E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

2010-11-02 10:38:26

Hi ! I am a new member, a newbie and with some difficulties in writing in English... 

I have a EMU 0404 and I've always use it with Fb2k, no problem until... a week ago.
Now I can't listen to music, it stops and freeze and scrchacrhc !

In Foobar preferences > Output I can choose between.
DS: E-MU 0404/USB
ASIO E-MU 0404/USB

but they doesn't work ! If I select DS: E-MU 0404/USB there is absolute silence,
if I choose ASIO E-MU 0404/USB... it sounds bad.
I have tried to replace the original emasio.dll with the patch emasio.dll x64 of Yrkha but Foobar
doesn't found the driver: NO Asio driver found. I've restarded the laptop and tried many times.

I have a laptop, Windows XPpro Sp1.3, AMD Turion64x2, Foobar v1.1; i have downloaded and installed
the latest version of sw from E-MU site.

Do you have any suggestion?

thank you

marco

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #1 – 2010-11-02 12:14:14

I used to experience this kind of sound distortion while listening to music and using ImgBurn in image creation mode simultaneously. Increasing ASIO buffer size (= latency) somewhat helped, but the problem wasn't completely gone. I think ASIO subsystem is sensitive to those kinds of system performance fluctuations (like access to DVD-ROM drive). Also, it is sensitive to CPU load thus to a number and activity of other (background) processes.
So, kreisky, please check if there's something going on in Windows that demands many hardware resources, and especially access to peripherals (other than E-MU), or is producing heavy CPU load (or load spikes), while you listen to music. There's an utility program that can help you with this: it's called the "DPC Latency Checker". You start monitoring within this utility and it shows you system's overall load in graphical form. Let it work for a couple of minutes and watch for unusual spikes in the graph and check the statistics. In case you have some spikes you must analyze your system and try to find the cause. Increasing the ASIO buffer might help, too.

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #2 – 2010-11-02 15:14:42

Hi Kiyos,

I am sorry, I've checked out the Windows Master Volume… and all was disabled!
I've turned on all the volumes and now Foobar works well with DS: E-MU 0404/USB.

I've also increased buffer length. It has always worked well with 2000ms, I changed it
to 3000ms... I will test in these days and verify with the sw you suggest me to use.

Thank you!

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #3 – 2010-11-02 21:12:06

... it doesn't work with ASIO E-MU 0404/USB. I set latency to 3000-5000... 7000 ms, it works just a little better but not well.
I forgot to say that yesterday, trying to change between DS and ASIO, the system crash down for two times and computer reboot itself automatically.

… it is strange, it has always worked well. Last week I have defragmented the HD and then  I have also installed Fb2k v1.1, these are the only changes I have done on my computer.
Should I try with previous release of Foobar ?


I have test with DPClatency, when Foobar plays the latency increase very much, like 2000ms.
If Foobar is off the latency is good, between 6 and 70 ms.

 

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #4 – 2010-11-03 11:55:11

... does the patch work in XP pro ? I don't find SysWOW64...

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #5 – 2010-11-03 12:44:22

SysWOW64 is present (and replacing the 64-bit emasio.dll is needed) on 64-bit Windows only.

Having an "AMD Turion64x2" processor doesn't necessarily mean you run 64-bit Windows too. To verify that on an XP system, e.g. right-click on My Computer and choose properties. Only if it says "x64 Edition", it's an 64-bit Windows.

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #6 – 2010-11-03 19:02:39

Thank you Yirkha,

so I don't have 64bit edition... just XP professional 2002 Sp 3
Yours patches doesn't work in x32 edition, isn't it ?

I will try also with other player to understand if the problem is Foobar or not.

... I hope to solve the problem and go on use Fb2k !

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #7 – 2010-11-03 20:37:35

emasio.dll patches by me are provided both for 32- and 64-bit Windows. However they fix solely the one main problem reported in this thread, that fb2k "loses" the selected ASIO device upon Windows restart. If your problem is stuttering or other kind of glitches, it won't help you.

Why aren't you satisfied with DS output anyway? Why do you need to use ASIO?

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #8 – 2010-11-04 10:32:42

... yes... I will use DS, it's just that I have used ASIO for 2-3 years  and now it doesn't work and the system has crashed down, so I was asking myself if there was a solution...

Is there any differences in sound quality usign DS or ASIO or KS ?

Thanks !

marco

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #9 – 2010-11-04 11:41:37

Not really, ASIO is useful only when you want to record and playback audio simultaneously, send e.g. DTS encoded data unchanged to a receiver or have some exotic output channel layout. Or mute all other Windows sounds, depending on the driver. (Trying hard not to forget anything.)

But for music playback, DS is a clear winner - you even get nice start/stop/seek fading for free

I don't know what could have gone wrong with your setup, however the high DPC latency during playback is clearly the reason. There seem to be some articles about trying to lower that number on the Internet, but we could only guess what kind of change happened to your system overnight.

E-MU 0404 over ASIO started to stutter, crack and otherwise sound bad

Reply #10 – 2010-11-07 18:47:00

... I am using DS and it works good

I've also found the new beta driver for EMU... I will try the next days.


thank you !

Marco