Hey Chris,

First off, your intentional blowup with Dell most probably is not going to help you. However, it *does* help you when you know IN ADVANCE what the solution is (e.g. by means of another model) hence you can point out the culprit. It just works like that.
Note that often things are so complicated that there is no way to point out the guilty instance.

Then, if your internal speakers play glitch free (on the Dell, any version), I'd say you have to look in the direction of the Firewire stuff.
Now, this is by itself a not so easy solveable thing, because there's nothing to solve; Explicit drivers from the brand you use for Firewire do not exist, so there's nothing to upgrade there. However, otoh hand it's virtually more easy, just because it should work (by the drivers MS provides).
But ...

IMO this leads to (or may lead to anyway) the Firewire PC card not being okay. For that matter, there are a few things you can check :

1.
In the Fireface Mixer (the green icon) under Options, there's "ASIO direct monitoring". UNcheck that.
Does it help ?

2.
When things are unstable in the area of Firewire, you probably can notice this by comparing with the Mixer on-screen, and the Mixer not on-screen. When you do not have it on the screen, it should be better, or even just okay.
Does it help ?

3.
Lastly, when things are not okay, the Mixer might already tell you, because it doesn't refresh the volume bars quikly enough. So they stutter.
Do they ?


Even if nothing comes from the above, I would go out and buy an new Firewire card of a complete other brand, to save myself further troubles. What comes from this is
- or it doesn't help a bit (and changes NOTHING ... mind that !) which makes you conclude the culprit must be somewhere else afterall (which would be withgoing with the above 1,2,3 didn't help;
- or it helps and you're done.

HTH

Hi there all,

As you probably have noticed, I regularly split an embedded subject from a Topic into a new Topic. For me this is kind of necessary in order to keep track of outstanding stuff. Also, please notice that today we are with a relatively small community here, but I can expect that to be larger once we are more explicitly expressing XXHighEnd exists (which could happen, say, tomorrow ).

This also implies that when you find more issues at the same time in a new version, you should please make a separate Topic for each of them. The only thing you then have to do is make the Topic Title as self explanatory as possible in order to easily find it back. For me it also helps that an issue (etc.) is associated with a poster's name, which woul be automatically arranged for then.

Of course in the end it would be more comfortable for all of us, because it's then very easy to see if "your issue" was already posted, and you could add your "I have this too !" easily then.

Thank you !
Peter

Hi Johan,

Your "sometimes" refers to tracks which are just over 6 minutes and more.
I assume that these tracks play with #1 (please let me know !!) .
I can expect that when you play an over 6 minute track with #1, and you alt-tab to another application - and back to XX, the sound stops (please let me know !!).
I think that this is coud be a bit perfect driver for XP (if you know, please let me know).

Now, firstly, there are so many issues with this chip/drivers, that it's hard to find my way in Google. I hope you can do it yourself ?

Try to focus on the driver being bit perfect, which you should NOT use, because it will make all instable (e.g. what you encounter now). Of course, you could use it for tracks shorter than 6 minutes.

If they exist, try to focus on signed drivers. You might search for drivers for Vista for more easily finding them, and they may contain data for XP, or you might have ended up on the proper webpage anyway.
Note that these will not be bit perfect then, but it's really one way or the other (or Vista/#3 ).

Please note that at your Google search you will never be able to locate the "error" you have at hand here, because of the way I treat things (which just nobody does).

Since I expect, with your current drivers, that #1 just runs (but not stable for alt-tab and back as indicated above), this might be your best bet, as long as you don't use/touch the PC during playback. Of course all depends on my estimations (above) being correct.

Peter

In the 0.8b version (but most probably all 0.8 versions so far), when run under XP, Engine #1 stopped playing after some 8 seonds.
This is now solved.

Whaaaat ?

... You're right. Hmm ... how did that happen.
Thanks Johan.

Not that I yet know what to do with it, but if you play the internal speakers ... is that glitch free ?

Johan, Upsampling is not possible for #2 as off yet. At some stage it will be though.
But you should really do that with #3 (which requires Vista).

Anyway, I will look into your problem.
Thank you,
Peter

If everything turns out as I planned ... tomorrow. 
The price ? well, I would have one night to sleep on that !
Should be less than a new Tjoeb though ...

Hey Johan,

Can you please tell which Engine and OS you use, and whether you Double or Upsample (yeah, the last both logically follow from something, but that's exactly why I ask).

Also, it is good to know which version you used in which for sure this problem is contained (easiest for me would be to say 0.8b).

Thank you !
Peter

Changes :

• Solved a major thinking error for Engine #3, incurring for tracks not to produce sound.
  (Still, it occurs to me that right after install (or probably after a reboot) it doesn't work properly for one time after the first track. )
• Therewith the playposition cursor being off more and more (now solved).
• Included error messages everywhere for those situations that #3 won't run.
• Applied "a" (!) general calibration means for sound quality, applicable to random DACs ... but which obviously can't be tested all by me.
• Tried to solve the phenomenon of the playposition cursor running, while actually there is no sound.

Good luck !

Werner,

On your subject of one yes, one not playing tracks ... I found a major thinking error in the program;
Whether that really can lead to your situation I can't determine (nor can I reproduce it), but for now I must assume it can.

So some later today a new version is coming up.

Hi Werner,

Thanks for your outlays ...

Let me first of all try to "explain" that, yes, there is a possibility that the playback quality of #3 is influenced by environmental stuff.
I only say this because it comes to me (too) that the quality is different from the one day to the other. And, I combine this with other players which are much more prone to that. In addition, I never found #1 with RME MME drivers to be unstable for this matter.

So there *is* something, and I know in which area this is, from the technical viewpoint of XX. That is *if* it is true at all that #3 is prone to be responsive to environmental stuff too. Maybe I can't tell yet, because of too few experience. For you : just keep in mind you can be just right.
For me : if this is true, I will find the means to go around it.
Anyway, please keep on reporting when you have the idea that a "bad day" is occurring again.


About the 48K ending up in hissing noise ...
You really shouldn't try this, just because I didn't test it. For that matter : please keep in mind that no one in the world is doing this currently (bit perfect in Vista outside of ASIO), and for that matter I can only tell when / if things are a bug, when I excessively tested it myself.
Also please note that things rather "officially" can be bugs, just because officially the Exclusive Mode is not supported by Vista (needed for all being bit perfect), nevermind what the MS guys say themselves. I have the MS code wherein it is excluded, and I just made that going. But to what extend ? dunno yet ...

I already found that my Fireface reports to the player that it can't do 96K 24bit, while officially it can. Is that a bug in my code ? perhaps.

Anyway, please keep on reporting all the anomalies you find, because otherwise I won't even know about them.
Thanks.

No Chris, I'm sorry, I don't know.

Google ?
Other similar tools ?

So, like I said, I guess ...

If you wonder how that by itself can happen ... yeah, well, that should be about my skills.  This is not all that much exciting, and for largest part (I think) comes from having a kind of crazy rememberance of "things" which piece by piece can turn results into better and better. Also, I have this rather strange way of just wanting - or even needing to hear what (this case) you hear. If "you" say you hear something wrong, I trust that. But next is why. I'm keen on finding out why, with the underlaying objective of improving the player. Well, once you have this attitude of doing so, it goes by automation.

Call me crazy ...

So next thing I'm eagerly wating for, is
OR you coming up with another track, because it STILL is no coincidence that both you and Werner have the same complaint;
OR Werner coming up with a track with a similar problem in it.

Also : when he does, you copied your tracks to eachother, or you both like saturated sound.
If you both like saturated sound, people who like saturated sound own a DDDac. I jump to conclusions now ? maybe not, beause
a. Klaus has a DDAC
b. he likes saturated sound.

Hahaha. I don't mean any harm with this, but if you can follow my reasoning, you can follow how I develop the player.
Btw, Vista has better possibilities for accurate sound, so that's why #3 was born, and this might be your direct answer.