audio affected by applications

**Ronin** · August 1st, 2003, 11:57 PM

I'm curious as to why my audio is affected when certain programs are launched, even though I'm not using onboard audio. I bought a sound card to alleviate this problem, but something must either be malconfigured and/or unknown to me as to how to correct this condition.

Any ideas, anyone?

I'm using Windows XP Pro.
512Mb pc133 sdramm
950Mhz Athlon processor
40Gb 7200 r.p.m. Western Digital hard drive
Creative Labs sound card

**Platypus** · August 2nd, 2003, 05:07 AM

Originally posted by Ronin
my audio is affected

It would be helpful to have a little more information than this, Ronin.

For example, how your sound is affected, and what type of sound is affected. eg CD play, .wav replay, FM synthesis or all of them.

Also do you know the model of motherboard in the system, or what support chipset it uses, eg Via, AMD, and the model of sound card?

Also which programs cause the problem and what they're doing at the time could help too.

**melee5** · August 2nd, 2003, 05:58 AM

I don't know the why of it but actually setting a DMA buffer helps at least on my low end system. I don't know XP, but for 9x it's Device Mangler|System Devices|Direct Memory Access Controller|Properties|Settings. Reserve 64K buffer. That adds the following line to the [386Enh] section of System.ini - DMABufferSize=64. Doing either causes the other. Having a DMA buffer set also helps to get CDROM and hard drives to accept DMA settings in Device Mangler sometimes. Might try it?

**Ronin** · August 2nd, 2003, 09:56 AM

Originally posted by Platypus
It would be helpful to have a little more information than this, Ronin.

For example, how your sound is affected, and what type of sound is affected. eg CD play, .wav replay, FM synthesis or all of them.

Also do you know the model of motherboard in the system, or what support chipset it uses, eg Via, AMD, and the model of sound card?

Also which programs cause the problem and what they're doing at the time could help too.

Example: I like to listen to 80's music from www.shoutcast.com with the use of Winamp. Should I attempt to check email via Outlook Express or if I launch Trillian, then the audio goes into a slower speed that sounds like the words are being dragged.

My motherboard is a PC Chips K7 series with SiS730 chipset.

**NooNoo** · August 2nd, 2003, 10:19 AM

If you are using shoutcast, the audio is being streamed from the internet. You then launch other programs that use the bandwidth you have. If this is dialup it will be very noticeable.

**Ronin** · August 2nd, 2003, 12:35 PM

I'm using a cable modem, and this happens equally when I'm playing mp3s.

**NooNoo** · August 2nd, 2003, 02:08 PM

Is the sound sharing an irq with another device?

**Ronin** · August 2nd, 2003, 03:06 PM

All I know is that my sound card is using IRQ 11. Is there some way to show a list of all the IRQ's in use?

**NooNoo** · August 2nd, 2003, 03:10 PM

yes in device manager, click view, resources by connection, interupt request(irq)

**craigmodius** · August 2nd, 2003, 03:14 PM

edit: NooNoo beat me to it.

**Ronin** · August 2nd, 2003, 03:52 PM

O.k., please correct me if what I'm going to say is wrong.

Sometime ago, a friend of mine showed me that he had to reduce the hardware acceleration setting for his video card because his processor wasn't strong enough to really drive the video card. He was advised to do this by the manufacturer.

In light of that, I wondered if the same concept may apply to my situation. I adjusted the hardware acceleration for the audio card, launched a program or two while the streaming audio played, and the audio doesn't slur and/or stutter anymore.

**Platypus** · August 3rd, 2003, 08:09 AM

Originally posted by Ronin
if what I'm going to say is wrong.

It's difficult to argue with results, Ronin. But you don't sound fully convinced yourself...

It is possible that reducing the hardware acceleration is just papering over the cracks, turning off a feaure that is not set up properly. (Maybe a hardware conflict, not unknown for Creative, or chipset driver problem.)

Unless someone else has a better suggestion, why not try it like that for a while, & see if there are any ill effects on anything else, eg sound might be choppy in games?

If you want to investigate further, fill us in a bit more on the details of the system.

**confus-ed** · August 3rd, 2003, 08:46 AM

Originally posted by Platypus
...If you want to investigate further, fill us in a bit more on the details of the system.

Like what the sound card actually is rather than just "Creative Labs sound card" ... buying a 'new' card mightn't have made much difference, some of the cheapie/old cards available aren't any better than an 'onboard'

... if its a VIA chipset board make sure you have the lastest VIA 4-in1(hyperion) drivers ...

Most likely turning down any hardware acceleration of sound simply stops the 'full' range being played ... if you can't hear any difference all well & good but most likely if you had a direct fully working comparrison you'd hear that certain bits are replaced simply by silence ...