It’s like this -
I recently installed windows XP, 1 GB of memory, a new Graphics card (Geforce 4), and new version of WinDVD (4).
My DVDs play like shit and my music isn’t so good either.
Music - In Windows media player - digital playback is crap (with clicks and stutters all the time) analogue (analog? analoge?) playback is the same.
Music - In WinDVD - digital (spdiff) playback is shite, analogue playback is absolutely fine, but lose the advantage of having a bloody 5.1 speaker system.
DVD - In WinDVD - the sound is perfect, if set to digital (spdiff) but the visual is stuttery, it’s almost like watching security camera footage, with the non-smoothness.
In the old days - when I had windows ME, 128MB of ram, and a lesser graphics card (geforce 3) things ran fine, perfect in fact! Yet upgrading everything sends everything down the toilet. This is not acceptable. I need help.
P.S. I cannot find access to a setting for DMA for the drive. I wanted to try with it turned off, see if that helps. How do I change DMA in windows XP?
P.P.S if it helps - more spec : AMD athlon 1000, mobo - unknown, sound - sound blaster live, dvd drive - LG. any other information needed - just ask.
I apologise for the swearing and the probable untidiness of this post, I am just fed up with my system and did not have the energy to compose a neater post. Lobsang
Go to the Device Manager, expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers,
choose Primary or Secondary IDE channel, depending on which one the drive in question is on, double click it, and choose the Advanced Settings tab.
Do you have the latest drivers installed for your video card and sound card?
I think so. Problem is - when attempting to install the latest, the setup programs told me to uninstall the previous. I proceded to do that, being asked afterwards to reboot. On restarting - windows put the old drivers right back, without asking me!
So I eventually just decided to install the new ones over the old ones. I am not 100% sure that worked, because, for instance, there is no icon in the ‘notification area’ for the creative mixer. When I had the live drivers installed in ME, the mixer was there. This leads me to suspect that the drivers have not properly installed.
Thanks for the DMA tip btw. I will try changing the setting to see if things improve.
I think my internet connection is causing/effecting the sound.
I changed the DMA setting, and then rebooted the computer. I then used WinDVD to play my music using digital playback via the spdif setting. It played perfectly!, no clicks, seamless playback.
Being an internet junkie I then initiated the compulsary task of dialing up to my ISP. (connecting to the internet). As soon as I did this the clicks started up in the playback of audio. I believe the IRQ of the sound card and modem are different (as they should be).
The next thing I will do is see what DVD visual playback is like without a connection to the internet.
It could be an IRQ conflict if using the modem seems to cause problems. What’s plugged into the first PCI slot next to the AGP slot? Those two often share an IRQ, depending on your mobo. Move the PCI card if you can. Also, in Device Manager, try viewing devices by connection to see if anything is sharing an IRQ with anything else. There’s really not a lot you can do about it, but it’s worth checking out.
I’m not sure if the new SB drivers include that mixer any more, actually–I don’t my Live 5.1 ever installed it.
The other big thing I see is your CPU–only a 1000? I say that because when I first upgraded to XP, doing anything that involved the display changing (opening a window, moving a card in Solitaire, anything) made my sound click. Upgrading my video card didn’t help, upgrading my sound card didn’t help, upgrading my CPU (and my mobo, since it couldn’t take the new CPU) did the trick.
If you have a software-based modem (Winmodem), it may be sucking up enough CPU power to drag down your DVD performance. Your CPU is trying to decode MPEG2 video and Dolby Digital sound, and drive a 56K modem, all at the same time.
Also, don’t assume the modem and sound card are on different IRQs without checking. Windows XP’s ACPI driver tends to do stupid things like putting all your PCI cards on the same IRQ.
Solved it (well, diagnosed it, anyway) - It is simply the fact that I am connected to th’old internet. That’s a bugger. I thought my modem was pretty good too (creative modem blaster (56k v92))