Occasional playback issue

[realysm42]

Right, this is a bit of a longshot but here goes:

Playback on Foobar to my M-dac is usually flawless (it's passed the bit perfect tests but into the unit too).

Very occasionally, when starting a song (of if I skip part way in to one) it will freeze (playback, not the programme). After 2-3 goes it will play the song properly.

Other times, you can hear the music (for want of a better word) tripping, I mean it plays, but seems to pick up artefacts of sounds that have already been played; pausing it or dragging the seekbar anywhere (even to the same place) remedies this.

I know this could be any number of things, but has anyone got any ideas? Could it be the buffer length in Foobar? I've got it at 500ms and it seems to be behaving pretty well, but it shouldn't ever happen.

This doesn't happen with WMP (which has vanilla settings, Foobar is setup with ASIO for bit perfect playback) or Youtube.

Any ideas?

[Stratmangler]

What type of files?

[realysm42]

Actually, the only type of file I have on my PC is lossless WAV, you reckon that could be an issue?

[Stratmangler]

Sounds more like too much running in the background to be honest.
CCleaner allows you to see and change which programs initialise on startup - just disable the stuff that you don't need.

[realysm42]

I'll check that out, thanks.

[Vincent Kars]

A simple test is to run the DPC Latency checker
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/AudioTools/TroubleShooting.htm

[Welder]

And after you've done as Vincent suggests get this and start shutting the windows sevices down one at a time.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902

or better still read what you can and can't shut down here.

http://www.blackviper.com/

[Maximum]

Increasing foobar priority to high or realtime in task manager might also be worth a try.

[realysm42]

Cheers Vincent and Chris, I've had a look at resource monitors and the DPC latency thing (mine is at about 80us, so well within limits).

Funnily enough it's behaving very well right now.

Btw, I don't normally have a tonne of apps running at the same time either.

I'm going to upgrade the firmware on my Dac when ther new version gets out of beta.

***EDIT*** Whilst doing/typing this, Welder and Robert commented too, I'll have a look at these suggestions now too; many thanks :)

[realysm42]

I've changed the priority and I'm glad you sent me those links Welder; when I get a new media PC, I'll be sure to check back here and go through that list properly :)

BTW, of anyone that can use the buffer function in their media players, what do you have it set too? I've got mine at 400ms.

[Welder]

If my memory seves me I had foobar set at 1000ms and asio4all at 512 on WinXP.
I think the above was okay with 16/44.1 WAV but asio4all needed more for 24/96.

[realysm42]

Does anyone know how to make a programme high priority permanently please? I have to set it manually every time!?

[Stratmangler]

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-permanently-set-process-priority-in-windows-task-manager/

[realysm42]

You're alright you are :cool:

Cheers man.