Lag or stutter using WDM drivers in WINME

[davexnet]

Hello, I was wondering if anybody has found a solution, or may
have some more info re: this problem.
I see xenomorph himself has posted on this subject in usenet,
as have I, but so far, no solution.

I'm talking about a kind of stutter or pause when you use
any button that has an associated sound, such as "ding"
or "click".  Clicking on the directories in Windows Explorer
is an example.  Every now and again, you will click,
the mouse freezes for 2 or 3 seconds, *then" you here the
sound and everything is back to normal.
Cheers,
Dave

[davexnet]

I think I may have found the solution:
Take a look at this:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=94fiab%248p7%241%40news.inet.tele.dk

I became suspicious when I noticed that the tiny sounds
that were causing the PC to stutter were compressed wave
files.  For example c:\windows\media\start.wav, the sound
you get when you navigate in explorer.
I used Soundforge to uncompress it and save it as
start2.wav as regular PCM file.
I used control panel/sounds and multimedia/sounds to point
the "start navigation" item to start2.wav and problem is
resolved.
I then, for good measure, did the codec priority thing
mentioned above in case there are any more ADPCM
wave files lurking around.
Dave

[Xenomorph]

wow.. thank you!

the pause with sound in Win9x w/ WDM sound drivers always was a big pain.

ill look into both things (setting of a higher priority, and uncompressing Wav files)

[davexnet]

Hello - I found my earlier suggestions didn't solve the problem
However, I've got some clues that help to identify it more.
I noticed if you use Winamp or Media player to play a song
and then pause, as long as the player is in the paused state,
the windows "system events" sounds work just fine.

I found a post where somebody had written a small program
to run at startup that merely initialized a directsoundbuffer
and then went to sleep.  This also fixed the problem.
See here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a33vce%24dm2%241%40galileo.ticon.net&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
and here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9vlgqe%24bh7%241%40galileo.ticon.net&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
The author intended this for XP; the problem still occurs
there, but it's different.  There isn't a perceivable "lag", but the sounds will still truncate.
I tried his utility in WinME and it doesn't work as well
as it does in XP.  Still, the author supplies the source,
perhaps we can figure out what to do.
Dave
PS I opened an incident with M$.  They were very interested
in this evidence, but could not promise that it would be fixed.

[Xenomorph]

I don't think this will EVER be fixed --- not in Win9x. It's dead to MS.

If you want sound in Win9x, you really should use the VXD drivers. Besides working better, they are also slightly quicker.

Also, the WDM sound stutter isnt a CMedia exclusive like the program author said. I noticed it long before having a CMedia with my Sound Blaster PCI 128. WDM sound driver use under Win9x always lagged. WDM drivers with any sound card always lagged for me. Few use WDM drivers in Win9x though.

In Windows 2000/XP, I have NEVER noticed a sound lag issue with any drivers with any card. My CMedia has never lagged, nor has the Sound Blaster PCI 128, or the VIA AC'97 Sound Codec I'm using now (onboard sound).

I've used WDM and VXD drivers for the CMedia 8338 and 8738, Sound Blaster PCI 128 and SB Live Value, Crystal Sound (?), Ensoniq 1371, and some other cards... WDM always lagged in Win9x, but was fine in Win2k/XP. VXDs worked perfect and fast in Win9x.

[davexnet]

Hello - perhaps this is the final word -
C-media have just released version 639 of the drivers,
I installed in Windows ME, and it's a significant improvement.
The latency seems to be improved.
No need to run the previously mentioned utility anymore!
There's a related bug in WinME (no surprise there) and it
becomes a factor if you ever use standby.
When standby is initiated, Windows ME correctly enables
the "stop grant" setting, that allows the CPU to cool.
However, when awakening from standby, this bit is still
set, when it should have been turned back off.
Plays havoc with some sound chipsets!
I use pcispy to manually reset it it.
Also, thanks for the VXD info, M$ basically said the same thing.
Dave