[Chri5peed]

Wow, I just had an epiphany!

It doesn't matter if you get the best soundcard out, if you intend to use your computer to listen to music, as well as browsing, you need a pretty quick thing.
I remember on my old thing if I used Winamp while I was doing something else the music would skip sometimes. That was with 2.4AMD + 768MBs RAM too.

I didn't realise but I just bought a dear soundcard and I'd be royally pissed if it skipped a lot. Luckily this PC is running a 3.7AMD64 + 2GBs RAM in dual-channel, so no problem there...

Wow I reckon this is a consideration you need to think about.

 

[claymon]

well, that's fringing a little on the common sense, obvious side - don't ya think? Surely that wouldn't be an unidentifiable problem to such a tech-savvy crowd as this!

 

[Zorander]

Depends on what other "things" you are doing with the computer. I listen regularly on an old PIII 1GHz (w/ 512MB SDRAM) machine that works as both music server, TV-Out station as well as internet terminal. It works flawlessly with no skips at all.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by claymon well, that's fringing a little on the common sense, obvious side - don't ya think? Surely that wouldn't be an unidentifiable problem to such a tech-savvy crowd as this!

Well, I don't think 2.4AMD/768RAM is a particularly slow computer, but it probably would have been.

I think its prevalent to not think a soundcard will necessarily solve all your problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zorander Depends on what other "things" you are doing with the computer. I listen regularly on an old PIII 1GHz (w/ 512MB SDRAM) machine that works as both music server, TV-Out station as well as internet terminal. It works flawlessly with no skips at all.

Yes, another good point. So a work PC might not be ideal as a music source, unless overly powerful.

 

[terrymx]

nah i dont think so at all. if i just listen to music and browse 1ghz and 512mb is fine. provide that you keep everythign running smooth, defragged harddrives, not too many progs running in the background.

i'm calculating it base on how much of a clean computer i keep and mp3 listening.

but if you have alot of background programs running or resamplign stuff to 96khz or 192khz for example, then more speed is necesary. also depending on the program you use to listen to music. foobar doesnt cost that much power thats why i like it. Eqing and other DSP turn on also require more power.

 

[CSMR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed Wow, I just had an epiphany! It doesn't matter if you get the best soundcard out, if you intend to use your computer to listen to music, as well as browsing, you need a pretty quick thing. I remember on my old thing if I used Winamp while I was doing something else the music would skip sometimes. That was with 2.4AMD + 768MBs RAM too. I didn't realise but I just bought a dear soundcard and I'd be royally pissed if it skipped a lot. Luckily this PC is running a 3.7AMD64 + 2GBs RAM in dual-channel, so no problem there... Wow I reckon this is a consideration you need to think about.

Maybe the music thread didn't have a high enough priority?

 

[sgrossklass]

With Winamp's main priority set to high and the output plugin's priority adjusted if needed (and the right buffer sizes and number of buffers, of course), playback should be free of skipping. My main rig only has 2 PIII-500Es and 704 megs of oldschool SDR SDRAM, no probs.
Winamp 5.13 (priority: high) - out_asio dll v0.51 SSE w/ 15 buffers, thread priority time critical - ASIO4All with buffer size 672 samples, hardware buffer OFF, 3 kernel buffers - "Prodigy 7.1" drv 2.18

 

[maarek99]

Yeah, well...I ran a 200 mhz pentium and it worked well with mp3's. No skipping.

 

[RichA]

Going back a fair way now, but I was able to listen to mp3s flawlessly on a Pentium 75 overclocked to 100mhz. The difference between 2ghz and 5ghz is insignificant in comparison to how much processing power is needed to play music properly.

Heck, I've just dropped my CPU down from 2ghz to 1.6ghz so I can lower the voltage, with a view to running it slow enough to not justify a fan on the CPU heatsink when I can be bothered to play some more. If you're not gaming, then anything over 1ghz is rather wasted most of the time.

Then again, I know nothing. Where am I?

--Rich