Playing Music + Playing game - High CPU usage

shwaip

Whenever I try to play a game and listen to songs (flac and m4p songs mostly), the songs tend to skip or just don't play. I check the cpu usage, and if I give winamp a higher priority than the game, it plays fine, but winamp uses ~50% cpu. If I don't have a game running, winamp is always under 5%.

Specs:

NF7-s 2.0
Barton @ 2.3 GHz
2 GB RAM, PC 3200 CAS 2.5
x800xt AIW
XP SP2

I have a couple of guesses as to the reason:
Poor programming on winamp or the game - causing a race condition.
The onboard sound can't handle it.

I have the latest chipset and sound drivers.

maximusbad

try disabling the sound in the game and listening to the music.

NLichtman

This, most likely, is relevantly due to the fact that every time one tries to use Window Media Player it eats up the CPU Usage for some strange reason while trying to run other things...

maximusbad

if you look, he said he was using winamp, not windows media player. when i'm listening to music and playing WOW i disable the sound in game and don't seem to have any problems with skipping.

GrayFox

I notice the same problem in neocron with every media player ive tryed ... I just started trying to live with it.

shwaip

maximusbad - I'll take a look at it when I get my computer up and running - It's currently leak testing because I added a gpu block and radiator.

I see that you have an SB Live. As a test, can try setting up winamp (assuming that that's what you use) to output to the onboard sound on your board (if it exists)? I think it's an option in preferences>plugins-output>DirectSound. If you can set that up, can you see if the music still skips with sounds enabled in WOW.

checkmate - I am using winamp.

grayfox - what kind of sound card are you using? Brand and onboard/add in card please.

maximusbad

sure i can check that out later for you when i get home from work