VmWare

2009-06-30 17:15:08

While playing mp3's in foobar 2000 (0.9.6., I start a virtual machine in VMware (5.5.0 build 18463) and the music slows down about half beat.  Realy strange reaction...  This happens for about 3-5 seconds while VMware boots the virtual bios.  When the virtual operating system starts booting, the music comes back to normal speed. 

The anoying part is when I shut down or kill the virtual machine - the music slows down again, but this time, it will stay slow untill I stop the song and I start it back again.  I even close VMware completely and the music is still playing slow.  Then, if I let it play slow and I start another virtual machine, foobar will start playing normaly again (no need to stop - start the song...).

This is just a note - not exactly a bug report since I don't consider this a bug.  I would say it's an observation; now if someone from foobar team wants to do something about it, by all means go right ahead! ;o)

CHeers all!

VmWare

Reply #1 – 2009-06-30 18:06:22

<guess>

This is a guess, because I don't know quite how VMWare works (or what sound card you have etc ...), but what you are experiencing sounds like the cards sample rate shifting down from say 48,000 Hz to 44,100 Hz.

Does your soundcard resample to 48,000 Hz? Because I'm guessing that if it does, something in the Virtual Machine is locking the rate to 44,100 Hz, and then this won't be unlocked until some other program tells the system to go back to normal.

That's a complete guess, but I've had a similar thing with Reaper and foobar2000, since for a while my default project setting in Reaper was 48,000 Hz, so when I started Reaper and foobar was active Reaper forced the sample rate to 48,000 Hz and thus everything foobar played went up in pitch (played faster).

</guess>

If it is this then I wouldn't say it's a bug. It's just 2 programs fighting over sample rates, and the loser plays at the wrong speed.

C.

EDIT: minor clarification, and sorted out my Hz.

VmWare

Reply #2 – 2009-06-30 18:23:25

To clarify:

I had this problem because my M-Audio 2496 card is NOT locking the sample rate. Thus 2 programs end up "fighting over sample rates, and the loser plays at the wrong speed".

C.

VmWare

Reply #3 – 2009-07-02 09:40:45

never had this problem myself and i've used vmware a fair bit over the years. i get the odd stutter when something really disk/cpu intensive is going on inside the VM but that's to be expected.

even having a sound card enabled in the VM and playing music inside it has no effect on foobar running on my host OS. i'm using an ancient audigy2 card on vista64.

VmWare

Reply #4 – 2009-07-02 17:21:11

I just did a test with Windows Media Player 11 (11.0.5721.5260).  I started a song and then started a vm.  The song kept playing at normal speed.

So I did a test with Media PLayer Classic from K-Lite codec pack (1.2.1008.0).  Same thing; the song doses not slow down.

BUT, BUT, BUT, I did a test with Winamp 5 (5.56) and... Sams results than Foobar: songs slowing down when starting a vm and shutting down a vm. 

I guess I would have to use Sysinternal tools to monitor the processes, but I don't realy have the time right now...

CHeers all!

VmWare

Reply #5 – 2009-07-02 17:38:46

Which output device do you use?