Audio problems while Ss is running

Submitted by isher on Sat, 01/23/2016 - 11:51
Forums: 
Soulseek General Discussion

Hello, I am using the latest version and everytime it is open, the audio on my computer gets lots of glitches and weird sounds. Running Windows 7. Does anyone know what the problem is? Thanks!

Submitted by sammy123 on Sun, 01/24/2016 - 22:04.

Hi
have U checked how much load your SLSK is using? Audio is very sensitive to high CPU loads on CPU0. What OS are U running? Does it happen when U have no UL/DL running as well? CPU0 (under windows only) is there to provide any system task (like Audio) to run. When U have a 4core CPU (no matter if Hyperthreading+2real cores is there or a real 4core) 25% in task manager mean full load on CPU0. On my 8 core + 8 HT cores 7% already is critical when it hogs CPU0. Under linux it is different.
Cheers

Submitted by isher on Sun, 01/24/2016 - 22:08.

Thank you for your reply. I think I figured it out - I believe the USB 3.0 drivers were causing the problem, so i uninstalled them and the sound problems are mostly gone. Thanks again.

Submitted by isher on Wed, 01/27/2016 - 15:12.

I spoke too soon. The problem is still going on only when transfers are happening. When there are no transfers, the glitches don't happen. I am running Windows 7 and using Winamp to play music. The CPU is an Intel Core i5 2520M at 2.5 GHz. Soulseek is only running at 1-3 % CPU. Hope you can help!

Submitted by sammy123 on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 22:32.

how much load do U have (on system) when you play audio or is it video+audio? At 25% (your dual core +2 HT cores divides the 100% max load into 25% for the first core=CPU0, which is used for every thread as start for windows) typical players will start to drop infos, which you could hear, but rarely see as it just gets slower. Such things used to happen quite often when USB was used for transfering datas as USB is very load sensitive (no realtime transfer possible). SLSK is in no way RAM/CPU hungry so I'd search in the way you play the audio. Even my very big SACD rips (FLAC 5.1 4.500KBit) play smoothly on a 800MHz Athlon single core (and even two streams at the same time). When I start to watch e.g. youtube in a browser it's over with smoothness or when a FLASH animation runs and hogs all power.
Cheers

Submitted by isher on Fri, 01/29/2016 - 07:04.

There is very little load on the system. I can have only Winamp or Firefox open with one tab playing audio and as soon as transfers start in Soulseek, there will be audio problems. The problems are not limited to one program. There is something about Soulseek that is messing with the audio itself or the USB connection - I am using an external USB adapter (Creative X-Fi Go) to play audio because the audio on my machine is crap. I also never had this problem with Soulseek when I was running XP. Now that I finally have 7, I get these problems. Nothing else is affecting the audio, so there is something wrong with Soulseek. Thanks for your help.

Submitted by isher on Fri, 01/29/2016 - 11:01.

also, the problem happens with both the usb adapter and the internal sound card, so it is not a USB problem. Somehow, Soulseek's transfer processes are interfering with the audio processes. Do you know if a developer could help?

Submitted by sammy123 on Sat, 01/30/2016 - 02:10.

Hi
I'd crosscheck by using nicotine+ for testing the same procedure. For me this looks not like an SLSK problem itself but how your system is handling/controlling its resources.
Have U enabled the SLSK sounds (DL finished and such stuff)? Else disable it and restart SLSK and test again.
Cheers
Sam

Submitted by isher on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 17:09.

sounds are not enabled. I installed Nicotine+ but now it seems I need to install Miniupnp in order for uploads to reach me. The problems seemed to be worse for uploads for some reason. With downloads, i haven't noticed any glitches yet in Nicotine+. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to install Miniupnp for Windows. I've only found instructions for linux. If anyone knows, please tell. Thanks.

Submitted by sammy123 on Sun, 01/31/2016 - 22:53.

Hi Isher
it just should show the Audio problem is occuring as well. How do U forward your ports? via upnp? If not just use the same port settings as in SLSK and it should work with no addon needed. If U use upnp in Windows it could get difficult as sometimes it works plain vanilla, sometimes it's a hard time just to figure out why it isn't doing anything. So in all cases I'd I advised to man. forward it and it must work. Does the audio glitches/dropouts only happen when U are UL?
Cheers

Submitted by isher on Mon, 02/01/2016 - 08:56.

Ok, i know now that the problem is happening with Nicotine+ also, with downloads. In Soulseek, it was for both uploads and downloads, so I assume it is for both in Nicotine+ also. Anything I can do?

Submitted by sammy123 on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 07:45.

Hi
I'd guess there are more Apps causing the same problem. As under XP there wasn't one driver problems comes to my mind. XP and Vista+ uses a complete different driver base, so it is typ. completely rewritten, so different OS different problems. BUT as you have the same problems with your onboard HDA as well leaves me guessless atm. That your device is not really USB3 compatible is sth. you might already found out, but on what USB2 controller is it plugged to? (quite like the XP/Vista case, USB1/2 and USB3 share only the name in common; lot's of older USB2 devices do not even work under USB3 Hubs. The onboard HDA is still not explainable.... HDA uses the SMB to communicate with each other, which is completely independent from USB (which works via PCI only)

What U could try is using more older/younger (sound) driver instead of the version you are using now. USB2 is using since XP the EHCI driver from M$, so nothing to fear there.
Cheers