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Old Pentium machine gets jitters playing MP3s
racketboy - Jul 18, 2003

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  racketboy Jul 18, 2003
I have an old Compaq Deskpro w/ a P166/128MB/120GB running Win2K that I want to use as File Server/MP3 Player

It also has an ISA SB AWE64 card and I'm using Winamp 2 (also tried WMP).

I just did a fresh install of Win2K and only have Winamp installed on top of that.

The problem is that I'm getting some minor jitters when playing back MP3s. (I tested the same MP3 on a newer machine and had no problems)

I tried overclocking the CPU to 200Mhz and 233Mhz and it didn't seem to help. I have a 266Mhz Laptop and it seems to play them fine if I remember right.

I watched Task Manager while I played.

It never seems to reach 100% CPU usage, but whenever there is a jitter is jumps from approx 20% to 60%

I even tried putting Winamp's priority to High.

Are there any other opimizations I can make to resolve this problem?

BTW, I kinda need WA and not something else since I have a plugin to control it over my network through a nice Web interface

 y2kzorak Jul 19, 2003
This is what I would do, in no set order:

1. Get the lastest drivers for the sound card if you don't have them.

2. Possibly reinstall the sound drivers altogether.

2. Move the sound card to a different slot, if you can. IRQ conflicts are the pits.

3. If all else fails, .

But you say you're having problems with both WMP and WinAmp, so it's likely there's a driver problem causing the headaches. I suppose getting the latest DirectX drivers wouldn't hurt either. Speed won't make a difference when drivers aren't right.

Of course, if you've done all this already, then please disregard everything I've just said.

 ExCyber Jul 19, 2003
Also make sure your hard drive is using DMA (usually enabled by correct ATA drivers for your chipset). PIO transfers normally shouldn't incur a big penalty but on an older system if WinAMP/WMP/the Windows memory manager decides to swap a large enough chunk at once it might take away enough CPU time to cause jitter.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Jul 19, 2003
I recall that my pentium 90 couldn't handle mp3's... dunno if that offers any insight lol.

 Curtis Jul 19, 2003
Yeah I'm having this problem with my old P2-233. In my case it is somehow related to what is happening on screen. Ie if there is lots of graphics activity (moving windows, even the scrolling track title and the little graphic display in winamp does it) then you get jitters. My current GC is an S3 Trio 32+ and I have an old ISA SB16.

It also does this if I use XMMS under linux.

Try reducing the player to winshade mode (you know, turns it into a little strip) and turn off all the other moving graphical features.

As an aside, my old P90 laptop used to play MP3s fine - even when I was using word.

 Jurai Jul 20, 2003
Sounds like a slow hdd problem personally

Also, try decreasing the output buffer

 racketboy Jul 20, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Jurai@Jul 20, 2003 @ 11:36 PM



 Sounds like a slow hdd problem personally


I don't think a new 120GB 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda is slow

 racketboy Jul 20, 2003
I can't seem to get the HD to use DMA in Win2K

Here's a screenshot of Device Manager...

What do I need to do to fix this?

 Curtis Jul 20, 2003
You haven't done something silly like put a CD-Rom on the same IDE channel have you?

 racketboy Jul 20, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Curtis@Jul 21, 2003 @ 01:14 AM



 You haven't done something silly like put a CD-Rom on the same IDE channel have you?


no other IDE devices are present -- just hard drive

 Curtis Jul 20, 2003
Three possibilities occur to me:

You have a dodgy IDE cable that does not support DMA speeds (is there such a thing?)

Compaq in their infinte wisdom, decided that DMA was useless and picked a motherboard that did not support this. AKA, you're stuffed.

Windows 2K does not know how to use the IDE interface properly. You might be able to find an updated driver set for your motherboard on the Compaq website, or through some other third party driver sites.

You could also buy a PCI HD controller - that should fix the problems with DMA.

 racketboy Jul 20, 2003
Well just to let you know, I'm using the cable that came with the new Segate Drive.

Would a new controller be worth the investment, even if it isn't the root of my MP3 problems?

 Curtis Jul 20, 2003
Probably. If you are using it for a fileserver, you should notice some fairly major speed improvements with DMA enabled. Additionally, you'd be able to use the full ATA100 speed of your new drive with a PCI card, although the performance of PCI HD controllers isn't as good as onboard devices.

 racketboy Jul 20, 2003
Well I fixed the jitters problem

I found AWEAmp -- a plugin for Winamp that does some low-level work with the AWE64 cards. I boosted up the buffer on its settings and now my music is as smooth as butter.

BTW, the buffer on Winamp's basic controls didn't make a difference.

On the note of the IDE controller, would it really make that much of a difference considering the speed might be limited by the speed of the network.

I could be terribly wrong though since I can't remember basic transfer speeds of different stuff

 HimuraD Jul 21, 2003
jesus, are me and rabbit the only ones with decent comps?

EDIT: ok, rabbit explained this was a dumpster pc. it makes a lil more sense, but shiz, you coulda taken an 80 and at least got a low end xp and and low end amd board for it.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Jul 21, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by HimuraD@Jul 21, 2003 @ 01:31 PM



 jesus, are me and rabbit the only ones with decent comps?


OUCH ;

edit: besides, I'm sure Jesus has a better computer than me ^_~

 racketboy Jul 21, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Scared0o0Rabbit+Jul 21, 2003 @ 08:37 PM-->
QUOTE(Scared0o0Rabbit @ Jul 21, 2003 @ 08:37 PM)
 
QUOTE(racketboy @ Jul 21, 2003 @ 04:45 PM)