try something like WinAmp and see what happens.

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So, it's still a problem. I tried Winamp but it didn't seem to be giving me a problem. But watching YouTube on Palemoon seems to, not to a terrible degree but still a tad irritating nonetheless.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It sounds like an audio buffer is being released when another sound is queued up. I've heard this exact weirdness in a VM, so it's certainly something to do with basic sound functionality in a modern win2k install (I haven't tried with any newer kernels than probably v13 or so).

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  • 3 weeks later...

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