Edy, i have little annoying problem, its that the sound is skipping so, if 2 songs is 100% matched when i go live, after a while it could skip and jump to other loction on the song so it will go dada..dada and not dadadada as it should be.

Is the problem that i got to little of system ram?

My system amd xp 2600, 256 ddr pc2700, 2 sound card, sb live 5.1 and sb pci128 and 780 GB. I use DJS Beta 1.2.2

Hi Maestro,

Try increasing the application's priority to "Maximum" (Settings > Advanced).

"skippings" are typically because other application or background program takes control of the CPU for a little ammount of time, but enought to make the buffer stall. With Maximum priority the internal Deejaysystem core runs at the same priority level as the operating system routines such as the mouse controller.

Regards,

Please try with the other advanced options: "Maximum sound stability", "Compatible buffer mode" and tell me if there's any change.

Compatible buffer mode has no effect on this problem. With maximum sound stability, no skipping occours, but I like to use auto gain, which switches off when turning on max.sound stability.

Anyway, this is a tipical problem of the video driver, but I don't know why. I have a quiet common radeon9600 256mb card with whql drivers. Maybe a windows reinstall should solve the problem, but I don't have time to give it a try.

Well, I must say that I'm confused with this problem. If it works with "Maximum sound stability" means that Deejaysystem can't re-fill its buffer with the neccesary speed. The only difference when enabling this option is the buffer size, which increases to 3 seconds when enabled. That's why all real-time effects are disabled: their changes would have a 3 seconds delay until they are heard.

Anyway, I've performed recently multiple optimizations to the playback engine in order to improve its performance. The new beta version of Deejaysystem Video 2.0 beta 2 (avaliable at the Beta Testing forum) uses this optimized playback engine. Please try it with mp3 and check if the problem persists.

Another question: is there any difference when playing different formats, i.e wav or ogg?

Thank you!

Another thing to try: Disable BPM counter only at the Advanced options.

Hi!

I made a little testing:

BPM counter - does not matter

formats: mp3, ogg: skips, wav low bitrate, mono: don't skips, wav high bitrate, stereo: skips.

There is no difference if I use the new beta, or djs1.5.

Maybe you can reproduce the problem, becouse it persisted in both of my systems (although both of them have radeon video cards, so maybe it matters):

1.Start internet explorer, load a quiet compex page (for example this one)

2. Start djs, load an mp3, hit play

3. Change back to internet explorer, use mouse wheel to scrolling the page up and down, or grab the window with mouse and start quickly moving around.

You will hear the music skipping. It can be becouse when doing this, its causing 100% cpu usage. (It's a bug of ie, or the mouse driver) But: there should be a workaround for this, how other software, for example atomix solve this problem? I tried it in the same situation, and it's not skipping. I don't know how it works, but I can use realtime effects, so it's not using huge buffers, or I don't know...I'm not a programmer.

Anyway, thanks for your answers, djs is still the best (and the only usable) player around, although you can't browse the net while playing live.

You're right!!

The sound skips when I use the mouse wheel for scrolling Internet Explorer, no matter the priority of the application.

I've found that it's a MOUSE problem. If you use the vertical scroll bar for scrolling Internet Explorer then the sound doesn't skip. You can aggresively drag it up and down.

My theory:

Mouse routines run at the highest possible priority Windows can offer. In Deejaysystem, when "maximum priority" is set then the playback engine runs at the same priority as mouse routines. For instance, if playback engine locks at this priority then the ENTIRE Windows (even the mouse) would lock. I've tested that.

When scrolling using mouse wheel, then it seems that the same mouse routines are which actively perform the scroll, including all video processing (hence the 100% CPU usage). Thus, the playback engine is stopped when mouse wheel scrolls IE, then the playback buffer underruns and sound skipping is produced.

Why Atomix works right? That's what we must find (I assume Atomix uses DirectSound output). Please try this: while playing a song in Atomix, then open Mk2 and try to play a song using the same device as Atomix. Use a low bitrate song at Mk2. Switch between the applications while both are playing. Tell me the results.

Thank you!

I tried what you'd said, but nothing special happened. Maybe because I have an sblive card, so multiple streams can be played at the same time, on the same device. I started a 64 kb/sec mpeg 1.0 layer 3 vbr file (not mpeg 2) on atomix, then started also on mk2. I beatmatched them, but the remain on sync until I started scrolling on IE. Or I would had played 2 different songs, a high bitrate on on atomix, and a low on mk2? Also nothing happened when switchin between them. On switching do you meen clicking on atomix's window, then on mk2's?Or sould I try using another sound card, that does not support hardware mixing? Also I'm not sure about that atomix uses DirectSound output, becouse on preferences I'm not choosing from sound sound devices, but from sound setup situations (one card, two cards, two cards and a mixer, etc)

 So that's all I can tell you at the moment, sorry for not beeing too precise, but we drunk a glass of wine with my room mate, so maybe the next week (I'll spend a few days in prague from tomorrow) I'll be back on testing..

Bie!

Hehehe, ok! Thank you!

Well, I'm also not sure about that. I think the testing should be performed in a soundcard that doesn't support hardware mixing, but from Windows XP the system threats all soundcards as DirectSound (that is, providing the ability of playing multiple sounds at once even if the applications are not using DirectSound for playback).

What I wanted to know was if Atomix uses the soundcard in a higher priority level than Deejaysystem does. When using DirectSound the application can choose the priority level it want to deal with DirectSound. Deejaysystem uses the "Normal" priority, which means that it uses the soundcard but also allows other applications to use it. The higher priority level uses the soundcard in an exclusive mode, preventing other applications to use it.

For the moment I think that the best solution is not to browse internet while DJ'ing

Enjoy your days at Prague!

Hey EDY my friend ;)

Listen to this sample and u will hear when its skips to other location in the beginng its 100% beatmatched.

My setup: amd xp 2600+ (333 FSB), 512 ddr pc3200 2 soundcards, sb live 5.1 player and sb pci 128 SOFTWARE: DJS 1.5.0 and Pioneer DJM-600 external mixer.

http://www.deejaymaestro.com/mix/sample_mix.mp3 - http://www.deejaymaestro.com/mix/sample_mix.mp3  [SAVE AS]

What to do? its very annoing if im live and its skips....

What about not to browse internet explorer while DJ'ing?

Seriously now, do you have any other program running that may be causing the skipping? I've used my laptop live many times, even using several Djs at once, Windows' File Browser, etc and the sound never (and I mean NEVER) skipped nor a single time.

I think I'll try some minor changes at Deejaysystem's playback core around the DirectSound setup. I'm not sure if this will make the difference, but it should improve reliability anyways.

Greets!

Hi!

Also when downloading heavyly with dc++ (strongdc, actually) sound skips sometimes.

I need to browse the net while playing live, because i'm often asked to play this or that song, and I can't hold every song on the world on my disk, so i use web and dc to collect them, when somebody asks

But anyway, it's definitely not a big problem.

Edy wrote: What about not to browse internet explorer while DJ'ing? Seriously now, do you have any other program running that may be causing the skipping? I've used my laptop live many times, even using several Djs at once, Windows' File Browser, etc and the sound never (and I mean NEVER) skipped nor a single time. I think I'll try some minor changes at Deejaysystem's playback core around the DirectSound setup. I'm not sure if this will make the difference, but it should improve reliability anyways. Greets!

well sometimes i do record live in the background. trying to turn of everything. i run XP Pro and all updates with SP2

Hey guys, I think the problem is FIXED !!!!

I was optimizing the inner playback core of Deejaysystem Mk in order to improve video playback performance. I reorganized some code and removed two sinchronization blocks used to coordinate multiple threads.

While I was testing the result by playing a file I suddenly found myself browsing internet with mouse wheel, reviewing word documents, and even compiling with Borland Builder WITHOUT any sound skip nor artifact !!!  (100% CPU almost all the time).

I'm very surprised as I couldn't figure out that those synchronization blocks (which are there since the first Mk-II version) would make such a difference in extreme conditions. I dind't imagine that the audio playback core could be optimized even more than it was.

If this is not a product of my imagination, then for now on all Deejaysystem players will produce a sound even MUCH more reliable and stable than never before.

Please try the fix I've just compiled for you. It's the Video player. Load a mp3 and try to reproduce the problem. Please let me know the results:

http://download.deejaysystem.com/djs/DjsVideo%20Beta%203%20fix01.zip - DjsVideo Beta 3 fix01

NOTE: Close all audio applications before opening DjsVideo. I've found than using more than one different audio applications at the same time could leave DirectSound in a "dirty" state under some circumstances. It's a rare effect (i.e. when sleeping and waking-up) but it could happen.

Nice job!

Problem fixed. No skipping anymore. No special settings, tinkering required.

Now the qustion is only, when these nice fixes will be awailable in djs MKII? A master tempo control, and winamp dsp support also would be nice

Thanks a lot Edy!

Joe

Deejaysystem Video 2.0 will be released next week.

Deejaysystem Audio 1.5.1 with this fix is scheduled to be released just after the Video version, so it's up to the time it takes me to compile, test, update docs, etc. (about two to four days after Video version is released)

Best regards!