Attended Mode is the means of Playback where the User Interface is there always. This, opposed to Unattended Mode which doesn't use any User Interface at all, and Remote Control Commands can be used for control.
Attended Mode is a somewhat fragile thing, because XXHighEnd is a pure Memory Player - and that needs various "preparations" before a track can start playing. These preparations, in Attended Mode, need to be done on the fly, per track that needs to play. This sort of needs to synchronize with the Audio Engine, which is a separate program (which is the real Memory Player) and which synchronization is a tough thing to a. don't influence the Sound Quality too much, and b. which needs to do its job in time. The latter meaning : before the next track needs to start playing and which needs to be fluently thinking about gapless playback.
Do notice that with Unattended Mode almost all these preparations are done in advance, and they just *can not* hold back during playback. Now :
It is easy to see that Attended Mode can hold up the start of playback quite easily by means you yourself encourage for. So, for example, if you set the Split File Size high enough in combination with a too slow PC, the reading from the disc and all what needs to happen more, may hold up so much that the preparartion just can not be done in time. It is here where Playback just stops.
It is important to understand - and live by that rule ! - that Attended Mode is a sort of "playing around" method of audio playback in XXHighEnd. It is not the best means for producing good Sound Quality at all, and it is nor was ever advised to be used for that (best SQ). And so your problem will be solved already by not using Attended, but use Unattended instead.
Any more experienced XXHighEnd user will see easily where the limits of Attended are, hence what *he* (or she) has done himself to incur for the problems concerned. It is no big deal for such a user. But for you as a newbee, this is quite different ...
What you obviously will try right away is exploring the limits of SQ in your case. You may look at signatures of other users, and apply settings which are the same or similar, to next encounter your first problems right away. But, wrong approach ! You should start gentle, so you will be able to expore the limits of your (PC) system first. Only *then* exlore those SQ limits ....
This means :
- Use a fairly low SFS (Split File Size). Something like 80.
- Assumed you will be using Kernel Streaming (Engine#4) use the more normal net Buffer Size Values. This means setting the KS Mode to "Adaptive", use a Device Buffer Size setting which should equal the officially Buffer Size of your sound device, and have Q1 at 1. Have the Q1 Factor slider at 1 too.
Notice that this implies Buffer Sizes which are not extremely large, but which also are not extremely small, like Kernel Spreaming Special Mode can go up to the sample level. Apply the above and you will be fine.
- Set the Clock resolution to "Nothing".
The smaller the number (towards 0.5ms) the more difficult it will be for the PC.
- When you encounter the problems anyway, use tracks of a fairly normal size to begin with (like 7 minutes or less);
Obviously, the larger they are, the more difficult it will be to have the preparations done in time.
- Supposed you have explored the limits of your SFS on your PC (higher and an appropriate message will tell you about it), go somewhat lower. For example, when you found your limit to be 180, use 130 instead. What will happen otherwise is that you will have been able to force the system to allocate the memory for you, while later it can't get it herself when needed. This, while it doesn't expect that because the way memory is allocated in XXHighEnd is special - and the OS doesn't anticipate on it. And for that matter :
- Start using Mixed Memory Mode as your first thing.
Getting the Contiguous Modes running can be easy, but depending on the PC for not all newbees it will be. Save if for later - when you can easily see what goes wrong and mainly the why of it. The motto remains : get yourself acquainted with the more normal means of playing first.
- Maybe it's a good thing to, at first, not mangle with the Priorities;
Notice that the "lower" and "higher" indications in the screen direct you to the preferred relative settings, but that this gives the lower priority to the "player", which is XXHighEnd itself and which is this holding-up thing with the preparations. So, you may try to set the Player Priority *higher* instead of the screen-advice, in order to let things go for Attended Playback better. And no, this won't be the best for SQ ...
- Once you have the Activated version (hence not the Demo) you may see that once you "just" ran into problems, the Core Appointment Schemes can help out. In any event, try them;
Those too are for better SQ, but having glitchless playback comes first. Right ?
Good luck, and take it easy !
