0.9u-12 --> Hiccups and Clicks

[Gerard]

Peter,

Hi i am back again .... Yesterday i have been playing a bit and there are a few things wrong.... I am sorry but i am not been able to test it more... This post is what i have too and i wanted to let you now. I will do some testing in a few day's. I upadated from U4 to U13 and played around a bit  . Before i could play double when i set the EMU to 88.2. At the moment not anymore. The test say's i can. Even upsampling also not done anymore. I get a weird hickups crack thing with both. Something i did not have before.

44.1 is the only thing that works for the best.. But so now and than a hickup... I think i can call it like that...

I will try other players and will see from what version it began to do this....

One thing i come up with is that when i do something else like open a internet page or go from playlist to library the hickups/weird singing begins.... And the Taskmanager shows weird pike's...

Grtz

Gerard.....

EDIT: I order more memory.... Maybe that will help.

[PeterSt]

It still doesn't work. Neither with virtual memory off nor on. I even tried setting "DisablePagingExecutive=1" in the registry. Still get the hiccups.

Right. So now you are telling me that with all the testing of that one particular CD, where I could copy the behaviour, and where now for me the culprits have gone, for you it's not so ? I've been playing that CD the whole day !!
(anyone wants to buy it ?

My remarks about the virtual memory are about when you are near to run out of physical memory. Please keep in mind, I only could solve the issue that was added with some of the before versions. The same issue in the more general code is still there and can't be solved IMO (because I *have* to work with different threads and shared memory).
That in the mean time this doesn't bother you at all, is something else, which may only prove better that I'm dealing with something else afterall.

Now, if you can find a way of making me clear how to copy what you still have ... I can't for the moment.
Btw, I ran at least 6 other CD's yesterday night with the same test setting, and not any hiccup.

Must think ...
But if you can come up with anything ...

[PeterSt]

And Edward, would you be able - and willing - to test this briefly with all your services On ?

In the mean time, when a, say, 5 minute track loads, how long does your disk light lit ? Please keep in mind that you can only test this properly for a first time per track. Otherwise the cache is involved.
Also you could try to notice whether the hiccup occurs during the disk I/O or right after that (during the cpu peaking).

Lastly, you might show a plot of the cpu useage during the track boundaries, but please tell me how long (minutes) the loading track is.

Thanks.
Peter

[edward]

Now, if you can find a way of making me clear how to copy what you still have ... I can't for the moment.
Btw, I ran at least 6 other CD's yesterday night with the same test setting, and not any hiccup.

Must think ...
But if you can come up with anything ...

Thanks for all your work on this. And since not many other people are having similar problems, I do not want to waste any more of your time (or anyone else's time) on this *at the moment*. I will do some more investigating on my end to find the culprit in my setup. At the moment, the only way it works is if I check 'Mem', but I will try to find if there is a configuration (in the midst of my services tweaks, etc.) which will work without checking 'Mem'.

In the mean time, when a, say, 5 minute track loads, how long does your disk light lit ? Please keep in mind that you can only test this properly for a first time per track. Otherwise the cache is involved.
Also you could try to notice whether the hiccup occurs during the disk I/O or right after that (during the cpu peaking).

Lastly, you might show a plot of the cpu useage during the track boundaries, but please tell me how long (minutes) the loading track is.

I've been using my RAMDisk again, so a 5 minute track load is less than a second. Can you  be more clear as to how I discern whether this happens during disk I/O or CPU peaking (it seemed to me that these things happen simultaneously)? As far as I can tell (when watching Memory usage in Task Manager) is that the hiccup occurs at the same time as the Memory Usage changes. And more specifically (with 0.9u-13) I think there is a point during the track load when the Memory grows large and then quickly shrinks to a lower number (as if it is releasing the previous track). I believe the hiccup occurs at the time it shrinks to the lower number.

[Gerard]

Peter,

I did some more testing.... About double and upsampling you can forget that... That has something to do with te EMU. I have that with previous versions aswell at the moment. Maybe something to solve for EMU.

44.1 works well with other players. From U4 till U11 no problems.

U12 and U13  gives these problems. Before U12 they do not. The thing i also have seen is that the CPU usage is bigger with U12 and U13. Atleast at the moment the cracks hickups thing begins.

Grtz

[PeterSt]

I've been using my RAMDisk again, so a 5 minute track load is less than a second. Can you  be more clear as to how I discern whether this happens during disk I/O or CPU peaking (it seemed to me that these things happen simultaneously)? As far as I can tell (when watching Memory usage in Task Manager) is that the hiccup occurs at the same time as the Memory Usage changes. And more specifically (with 0.9u-13) I think there is a point during the track load when the Memory grows large and then quickly shrinks to a lower number (as if it is releasing the previous track). I believe the hiccup occurs at the time it shrinks to the lower number.

Looking at Attended playback and native WAV files :
- When used amount of the memory grows (or just changes), the track is being read from disk (etc.).
- The very moment the time position cursor starts to move the next track is playing.
I think that is all what can be said about things to observe.

Sidenote : your copying from RAM disk will be another cpu intensive (small) task, which is not there when the file is read from disk.
Also : never mind earlier versions working OK. It is good for me as a reference, but it doesn't imply errors as such in the newer version; things are just too different, and the memory used just *is* more ! (somewhere I reasoned how much more it would be opposed to mefore). Of course, this does not happen with the Mem box checked.

Then :

This is more complex than it seems, and this is about the way dot-net (or possible Vista) deals with the memory management.
Also important to keep in mind : when the virtual memory is Off, it just won't work right. Better for you may be : won't work right anymore (?). And please don't forget : the virtual memory just IS NOT Off, but her limit is lower. So, the physical size of the virtual memory is small (2MB in my case) but the behaviour stays exactly the same ! When I tested with this, crackling occurred during the load of a track with a kind of nasty nature. No real hickup, and you could say that 30% of the sound still could be heard.

Another important thing to observe is that as far as I can tell, things are just wrong. Wrong by Vista or wrong by dot-net. You can see it for yourself :
When memory decreases, the virtual memory decreases just the same. When it grows, the virtual memory grows along with it. The correlation with the program (XXEngine3) is kind of hard (even for me), but the correlation between physical memory and virtual memory sure is there. And mind you, we talk in terms of 500MB here that is added or removed from virtual memory (hence disk !) within the snap of your fingers. Btw, it would be logical to state that the "virtual memory" showed, is including the physical memory, but that's not what the screen says ("in swap file"), and furthermore the behaviour is kind of "logic" if one thinks like this :

Physical memory in use is copied immediately to the swap file, but with lower priority. When additional physical memory is needed, all what has to be done is free it (because it's already in the swap file). Smart thinking, and all is faster now. Also try to see the correlation with "dot-net (memory) managed code", where one golden rule is on top of all : It is not you the programmer who can decide to free memory. But don't worry my boy, because all is taken care of.
It is my idea that things go wrong when memory needs to be freed from the swap file. On that matter, try to imagine that this process will have a higher priority than the process copying the data to the swap file. This is kind of logic of course. But maybe this priority (to the sense of stalling other things) isn't even important ...

To me, now, it more looks like a piece of memory (at the array level) is temporarily just not available or so. This then should happen during the process of reorganizing stuff by Vista, and which should be the case at removing in fact already not used memory from the swap file. That is, to me it became clear that the hiccup emerged at the physical memory growing larger than available, which right after that shrunk to normal proporptions. This shrinking is not caused by me (as far as I can tell) but just the notice by Vista that at needing more *that* is the time to physically free what was already freed logically.

As far as the comparison with older versions (or Mem checked) go : keep in mind that before (or with Mem checked) only the 50 MB of a 5 minute track was temporarily needed, whereas now this is 6 or 8 times more (150 - 200 MB). This is significant, *and* better noticeable by us, looking at the task maganer plot.

After I noticed that it all wouldn't work without assigning virtual memory (while all easily would fit in my 2GB of physical memory), I assigned 2 GB of virtual memory to each drive in my system.
Lastly, without my own "memory managing" adjustments, it still wouldn't work. With it does (for me).

Concluded : instead of my before suggestions (last post), you better try to assign virtual memory again. Keep in mind : Vista uses it anyway, so it shouldn't matter for SQ or whatever. But it won't run into limits this way. Thus : when Vista finds that the 2GB of physical memory will be used up, it frees memory, but IMO first whatever the amount is that doesn't fit, goes to virtual memory. Theoretically (and as to what I observed) this is the same amount as the physical memory is (2GB in my case, and which showed after shutting off virtual memory). From this by itself follows that the more than 2GB physical memory needed, will never fit in 2GB of virtual memory, combined with the philosophy (beginning of the post) that *all* physical memory will go into virtual memory as well.

Sorry for this rather unstructured post.
Peter

[Gerard]

Peter,

Do you think more memory would help?

[PeterSt]

In the very end : no, I don't think so. It would be postponing the culprit. You could run more tracks before it occurs again.
All based upon what I wrote before, and maybe that is wrong by itself ...

[PeterSt]

I had two times a hiccup myself now on a first album (just Double).

So Edward, please don't bother. I will report more if I can find a pattern.

[PeterSt]

Might you feel like trying something ... put your XXEngine3.exe aside and stuff the below in your XX folder.
I changed something which is more official according the books. I ran 1.5 album over it without problems, which - as we know - doesn't say much.

[Gerard]

Peter,

I tried... I loaded in 1 cd... But going from playlist to library is enough for bringing up the cracks. Also this came up the first time. And only 2 cd's show up in the library area.

 

[superdac]

Well, I report here for the first time, so I hope I am at the right thread with the right topic.

I have followed your site for quite some time. It is very interesting because I am very intersted in good music retreival from cd (for this moment red book 16bit only).

Reading all the comments on clicks, pops, cracks, glitches etc (in Dutch gekraak, onderbrekingen, etc).

I personally am a totalally inexpierenced person within the technal context of computer audio, only I want to have a good audio expierence with a pc and headphone dac/amp. Simple as that, but it is not so simple! At this moment I did not try your audio engine, much because I want first that other engines work at their promises within the context of Vista. After that your engine can show its bennefits to me.

At the moment my WindowsAudioPlayer and/or Foobar2000 have all the clicks and hickups or glitches etc that are described here with respect to XX. So I think the hickups, clicks, glitches, interuptions etc are not related to one specific audio engine!

Not wanted interuptions in the audio stream are reported in respect to using XXhighend, but I expierence the same sort of interuptions with the other audio engines! My setup is HP9630ed/2gb RAM/usb out/usb in Corda Aria Headphone amp/Ergo2 Headphone. Without the reported artifacts a great soundmachine for a critical listener I can asure you. Within the context of  XP Pro the USB out/Corda/Headphone never/never gave any audio problem!!!

I hear those 'glitches' in this setup (USB out), but also in the direct headphone out. Foobar or WMP makes also no difference. All glitches, hickups or other interuptions in the audio stream are at random, I never have been able to rehearse a symptom in the same setup or plase on a cd audiostream. There is no system in the symptoms. Only I have observed that changing or adding a application gives some extra hickups. For example, adding mail or internet to using audio gives a extra puch to the same symptoms. When not changing or adding other applications there is less interruption (so interacting of using more than one application at the same time withing the context of using Vista gives problems). I am waiting for Service pack I in the Dutch language for an update, but I am not sure it will help al lot.

When I looked into a article in the Guardian about Vista Audio (Jan.2008) I get a little dissapointed, but also more informed! Look for yourself at the internet, the article is published fully. The people at MS themselves disapproved the audio results of their own Vista! Look also when you google with : vista audio glitches, hickups, cratches, audio problems etc. You get hundreds of hits! In the sfere of Proffessional Audio you can get even more comments on the audio applicability of Vista. No one in that proffessional area is going to use that OS at this moment! It will become a economical disastre for them.

The point I want to make is: is it possible that you all are trying to solve a problem that is not solvable by you alone because the Vista OS context within your are trying to solve it, is at this time principally not functioning correctly for audio at the first place (that is for correct audio retreival and audio datastream) and your are not able to correct it because you can not alter the OS itself.

Let me be quite clear: I have great believe in the XXhighend engine at itself although I have not listen with it at this moment. I only think that there is a possibility that you are looking for problems and solutions in the wrong place. Possibly XXHighend is not the problem, but vista and its surroundings are the real problem.
I hope you find the solutions, so all audio engines will function correct and the XXHighend will be really the best.

Pieter.

[SeVeReD]

Superdac,
One thing to keep in mind is that in recent earlier versions of XXHE there were no pops/clicks/crack sounds.  So things have worked fine.  Peter changes things for sound quality, and these latest versions have an appeal that xxhe people are pursuing, but this "higher" audio performance is causing some "hiccups" some related some not... that's for Peter to figure out and us soldiers to help with hehe. But I'm  sure Peter will bang his head against the computer long enough to spill blood and get things fixed in a way that's good for SQ... we're in beta.  I think, if anyone has figured out/has a handle on Vista audio, it's Peter... sometimes I truely think he knows more than the individuals at MS.

Anyway, as stated, earlier versions of xxhe which you can dl, have not shown "hiccups" in Vista, and to my ears have already beaten Foobar....to a pulp.

[edward]

Might you feel like trying something ... put your XXEngine3.exe aside and stuff the below in your XX folder.
I changed something which is more official according the books. I ran 1.5 album over it without problems, which - as we know - doesn't say much.

Nope. Still hiccups.

I hear those 'glitches' in this setup (USB out), but also in the direct headphone out. Foobar or WMP makes also no difference. All glitches, hickups or other interuptions in the audio stream are at random, I never have been able to rehearse a symptom in the same setup or plase on a cd audiostream.

This is not the same thing we are discussing. I'm not talking about random glitches or dropouts. This is a repeatable interruption. Thanks anyway though.

[PeterSt]

Hi Pieter,

Thank you very much for your extended and nice reply. Indeed as others said, the hiccups (a 1 second silence) is special to the latest versions of XXHighEnd, and in the end just caused by me. You could also say : caused by my little knowledge on how the OS deals with certain (memory) situations. Whether that by itself is buggy by the OS or not is not important. Bugs are to work around (or solved when they're in your own hands).

For you I only can say that your glitches and all will be caused by your system, which doesn't say they can be solved or solved easily. All the people in here prove that audio can be completely glitch free, unless it is the player itself doing it to you, of course.
Some systems are setup in a way that they are prone to glitches (hi Chris), and some others are prone to crackling (Gerard built such a system ).

Glitches most often will come from interrupts which shouldn't be there (think of a wireless keyboard), and crackles are there because the OS draws away the needed cpu cycles from the audio driver (not the player software). Crackles therefore can be influenced by priority settings, and glitches will go away with a balanced interrupt scheme. The latter often is very hard to do, and may be incurred by a device itself. Remove (replace) the device may be the only solution.
When you indeed have glitches, what is used in here : Check to see if your computer can cause drop-outs will most probably show it.

Btw, I would not be surprised if you don't perceive glitches from XX (while getting them from Foobar) because XX works very differently from the others.

Peter