Arch Linux

CraigGB

Member

Registered: 2009-04-15

Posts: 2

Jumping Audio Really Bugging :(

hi, i have arch installed and fully set up, using kde and gnome and encounter the problem on both, when audio is played its fine if i don't do anything at all, however as soon as i do anything i will get a jump every so often in playback, im using alsa and this is the last issue i have and its really bugging me, sorry this is a bit brief however if information is required i will be happy to give it

many thanks for any help
Craig

CraigGB

Member

Registered: 2009-04-15

Posts: 2

Re: Jumping Audio Really Bugging :(

please anyone?, it works fine in other distros so it must be fixable

Last edited by CraigGB (2009-04-16 09:47:04)

sonoran

Member

From: sonoran desert

Registered: 2009-01-12

Posts: 192

Re: Jumping Audio Really Bugging :(

What apps are you using to play sound? I mostly use Audacious to play files. In Audacious preferences there are settings for output plugin, sampling rate, and buffer size. If the apps you use have something similar, you might try adjusting these to see if you can lighten the load on your cpu.

For the output plugin buffer size, for example, the default setting is 500 milliseconds, and a note says "increase this value if you are experiencing audio skipping."

For the sampling rate converter you can adjust both the rate itself and the type of interpolation - best, medium, fastest, etc. You might not need it turned on at all, depending on what you are playing. For .flac files I play from my hd I turn it off, and cpu load drops considerably.

I dumped Alsa when I discovered that OSS v4.1 only used 5-6% cpu, while Alsa required 20-22% to play the same file. Follow the Wiki instructions to install OSS v4 - they are very good.

In Gnome, the Alsa-Pulse Audio combination is particularly cpu intensive - I was getting gkrellm cpu readings of 56% just to play a file, which is what led me to look at OSS. (I ended up dumping Gnome as well, too bloated and slow on my AMD 64 3000+)

Hope this is of some help.