Problem with Winamp

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 11:24am

Okay, so I've just moved over a bunch of music from my old system, and naturally I wanted to enjoy listening to it all. So I downloaded the latest version of winamp to do so, but lo and behold, all of my music stutters at odd intervals. I managed to find a copy of 2.95, the more stable cousin of the previous winamp releases, and it does the very same thing.

Curiously enough, windows media player has no such problems. This leads me to believe that the problem isn't in the files themselves, but rather the media player.

Has anyone else had similar experiences, and perhaps solutions for winamp (or other media players with similar features but without the same problem)? I'd really rather not be stuck using WMP from now until the end of time.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-08-10 12:10pm

did you uninstall winamp 5 completely before reinstalling winamp 2.95? there may be some conflicting settings involved. Winamp 5 also tends to be a major resource hog compared to older version.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 12:28pm

yes, I completely uninstalled it.

iTunes and dBpower Amp players also have the same stuttering problem...this is most unsettling

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-08-10 01:08pm

Are you playing music under circumstances when the cpu is loaded? Is more than one instance running in the background?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 01:11pm

Could be, I'll fiddle around some more and see what I can't get working.

Miles Teg · Post by **Miles Teg** » 2004-08-10 03:30pm

If you have an onboard sound card on your new system, that could cause the stuttering you are talking about. If this is the case, I would suggest purchasing a cheap SB16 (or something nicer like a Audigy if you want to spend that much) anyway, since the onboard sound is total crap.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-08-10 03:43pm

Check your sound drivers.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 04:06pm

Sound card is not onboard, and the drivers are up to date. WMP seems to be the only player to be capable of consistantly playing my music without stutter with other programs running, which is unfortunate, as I do enjoy listening to my music when playing certain games (which, I should mention, I could do on my previous machine without a problem using winamp, which is why this seems so weird).

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2004-08-10 04:13pm

Try turning DirectSound off (or turn the primary buffer option ON). IME, it doesn't play well with certain sound card drivers.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 04:39pm

Where would I find those options, exactly? I can't seem to locate them in Dxdiag or winamp's own options.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-08-10 05:10pm

If you check Winamp's output plugin preference, you may be able to change away from DirectSound.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-08-10 05:52pm

Hm, there we go, I think I've got it sorted now, all seems to be operating within acceptable levels. Danke!

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-08-11 06:16pm

Miles Teg wrote:If you have an onboard sound card on your new system, that could cause the stuttering you are talking about. If this is the case, I would suggest purchasing a cheap SB16 (or something nicer like a Audigy if you want to spend that much) anyway, since the onboard sound is total crap.

That changed with the advent of the nForce chipset. Most nForceX motherboards come with onboard 6 channel audio (5.1), which is VERY nice.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-08-11 06:43pm

The analog output stage of the nForce is not that great. Its strength is the built-in DD encoding which is particularly useful when sending sound via SPIDF.