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Topic: "Skipping... Possible causes and solutions" WIN XP - Page: 1

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DJ CocoPRO InfinityMember since 2003
Hi,

Here you have a small list of some tweaks you can try to get the best performance of VirtualDJ in Win XP.
If you are using VirtualDJ and you don´t have any problem, so i suggest you to do not do anything of this.
But if you are having the skipping problem, you could try this list of suggestions:

* Make sure you have Win XP drivers for ALL your hardware and software

Install the last DirectX version (from microsoft website)

update your video and sound card(s) drivers

* Just like Win2K, XP likes RAM. We recommend a minimum of 256 for XP, and with RAM so cheap, get 512 (minimum)!!!

Be sure your RAM is working well. You can test your RAM downloading this windows´ aplication:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

* Try using smaller files (in kb).

* Make sure Visual Effects are set to "Best Performance":
VisuaL Effects are the fancy new animations XP uses for opening and closing windows and dialog boxes on your VGA screen. These effects waste valuable system resources and they can conflict with the XDV GUI. Here is how to turn them off.
Right-click on the My Computer icon, select Advances, click the Performance "Settings" button, you'll see a new tab Visual Effects and then An Advanced tab.
Click the Visual Effects tab. Once there select adjust for best performance. This will allow the best format for processing performance of your video desktop display.
Once completed hit Apply and proceed to close out and reboot (select yes) if prompted to.


* Don't upgrade over your old OS, install fresh.

* Hard Drive Mode Settings:
Most should know this but we will note this one for those that are new . DMA (Direct Memory Access) allows your Hard Drives or CDROMs to access memory directly, thereby freeing up CPU resources. The drive transfer rates will be much faster. You can enable DMA on a per channel basis, and all devices on that channel have to be DMA capable, but most drives these days are (although some CDROMs may not be). To enable DMA, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, Device Manager, click on Devices such as "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers." Double-click on the controller you want to enable, and in the properties window that appears, click the Advanced Settings tab. Each device has a "Transfer Mode" that you can change to "DMA if available." Choose that setting to enable DMA. PIO Only is much slower than DMA transfer rates & the Page File (discussed later) benefits from a faster data transfer rate, assuming the hard drive(s) support it. Go back to devices and change any other ones available and then Click Ok & reboot your system for the changes to take effect

* Processor and Memory Usage:
Right-click on the My Computer icon, select Advances, click the Performance "Settings" button, you'll see anew tab Visual Effects and then An Advanced tab. Click Advanced tab and you will notice A section that says Processor Scheduling and Memory usage. In the Processor scheduling select Programs (for Best Performance). This gives priority for running programs. NOTE: At this point, many users has reported that selecting Best performance for background task they got a better performance. So you can try both and see the results. Now on Memory usage select Programs. Again this gives programs priority to run programs from you memory. Now hit Apply and go to the next item before closing out and re-booting. Memory Usage: Virtual Memory: Press Change...
Depending on how much RAM you actually have is what you are going to enter here If you have 256MB RAM set this to 512 for Min and Max If you have 512MB RAM or higher set this to 384 for Min and Max Restart your machine at this point in time... When you come back the first thing you should do is defrag the main drive even if it doesn't say it needs it. This way the swap file has been truly

Turn off CD AutoPlay
Go to Start->Run->gpedit.msc
Computer Config -> Administrative Template -> System
Double click Turn off AutoPlay
Enable it.


Control Panel>Double click Sounds and Audio Devices...Go to the Audio tab
Set the Playback and the Recording settings to either
Your built in soundcard or a SoundBlaster(If Applicable) Check Only Use default devices down below
Go to the Sounds tab
Under Sound Scheme choose No Sounds
Press No to saving the previous Scheme
Hit Apply


* Visual Effects Setting:
Right-click on the My Computer icon, select Advances, click the Performance "Settings" button, you'll see a new tab Visual Effects and then An Advanced tab. Click the Visual Effects tab. Once there select adjust for best performance. This will allow the best format for processing performance of your video desktop display. Once completed hit Apply and proceed to close out and reboot (select yes) if prompted to.

* Disable automatic updating:
To save memory and CPU time turn off the automatic update system in windows. You can always check manually for updates. Open control panel. Click on performance and maintenance. Click on System. Then click on the automatic updates tab and select Turn off automatic updating. Click Ok.

* Turn Off System Restore:
Although System restore can be somewhat beneficial it takes a lot of space, XP allocates 10% of your partition to System Restore by default, and if you have a large drive, you can be losing lots of space can tie-up HD. It will also affect access time (turning off it will increase Window Performance). You can change a variety of options for System Restore. To get to it go Right-click on My Computer, click Properties, and choose the System Restore tab. In this window you can completely disable system restore (which I recommend)

*Clean Your Prefetch Folder Out:
This is unique for WinXP. All of us know that it is necessary to periodically clean the registry and TEMP files in WinXP. After using XP for some time, the “prefetch” directory can get full of junk and hold obsolete links. Too much junk can slow down your computer noticeably. I suggest: open C (system drive) go to the Windows folder and click on the “Prefetch” folder. Set the explorer view for details (to see all file information). Delete those junk and obsolete files and reboot. It is a good idea that you at least check this every month.

* Disabling Background APPS from Startup:
Background applications can destroy performance in several ways. The only applications you want open are your music application, your sound cards driver application (if any), System Tray, and Explorer. To get a glance at programs running in the background you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del. Then you will have to select Task Manager and then select the Application tab after pressing Crtl + Alt + Del. You can also use a utility called msconfig.exe. Click on the START button and select RUN. Type in msconfig.exe. When the msconfig utility opens, select the Startup tab. Here you can deselect all programs that start-up automatically when you power on the computer.

* IRQ sharing conflicts:
IRQ sharing conflicts can cause numerous problems with digital audio playback such as Pops, Clicks, Stutters, Freezes, and Error Messages. IRQ stands for Interupt Request. For each CPU in a computer, there are 15 IRQs. Each device is assigned an IRQ by the Motherboard and/or Windows. In Windows XP there is a utility called msinfo32.exe that is used to identify if your computer has an IRQ sharing conflict. Click on the START button and select RUN. Type in the word msinfo32.exe (You can also access msinfo32.exe by clicking on the START > PROGRAMS > ACCESSORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS > SYSTEM INFORMATION). In the left side of the msinfo32.exe window, Click on the + sign next to Hardware Resources. Below Hardware Resources, select IRQs. In the left side of the screen find your Sound Card in the list. Just to the left of the Sound Card is the IRQ number. Your computer has an IRQ sharing conflict If the same number appears with another device such as the Graphics Card, Network Card, or SCSI controller card. If there is IRQ sharing with something called 'ACPI holder for PCI steering', this is not considered a conflict. A way to fix an IRQ sharing conflict is:
Turn off the computer and unplug the power cable. Open up the computer case and physically remove the card from the motherboard and place it into a different PCI slot. Check msinfo32.exe for changes.

* Reduce the Hardware Acceleration:
Some Graphic cards require that you reduce the Hardware Acceleration in order for Digital Audio to playback smoothly while the graphics change on screen. Technically speaking, the graphics card can 'hog' the bandwidth from the Audio card while trying to stream digital audio.
In Windows XP, you would select START > SETTINGS > CONTRL PANEL > DISPLAY. Select the 'SETTINGS' tab, click on the advanced button. Select the tab labeled 'TROUBLESHOOT'. Move the slider all the way to None, click on OK or CLOSE, and restart the computer. If everything sounds good, try increasing the slider one-by-one until there is a workable balance between graphics and audio performance.

* Turning off Windows XP services:
Windows XP uses services that run in the background as well. Services are different than programs, however, in that they provide services to programs. There are some services that most DAW do not need active and we can turn them off to free up memory and make the boot-up time faster. You can do so going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. Look for any unneeded service with automatic startup type, and change it to manual. With this setting, the service will not start automatically at Windows startup, but can be started if needed.
===>Typical services that might not be necessary:
-Distributed Link Tracking Client (networking, tracks file transfers across NTFS volumes for computers in NT domains)
-DNS Client
-IPSEC Policy Agent (networking, to manage IP security)
-Remote Registry Service
-Task Scheduler
===> Additionally, if you aren't using a LAN (local area network), you should be able to disable:
-Computer Browser (networking, to list computers in a LAN)
-DHCP client (networking, to get automatically the IP address and DNS from a DHCP server)
-TCP/IP NetBios helper (LAN)

*When you load a new song in one of each decks, let VirtualDJ scans the whole track before playing it.

* Disable firewalls or antivirus you may have installed.

* Use the easy (basic) skin instead of using the advanced one.

* Do a defrag of your HD frequenlty

* Do not use bigger files if you don´t have enough RAM

* Update DirectX from microsoft website

* Check that your using your sound card drivers: Maybe your default DirectX driver might be an emulated driver instead of your realsoundcard driver. Go in the option window of Virtual DJ and in the sound cardoption, select the correct driver.

* Record in MP3 instead of WAV !

* Try to understand that the problem comes from your PC, not from VirtualDJ !

* Also read this forum topic:
here



I´ll try to post more tweaks soon...

Bye,
DJ Coco
Support Team

Note: I´ve tested all this tweaks and all of them works great on my pc. I can´t assure you that it will work on every pc so i suggest you to do a backup before changing anything. Just in case.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 1:54 am
DJ CocoPRO InfinityMember since 2003
Besides, let me know what is your opinion about what i posted and feel free to write any suggestion.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 7:14 pm
jukesyPRO InfinityMember since 2003
As an addition to that I would say that the skips occour most when you processor gets overworked and warms up.
This usually happens after around 3 hours of heavy useon most computers.

By heavy useage I mean for example plating Champ Manager where the PSU is constantly reading and writing to memory for three hours. Using VJ where data is being read very quickly in large amounts all the time.

Try turning your computer off after long periods of useage for just a couple of minutes and then restart this helps cool the processor. In addition for all of you that leave your pc's on 24 hours a day. Don't it ruins the processor.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 7:22 pm
DJ RickPRO InfinityMember since 2003
Mine hasn't been turned off in over 6 years, Booting and re-booting is probably harded on your processor than leaving it on.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 9:40 pm
jukesyPRO InfinityMember since 2003
its not the case

Its like stressing steel or an elastic band. The more you turn iton and off the more stress it can take. After all it is a silicon computer chip which conducts electricity. You turn it on and off: it gets hot and cold and gets used to the extremes.

Making it less likely to burn out when it gets one big hit of heavy work. (there is logic there)

Obviously there is a breaking point though as with anything.

PS. You have had the same computer for six years!

And you can run VJ on it now!!

Wow, you must have been working for the secret service or akin to get a computer that powerful in 1997.

LOL!
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 9:48 pm
DJ RickPRO InfinityMember since 2003
LOL...
I've done several upgrades over the past 6 years...

but by no stretch of the imagination can I say it's the same computer.

However, I never have turned it off and on. Once it's built, it stays on.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 10:02 pm
I see I'm not the only one with the skip problem.
 

geposted Mon 11 Aug 03 @ 10:14 pm
stuxxxPRO InfinityMember since 2003
thanx Coco

I run XP on one of the lapy's i work live with.

I will look into your suggestions

what about w2kpro any suggestions for that o/s

Stu
 

geposted Tue 12 Aug 03 @ 2:09 pm
nscodeHome userMember since 2003
jukesy, it is not a good idea to turn PC off for a few minutes. If you do that the air temperature will actually rise for a short time, becose the fans are no longer puling out the hot air.
It is better to send it to suspend mode (if it works), CPU will be turned off, but the fans are still runing. Or, if you are running on XP or NT just leave for a few minutes without doing anything, even tuching the mouse. These systems turn off parts of CPU that are not working. In a few minutes you will see themperature droping. Win98 users can download programs like Waterfall or CPUIdle to get this affect.
 

geposted Tue 12 Aug 03 @ 4:06 pm
djxsHome userMember since 2003
Hi, im having a few problems with skipping sound and i noticed from your directions about IRQ settings that there are a few devices using IRQ 11 on my system. You state that if this happens, u should remove the PCI card and reinsert it so that Windows re-assigns it to a new IRQ. But what do you do if it's a laptop you're using and u can't remove hardware which is part of the motherboard? I've tried changing the IRQ settings for my soundcard but they're ghosted out. Any ideas on how to do this manually? Thanks for all the help! :)
 

geposted Tue 04 Nov 03 @ 6:42 pm
DJ CocoPRO InfinityMember since 2003
does you Sound Card share an IRQ ?
 

geposted Tue 04 Nov 03 @ 7:31 pm
djxsHome userMember since 2003
Yeah, the soundcard on both my laptops share IRQ port 11 with numerous other things including the graphics card, USB controller, PCI cardbus controller, modem & network connection, even though there are free IRQ ports?!
I take it this is probably where my problem is but how do you change the IRQ port for a certain device? When you click on a device in the device manager and go into its properties, then resources, it has 'use automatic settings' and 'change setting' ghosted out. But it says down the bottom 'No conflicts'. Any ideas how to change IRQ settings manually? Cheers for replying :)
 

geposted Wed 05 Nov 03 @ 6:11 am
AS a very knowledgeable PC techman computers aren't really made to be turned off...But it is very important to reboot atleast every 24 hours...When you reboot it gives your PC that refreashed state and it performs a POST at reboot which is good to make sure all is well...the list gos on why not to turn on and off computers all the time but thats next weeks class...lol
 

geposted Wed 05 Nov 03 @ 12:51 pm
yourtPRO InfinityMember since 2003
One more tip: press CTRL+ALT+DEL and in the services tab go to "virtualdj.exe" and (for Hercules djconsole usres) djconsoleCPL.exe, rightclick and set priority to high to make sure resources go there first (you can even set it to realtime, but upgrading your hardware seems a better thing to do in that case).
 

geposted Thu 27 Nov 03 @ 3:18 pm
djxsHome userMember since 2003
Yeah, im still getting a few clicks and skips here and there. I need to find out how to change the IRQ settings another way than through the Device Manager... anyone got any ideas?
 

geposted Thu 11 Dec 03 @ 5:00 am
Yeah,

If the pops&stuff is really annoying, goto the settingsmenu in V-DJ, into the "General"-tab.

There's a button, called"Max load"
Set it to 'none' (or 'Nothing', or something like that. I have the Dutch version), or max. to 5mn (5minutes).
Try & see if it still makes these pop sounds.

Disadvantage: you won't knwo when the volume of the sopng reduces, since the song doesn't (fully)load on startup (blue bar underneath Vinyl-panel in advanced skin).
Greetzz
 

geposted Sun 22 Feb 04 @ 11:21 am
nashHome userMember since 2004
guys got this really cool link to othe page were they show tweaking xp ... is great .. it really works ,, and its all in order . and it also tells you why the change ...and dependig on your need it will tell you what... so just take a look






http://www.opusaudioprojects.net/WinXp.htm
 

geposted Mon 26 Apr 04 @ 2:31 am
lollogHome userMember since 2004
Hi all and thx for the tips in this thread.
I just wonder how "* Reduce the Hardware Acceleration:" of the graphics card can increase the systems responsiveness. Isn't the opposite true? (because then the CPU will have to do a lot more work)

 

geposted Fri 09 Jul 04 @ 6:55 am
phillydjPRO InfinityModeratorMember since 2004
with the reduce load to 5min i tried it ...maybe this is just me but it doesnt seem like a good idea when u reduce it to 5,min or no load anything over the 5 min mark or (with no load-active -any song ) will use 100% of the cpu until its done
 

geposted Fri 16 Jul 04 @ 7:31 pm
In the task i have no such process! "virtual dj exec" is their another
name in XP pro
Thanks
 

geposted Tue 03 Aug 04 @ 5:23 pm
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