Sound problem

OpenGL OpenGL: Advanced Coding
1

Hello!

I recently noticed that when winamp is running and I start my program (using VAR) the sound become crappy. Is this normal?

2

Describe “crappy”.

I had a real hardware bug on my old system (AMD K6-II + GeForce256). In that case “crappy” meant it sounded like the sound was playing at a sample rate of about 2 KHz (but still the with the right speed) and it had annoying clicks etc. It turned out that my motherboard did not supply adequate power to the AGP port, which I guess lowered the voltage on both the AGP port and the PCI bus (where the sound card was).

3

the specs of your system ?
i think you’re using a nvidia-card (which?)
what is the core speed of your cpu ?
how much memory do ya have ? (what kind of mem ?)
what soundcard are you using ?(i suppose a crappy one…)

4

marcus, “crappy” means something like you described (I don’t really know, if it plays at the right speed).

My system is an Intel Celeron 633 with a VIA chipset motherboard (quite old) and a Gef2MX200, 96 MB RAM, SB128.

I’ll try to run the program on another system, if it’s OK, then it’ll be my AGP…

5

It could be for many reasons:

  1. Perhaps your program eats so much CPU, WinAmp doesn’t get enough to decode the files fast enough to play them right.

  2. Perhaps the graphics card locks up the bus for long enough that the sound card can’t DMA its data exactly when it needs it.

  3. Perhaps there’s an IRQ sharing problem. Although this shouldn’t be an issue with modern systems and modern drivers, you never know.

  4. Perhaps, as already said, there’s a power issue or some other electrical issue.

6

when ever my processor calculates much, sound slows down and sounds crappy (really like the 0123456789 stream gets stretched to something like 0.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.0 where . means no sound).

when ever my gpu does drawing stuff the same happens. i guess part of it is the agp (or some other) bus because when i push trough lots of data sound goes down, and other is due my crappy soundchip i guess wich is onboard and does not get enough resources to act well when the other stuff is working.

can’t wait for my new pc i’m talkin about since a year

7

Catman,

i have a PIII450 + 256MB with SB64 + Geforce2MX and i had never problems with playing winamp/internetstreaming while using the gpu… and i’m using this system mainly for music/codetesting.

I even played games like UT or Q3 with winamp in background on this machine.

When i compare our system specs, the main difference is the amount of mainmemory.
You have only 96MB, which isn’t that much AND you have also a celeron, which has very poor memory performance (small 2nd level cache - or even none i’m not that sure)

i don’t know how usefull it is for you , but it may be a little hint…

[This message has been edited by AdrianD (edited 05-28-2002).]

8

Yesterday I tried my program on a system with an Abit BH6 motherboard + 950 Celeron, and it was OK, no sound problem. I think my motherboard is the problem. Maybe I’ll buy another one sometime…

[This message has been edited by Catman (edited 05-29-2002).]