Audio Crackles and Pops (2 Viewers)

[jameson_uk]

I have exactly the same problem, soundcard is Trust 7.1

If it is the Trust card listed here
try Dogber's replacement drivers as they solved a lot of my issues when I had a CMEdia based card

 

[el Filou]

Hi, if it can help someone I've fixed my cracks and pops problem with my ATI-ASIO4ALL and PureAudio. The problem is that I'm not sure why it happened and I can only hope it doesn't happen again.

What I did was install foobar2000 and the ASIO and KS output plugins to test if it came from PureAudio or ASIO4ALL. Initially it didn't work any better than with MP (many pops with 44 kHz, 176 test sample unplayable). Just to make sure the sound interface was OK, I tested with the KS output plugin of foobar and as expected (it works perfectly with ReClock, after all) it played perfectly (if only MP had a KS output option for music ), even WAV-encapsulated DTS worked.
Out of spite after having changed every possible ASIO setting I tried changing my Windows audio control panel setting default speakers from stereo to 7.1, tried again and surprisingly it worked a bit better: still some pops and pauses but much less than before. I tried changing back to stereo and to my surprise it was still OK! To fix the remaining few pops I boosted ASIO4ALL's buffer to 2048 samples and everything was fine in the end.
Still don't know what was causing it, probably some beyond-logic quirk inside Windows' or ATI's software interface.

However I still have a tiny problem: for some reason, when coming out of standby my master volume is reset to 70%, so sound isn't bit exact anymore when I play through PureAudio=>ASIO4ALL (I use a DTS-WAV to test).
Now that I'm aware of that I can remember to adjust it back to 100% within MP after I turn on my HTPC, but it's still annoying.

Does anyone here know of an easy way I could automatically set the Windows master volume back to 100% when coming out of standby?
Previously MP had a setting to set the volume when starting, but it's greyed out now (1.0.2), does anyone know why?

And finally one question for symphy: do you consider implementing a WASAPI Exclusive output option for music for MP II ? That would be excellent as ASIO4ALL is a bit too unreliable.

 

[Symphy]

Does anybody know a 3rd party player that can output ASIO so I can check if that's coming from ASIO4ALL or from MP? Can foobar do that?

Yep Foobar can do that. Problems like this are most likely driver related (interrupt-sharing, inefficient programming). Note that ASIO4ALL also uses the factory drivers for your sounddevice, and does not control the device directly.

Efficient operation of the drivers is important when using ASIO, because only very little buffering is used. When using MediaPortal, the crackles and pops can be worse then when using other software, because MP uses quite a bit of resources.

In general, if you have a seperate soundcard, it sometimes helps to move it into a different slot. If you have a manual for your motherboard, look for an interrupt-sharing table. Make sure to put the soundcard in a slot that is NOT shared with your video card or TV card! If you have an onboard device, only thing you can do is make sure your TV card does not share interrupt with it.

And as with all things: quality comes at a price. Getting good results with cheap onboard audio devices is more a matter of luck then wisdom

 

[el Filou]

Hello Symphy! I fixed it in the end (see post above), looks like it was an unexplainable Windows/ATI software f*ckup. I didn't change any driver, software nor moved any hardware, just switched back and forth between 2.0 and 7.1 in the Windows control panel audio setting and everything was fine again.

Thanks anyway for the good advice!