[Sabbe]

Just got my card yesterday and the quality is awsome, but I do have some problems

Alright.. I have a windows 2000 system with via kt133a chipset.. I have the pci latency "patch" installed and used to have SB Live, which worked fine.

Now I seem to have some problems with the 0404.. primarily sound cutoff. I play a mp3 in Winamp and suddenly all sound goes off, patchmix just dies. If I start the song again it plays.. for a while. Sometimes it works fine for many many songs but then it just cuts off. I just got the card and I haven't had the time to test it properly, but at the moment this problem is only limited to mp3-playing. I tested playing games for an hour and watched 48khz mpg's for 3 hours straight. Not a single pop or anything suspicious during those activities.

When I listened to music and played games same time though.. all sound cutoff after a while. Patchmix died.

I've read some posts concerning this but I'd like to narrow my problem down a bit, what do you think the problem is and what should I try? It's a bit mystical. I'll test more probably today to see the exact conditions when the cutoff happens and does it actually only happen when mp3-playing. I'm using directsound for winamp but I tried waveout too, same thing happened. Haven't tried ASIO.

My emu has 2 pci-slots between it and the agp-card. Emu has own IRQ. It is the same slot my SB Live used to occupy. And I have, of course, installed the newest (1.71) driver&patchmix-updates.

Appreciate all the help...

 

[Cthulhu]

Same problem I had

Switched to asio

Worked.

 

[Sabbe]

Thanks.. I've found a lot of info regarding this at the productionforums.. but I think your suggestion is the first bet to try.

I'm wondering about the patchmix config though, what would be the optimal sessions for me?

I think that for primary I'll have 2 basic strips with wave and asio.. 44khz. That way I can play asio winamp and play action quake2 (44khz wave) at the same time. I thought about making a send insert to I/O directly but it doesn't work if I want simultaneous asio and wave activity, right?

But for 48khz movie-watching etc I'll just have 1 wave-strip with an insert that sends it directly to I/O right?

I thought about making 2 sessions for 44khz but it's just too much, one for each khz has to be enough. The changing is easy though, I already have shortcuts for both in my desktop. At the moment I have like the default sessions with a difference of 44/48khz but after I get home I'll tweak them to optimal.. probably in the way I just described.

Unless you guys have a better idea?

 

[Sabbe]

Yeah.. now everything is working perfectly! I need to test it a lot more though, but it seems that everything is perfect. I'm using asio plugin for winamp now and it's all good.

Now I have 2 strips for 44khz.. wave L/R and asio 1/2. I still have a tiny problem with that, since my quake needs something running in the wave strip to have any sound at all. The external trigger can be shut down afterwards but something needs to be on when quake is started. That wasn't a problem when my winamp was wave but now it's asio and it's a bit tricky. Have to think of something.

Games like starcraft however worked on its own. For 48khz I have 1 strip now which is wave L/R and I have a send insert to pci output 1/2. That seems to work fine too.

What about wave volume levels? I have all the patchmix volumes at default, but what about windows wave volume? I have it in the middle now.

More testing ->

 

[Cthulhu]

Windows wave volume does nothing to the asio stream - but I put it at max and adjust the emu sound, but thats just me.

for game sound, I use a loop from the spif out of my onboard sound to the emu which I then send to the wave outs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabbe Yeah.. now everything is working perfectly! I need to test it a lot more though, but it seems that everything is perfect. I'm using asio plugin for winamp now and it's all good. Now I have 2 strips for 44khz.. wave L/R and asio 1/2. I still have a tiny problem with that, since my quake needs something running in the wave strip to have any sound at all. The external trigger can be shut down afterwards but something needs to be on when quake is started. That wasn't a problem when my winamp was wave but now it's asio and it's a bit tricky. Have to think of something. Games like starcraft however worked on its own. For 48khz I have 1 strip now which is wave L/R and I have a send insert to pci output 1/2. That seems to work fine too. What about wave volume levels? I have all the patchmix volumes at default, but what about windows wave volume? I have it in the middle now. More testing ->

 

[Sabbe]

Alright.. now I can play quake and listen to music at the same time with no problems. Using ASIO&winamp. And movies etc work perfectly also.

I do have a problem with 1 game though.. ut2004

Sound cut off after 5 minutes when playing 32 players onslaught (that is very demanding from the computer). I tried every possible configuration in patchmix and didn't help.. also changed ut2004 sound settings and changed patchmix priority, no go.

I thought that this must be an issue with either windows resource allocation or pci latency.

But then, I found that someone managed to fix this by changing the foreground/background priority boost setting in windows. I changed that one to background and vola, ut2004 sounds almost work. Now I can play a smaller game like 24 players for almost 30 minutes without any soundcuts and even the 32 players onslaught lasted for 10-15 minutes. That's an improvement I can live with.. but it's still unacceptable in the long run. For now it's fine.

Today I will try to increase patchmix base priority since now background/foreground have the same priority boost (0) so increasing patchmix priority to high moves it up the priority ladder, higher than ut2004. Previously I tried the priority boost but I think it didn't work because ut2004 (as the foreground program) already had "high" priority compared to background programs.

If you guys have any ideas, keep them coming.

 

[morphie]

Disable ASIO while playing games? lol... That seems like the most reasonable answer to your problem imho...

 

[Sabbe]

That's not the issue.. as I said I've tried every reasonable configuration in patchmix including using only wave strip and using send/not using and having 44/48khz and all the variations between those configurations. That didn't make any difference whatsoever.

The issue is most likely a problem with windows processor time scheduling / pci latency / emu drivers. There is nothing to be done regarding the emu drivers.. new version is coming soon though, I hope it works better. PCI latency "should be" fine, but I haven't done any tests with it. Windows processor prioritysetting really helped a lot and I'll try to raise the base priority also today. We'll see what happens...

 

[Svperstar]

Pick up an Audigy 2 and use the Digital out to go to the EMUs digital in. Then set windows to use the Audigy as default sound and only use the EMU for music.

Then you get EAX and still the quality of the Audigy for games.

Works for me

 

[Sabbe]

I know the easiest way would probably be to get another soundcard to handle gaming, but advanced gaming isn't that important.. I mostly play action quake2 and starcraft: brood war at the moment and both work great. And even ut works in a way that is "acceptable".

I will try everything to make 0404 work first before I do anything else. I have like 95% operation right now.. music, movies and my favorite games seem to work fine but there are other games I play occasionally like UT2004 that is not working 100%, yet.

There are many people who have had no problems with any games using only emu 0404 so I'm very far from quitting. I want advice concerning emu 0404, I don't need advice about other soundcards.

 

[orkan70]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabbe I know the easiest way would probably be to get another soundcard to handle gaming, but advanced gaming isn't that important.. I mostly play action quake2 and starcraft: brood war at the moment and both work great. And even ut works in a way that is "acceptable". I will try everything to make 0404 work first before I do anything else. I have like 95% operation right now.. music, movies and my favorite games seem to work fine but there are other games I play occasionally like UT2004 that is not working 100%, yet. There are many people who have had no problems with any games using only emu 0404 so I'm very far from quitting. I want advice concerning emu 0404, I don't need advice about other soundcards.

Best Sabbe,

Doe you have any experience with a good headphone on your new soundcard ?

Has E-MU 0404 a headphone amp ?

Thanks in advance ?

 

[Sabbe]

Back to square one with ut2004

Today my record was 20 minutes of uninterrupted play but usually it was more like 5 or less. I tried everything I could think of.. changing sound acceleration priorities, windows priorities and changed the pci latency settings like hell and no result.

Now there seems to be 3 options.. either someone gives me new tips or I wait for the new driver or I enable my integrated soundcard as secondary. I have no real need to play ut2004 at the moment so I'm all good for waiting, but it's still bothering me that there is something I can't do properly.

Sad day

 

[j8x]

You say you have a KT133a chipset. What's the cpu? RAM? Video card? I checked the other replies but couldn't find where you list anything other than that. From all the "info" you've given it's probably a P3 or an older Athlon. If that's the case then to be honest you might be trying to do too much with a system that is too old. Don't get me wrong, from what you describe about tweaking your latency you're a little more advanced than some, but you want to decode mp3s and play games at the same time on a sound card that wasn't really meant for that. If you got it working good with running games just by themselves you've done pretty good, but to use more cpu time to process mp3s during a game can bog down anything even up to a 2.4 ghz cpu. Now, if I have the wrong idea here about your situation let me know, I'm just going on the information you've given.

 

[Sabbe]

Well, first of all. I only play MP3's simultaneously with 1 game, which is an old quake2-mod.. I have no problem playing the game and playing mp3 at the same time. But I do have a problem playing ut2004 (I do not play mp3 during UT, forget mp3).

My specs are:

XP2400+@2700+ (system is very stable)
GF6800LE@almost GT (also very stable)
512 SDRAM
2 harddrives (160gt 7200rpm, 80gt 5400rpm samsung)
2 ethernet network cards (the only pci cards besides EMU)
emu 0404

I had a quick test of starcraft and that also seems to work fine. My (at the moment) favorite games do work, but ut2004 ons is like 10 times heavier game than those 2 combined. I just said that to emphasize that it's very much possible that there are many other new games that will cut sound with my current configuration.

 

[Cthulhu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabbe Well, first of all. I only play MP3's simultaneously with 1 game, which is an old quake2-mod.. I have no problem playing the game and playing mp3 at the same time. But I do have a problem playing ut2004 (I do not play mp3 during UT, forget mp3). My specs are: XP2400+@2700+ (system is very stable) GF6800LE@almost GT (also very stable) 512 SDRAM 2 harddrives (160gt 7200rpm, 80gt 5400rpm samsung) 2 ethernet network cards (the only pci cards besides EMU) emu 0404 I had a quick test of starcraft and that also seems to work fine. My (at the moment) favorite games do work, but ut2004 ons is like 10 times heavier game than those 2 combined. I just said that to emphasize that it's very much possible that there are many other new games that will cut sound with my current configuration.

Are the hard drives Sata?

The problem is the E-mu has not the greatest handling of the PCI bus. If something else has not the greatest handling of the PCI bus, the sound cuts out because the E-mu gets starved.

With my computer the issue is the sata hard drive controller and the E-mu, with yours it may be the network cards or the SATA controller (if you have an N-force 2 board)

I use the onboard sound with an optical cable to the e-mu;s optical in to circumvent the issue for games. You get the onboard sounds always workingness, and the E-mu's DAC.