Q5=1=PC crash & other misdemeanours

[Scroobius]

With Q5=1 (1.186) regardless of what the other settings are (ie high latency low latency or whatever) I soon start to get problems. Maybe wallpaper does not disappear or a wallpaper error message. Only a reboot sorts that out.

Or maybe in unattended I will try Alt U or D or something and then the PC locks there is nothing I can do with it (music still playing) I then have to reboot the PC. But I may have to reboot 2 or 3 times to get everything working properly again.

My PC may not be the power house of the latest but it is still pretty good.

So Q5=1 is not a practical option for me just now. Am I missing something? have I done something stupid?

Cheers

Paul

[PeterSt]

Paul,

Q5=1 didn't change a thing compared to 0.9z-9(b). So I estimate that won't be the culprit.

Peter

[PeterSt]

Addtionally, I think all is pretty well described in the ToolTips on Q3,4(,5). Focus on "TaskManager".

[PeterSt]

Paul,

I have been rethinking this and no matter what the ToolTips may or may not describe, I think this should not happen. And, my "rethinking" is about that at first this happened to me too and I am not even sure how that was solved (was adjusting/developing things all the time).
About several reboots needed I recall nothing though.

Can you tell me ... I don't think this happened to you right from the start or otherwise you would have mentioned/noticed it right away. So, what has changed ?
I know, a bit obvious, but I still like to know your response.

Best regards,
Peter


PS: One other person reported this, but his situation was quickly solved. Now I don't know anymore where this report sits ...

[Scroobius]

Hi Peter - I actually did mention in a previous post that I could not get Q=1 to work properly prior to 1.186 but I did not post it as a support issue as the little I heard the sq was not so good.

The first thing to mention is that my PC struggles with Q5=1 with "stops and jumps". More in hope than expectation I put in some more memory (i.e. 24Gb rather than the normal 12Gb). I was surprised that this actually reduced the problem...........

With 1.186 it is better in that music plays without stuttering but problems will be inevitable. Also now your latest setting 6x10  1  1  1  & 120 does seem to sound promising.

So no Q=1 has not worked for me yet.

Paul

[PeterSt]

I actually did mention in a previous post that I could not get Q=1 to work properly prior to 1.186 but I did not post it as a support issue as the little I heard the sq was not so good.

Can you paste that particular text in here please ? The more reference the better.

[coliny]

I also had a PC lock up with Q3/4/5 at 1/1/1. Had to hold power button down to stop PC, but it was OK next boot but back with my normal settings (see signature). Not tried to repeat these setting.

[Scroobius]

This is the full post for what its worth. I thought that my PC did not have enough "grunt" at the time to run Q=1 because IIRC at the time you mentioned that low powered PC's may have problem. But really I don't think my PC is that low powered. Also it may be nothing to do with memory I did not test enough to be sure.

I avoided trying these settings because so much else has changed in my system I wanted to let everything settle, get familiar with the sound and establish a "baseline" again. So now I have tried Q5=1 but the results were not what I was expecting.

The first thing to mention is that my PC struggles with Q5=1 with "stops and jumps". More in hope than expectation I put in some more memory (i.e. 24Gb rather than the normal 12Gb). I was surprised that this actually reduced the problem significantly.

This test was with 2 Dexa clocks which makes the sound very clear well defined and dynamic. I found that changing Q5=1 seemed to "smudge" the sound so some of the clarity was lost it also sounded to be a little constricted. I increased SFS to 4 and higher and found that the upper mid sounded odd maybe nasally the only word I can think of.

So not what I was expecting at this stage.

Mmmmm it always concerns me when I am "out on a limb" (or not getting the same results as everyone else) but for sure I would not chose Q5=1 here to listen to music with as it loses all its magic. It would be interesting to hear what Nick finds in his system with 2 Dexa's.

[PeterSt]

But Paul, that text refers to 0.9z9-b. Everything changed since then.
So I actually still have the question "what changed since you started with 1.186 ?" but but but ... I thought you posted about SQ regarding 1.186 but I now see you did not. So, apologies and my bad. Now, who else posted about this (or emailed ?) I don't know, and Colin, I don't think this was you.

Ok, this has to be sorted out. Remember, I experienced the exact same thing, but this was with at least Q4 involved (Q3 was not operative at that time).
Hey, I am sure I posted about this ... something with that I even couldn't get on my monitor ! (sound happily playing)

I've also seen a situation where in Normal OS Mode (only there !) the cpu usage goes bananas. This seems unrelated to XXHighEnd (doesn't even need playback to let it happen) but I feel it can be. Paul, maybe you see strange things regarding this ? cpu usage goes sky high and it is consumed by all the processes in there. Never saw something like it. In MinOS nothing wrong, except for playback always stopping eventually. But maybe this is not related at all. However, even in that situation I recognize something like "several reboots" because it *can* go normal. What it resets to that strange behaviour is beyond me so far (but looks like a virus which was not to be found). Oh, in this situation the left pane of Explorer flickers (refreshes) all the time.

??

Peter

[PeterSt]

I also had a PC lock up with Q3/4/5 at 1/1/1. Had to hold power button down to stop PC, but it was OK next boot but back with my normal settings (see signature). Not tried to repeat these setting.

Colin,

What this also with sound just continuing ?

Thanks,
Peter

[coliny]

Not sure but I think it locked up before music started. No response from keyboard or mouse so could not start Task Mgr.

With 0.9 I did get Q3/Q4/Q5 at 0/0/1 to play music so maybe as you mentioned its a combination of these settings.

[PeterSt]

The latest settings  6x10 1 1 1 &  120  Peter advised work well here and I can clearly hear the difference.

Ok Paul, so something with the lower buffers etc. was the culprit ? Maybe you can find out where limits are ?

I would really grateful if you would clarify exactly what you mean by

Too bad that it is exactly Paul who can not use it. Maybe it isn't even coincidence

I am sure I misunderstand what I think you mean by it.

Well (from that topic over there), if I can mimic in software what you can do by hardware, things may collide. But that's a very long shot because I first need to be able to really mimic that hardware, which means that I let behave it just like that (so, not so much "mimicing" at all - just cause the same). And no matter I try it, where is the real proof of *that" (our ears ?) ?

Peter

[Scroobius]

Peter - just to be clear Q5=1 works under 1.186 only insomuch that I can listen to it - but then often I cannot stop it because if I use Alt X or U or D say I get problems and usually I will have to reboot.

The above happens regardless of latency settings.

Cheers

Paul

I need to check processor usage and will report back.

[Scroobius]

Hey Peter,

I just checked performance with the following settings:

20x1  1  1  2  & SFS=2   

Processor usage around 5% memory 32%

with the following settings

6x10 1 1 1 & SFS=2 processor usage was higher at 8% and memory about the same.

This time I did not have any problems all worked fine when Q5=1 but next time?

Cheers

Paul

[PeterSt]

Well, let me know about next time !