I don’t know if it’s just my computer or if it happens to others too.
When I’m playing MP3 files, and open another program – or another browser window – or just click on a web link – it makes the MP3 stutter. Repeats the same fraction of a second of music very rapidly. Sounds like Max Headroom.
I supposed to some people this might sound cool in a DJ sort of way, but I prefer to take my music neat. Is there any way to prevent it from happening? Besides not running any other applications while the music’s playing?
I’m afraid I don’t have a solution just at the moment, but I’ve noticed this happening to me recently, as well. It seems like it wasn’t an issue in the past, so I thought of what had changed just before it started. The only thing I could think of was installing McAfee Virus Scan, which shouldn’t, if I understand it correctly, be active under normal conditions. So I’m inclined to rule that out as a cause. Since it’s upgrading time anyway, I ordered more RAM and a faster processor (I’ll be going from 64M to 190M, and from 300MHz to 500MHz, respectively) and I’m hoping that will have an effect. I’ll let you know either way. And if you come up with a solution, please post it.
Somewhere in winamps preferences, there’s a CPU priority setting. Go ahead and crank it all the way up to “Real Time.” It won’t necessarily solve all your problems, but it should help a bit.
Consarn it, I knew I should have checked BEFORE posting. winamp.com has a very, very, very tiny link at the bottom called “help and feedback”. The FAQ addresses this issue, and after tweaking, I haven’t been able to make it skip. Since their directions are rather vague, here’s the skinny: hit ctrl-p to bring up the preferences. Select options, and bump up the “process priority class”. I set mine as high as it goes. Next, down to the Output branch of Plug-ins. Select “Nullsoft waveOut plug-in” from the window on the right, and hit the Configure button. Change the buffer length to 8000ms (~8 seconds, as per the FAQ).
Ok, I did just get it to skip, exiting out of the preferences, and again when opening Hotline. But only a little bit; it’s a lot better than it was before. Perhaps upgrading will still fix it.
Thanks, typo, I tried the tweaks you indicated. Now it stutters worse than before. But coincidentally when I opened Winamp just now, it offered the upgrade to Winamp 2.72. So we’ll see if that makes any difference.
Sounds like you’re either short on memory or need to defrag your hard drive.
I’d recommend either installing more ram, or clear up more of your system ram. tweak3d.net is a pretty good place to go for advice on optimizing your setup more.
Of course, if you’re trying to run winamp on a 100 mhz pentium, then no amount of ram is going to help you.
Something that fixed a similar problem for me was to go to “Display Properties - Advanced” and enable Hardware Aceleration all the way. This removes some CPU overhead by letting the video card do the work. Of course your video card has to have the feature. I believe most do nowadays.
…there is not much you can do about it. It is an artifact of Winamp’s playback. I have tried everything to minimize/reduce it. While a faster CPU will reduce the stutter, I will still be able to get it sometimes even on a P3/933 MHz machine.
Don’t bother installing more RAM or playing with tweaks. It won’t do any good. Even on my development Uberbax, with 384 MB of RAM, it still does it. I just work around it.
This is almost 100% likely that the reason your MP3s stutter is because your sound card and your video card are sharing an IRQ. If you check your System Information (under Accessories), and look at Hardware Resources, IRQs, you’ll undoubtedly see that your video card and sound card are sharing the same IRQ.
SOLUTION: Open your case, and move your sound card to a different slot. This will give it a new IRQ. I just did this, and I’ve been opening ever damn thing I can think of…no stutter. It used to be really, really bad before I changed slots.
A good suggestion, Jman. However, in my case 4/4 PCs that stutter have their IRQs not shared. So, a worthy thing to try, but it may not be the magic bullet.
The good news is that downloading Winamp 2.72, which providentially manifested itself to me right in the middle of this discussion, seems to have cured the Max Headroom syndrome.
I also got turned onto some trippy new plugins from winamp.com, like Magic Iris, which is mindblowing. It even came with a plugin already installed called Advanced Visualization Studio, which is also very cool. Very cool.
Mojo, does the skip happen in random and different spots, or at the same location in the same song every time? I have found MP3 files thru Napster that had skips imbedded – musta happened during the original ripping process – and there’s nothing you can do about that except re-rip 'em.
I am able to play Winamp 2.65 on a 133Mhz Pentium without skipping as long as I keep the simultaneous/background tasks to a minimum. Some tasks hog the CPU a lot more than others.
Musicat, it looks to me as though it’s the demand on the CPU that makes the difference. I have not found any files that have a defect or skip in the ripping. The stutter only happens when I’m running other programs and draining the memory low.
After using Winamp 2.72 some more, I notice it isn’t perfect, it still stutters or skips a little when running other programs, but it really is an improvement over 2.65.
I’ve had this problem myself, and there are two things I fixed that resolved the problem.
First…if you have VirusShield installed, set it to scan PROGRAM FILES ONLY. This will still cause a stutter when you open applications, but that’s good enough for me. I found this out when I checked “ALL FILES” and Winamp skipped all over the place, kind of like you’re describing.
Also…do you have RealPlayer enabled in your system tray? If so, TURN IT OFF. This sucker drove me crazy for months, as it would cause Winamp to stutter every 10-15 minutes, no matter what I was doing. Somebody mentioned that this thingy tends to scan your HD and sent info back to real.com, so I turned it off and voila! problem solved.
I use an older version of Winamp (v2.5 lite) so maybe upgrading to the latest version will work too. (I’ve been meaning to do that for awhile now…)
I remembered this thread when winamp started skipping again, coincidental with my clock losing time and infrequent beeping noises from the case. These last two symptoms indicated a bad CMOS battery to me, so I replaced it. Winamp no longer skips, I’m no longer hearing beeps, and the clock seems to be running fine (but the computer’s only been on for about a half hour). So, perhaps that’s another thing to check, if you’re still having problems.
