Sound Emulation Popping

BOOTP · Post by **BOOTP** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 7:36 pm

I have a major problem with CCS64 3.0 – I have selected my Audigy 2 in the sound options but get lots of popping and cracking during games and also when I’m on the CCS64 menu.

Please help.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 12:56 am

Probably need to upgrade your sound driver. Try the Primary Sound Driver option instead. Note the Windows MCI WaveOut will give the same popping/crackling (poorly-implemented driver).

BOOTP · Post by **BOOTP** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 1:47 pm

Thanks for the reply. Primary Sound Driver is exactly the same I'm afraid. My drivers are the very latest and I have this problem.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:23 pm

Oh well, it's probably your sound card's fault. Can you replace it with another one?

BOOTP · Post by **BOOTP** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:45 pm

No because I had an Audigy and an Audigy 2 before and the same thing happpened. The one I have now is an Audigy 2 ZS. It also happened on my brother's PC as well.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:09 pm

Try the VICE Emulator (WinVICE) instead and see if the sound is still cracking/popping with that:
http://www.viceteam.org/

StevenRoy · Post by **StevenRoy** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:12 am

I had the same problem, but it only occured when the CCS64 window was larger than 1/4 of the screen. It got worse the larger the window was, so I tried shrinking it to less than 1/4 of the screen (smaller than 640x480 on a 1280x1024 desktop) and the sound problem went away. It must be some sort of performance issue with the 3d acceleration used to scale the emulation output to the size of the window.

So, my suggestion is, shrink the window. If the problem goes away, this is it. If you don't like the window that small, you can always consider running CCS64 in one of the full-screen modes. They should still work fine.

(It might be worth talking to the ZSNES guys; ZSNES doesn't have this problem. Of the many emulators I've used, ZSNES has actually been the most stable. Still inaccurate in many ways, but stable.)

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:38 am

Yes, CCS64 runs fine when in full-screen mode and in normal windowed mode, but re-sizing the window leads to a performance drop (that I think Hakan may not be able to help). The emulator working slower will cause synchronisation / buffering problems with the sound drivers (that give the crackle / pop noises), that probably cannot be helped too much either.

BOOTP · Post by **BOOTP** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:29 pm

The strange thing is that I've always run CCS64 in a fullscreen mode not a window. You mention about synchronisation and buffering problems. Prehaps I can change anything in the optons?

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:37 pm

All you can try is to reduce the sound quality, to see if it sufficiently speeds-up the sound production, to reduce/elimate the crackling/popping noises:

Sample Bits: 8 instead of 16.
Sample Freq: 11/22 KHz instead of 44 KHz.

BOOTP · Post by **BOOTP** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:03 pm

Still have the same problem only it's worse with those settings. I was wondering if it was to do with EAX. Does anyone else run this properly with an Audigy card.

The good news is that VICE Emulator (WinVICE) works fine with sound so does that point to anything in CCS64?

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:21 pm

It appears that the Audigy/Audigy 2 sound cards do have problems with crackles/pops with some applications. Try updating EAX to V 4.0 or later.
http://forum.osnn.net/archive/index.php/t-36586.html
Try this first. The below is just for discussion/reference.

Probably something strange to do with the way that the sound drivers are implemented in CCS64 working with your sound drivers, but since very few people have a sound problem, it is probably not worth making any changes and risking wide-spread sound problems.

I did suggest to Hakan a while ago that users be given the option of changing the sound buffer size, like in VICE, which can help eliminate the crackling/popping noise problems for some configurations; but Hakan later changed the sound drivers and eliminated that problem for me (this was whilst I was testing CCS64 V3.0 BETA before it was released). Changing the sound buffer size can reduce crackling/popping noises, since the sound data is 'consumed' either too quickly (sound buffer size is too small) or not quickly enough (sound buffer size is too large) - the sound buffering issue is a consumer/producer thing. Hakan did not end up implementing such an option, since it was no longer required, and I have not had any further complaints of crackles/pops that have no been resolved normally.

I guess you'll have to stick to WinVICE. I prefer the reSID emulation in WinVICE actually, but I'm not sure if this can be implemented in CCS64. I can run both CCS64/WinVICE without any sound problems, like many other people. Oh well.

Hummingbird · Post by **Hummingbird** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:37 am

I have almost the same sound problem as BOOTP: cracklings and popping during all games, but not after the initial turn-up of CCS64. I'm using a Terratec EWX 24/96 sound card under Windows 2000 with the latest drivers and DirectX 9.0b installed and have tried all the sound options with F9. Nothing helped!

John · Post by **John** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:57 pm

I have the exact same problem too. I use a sound blaster live. The problem does not occur when using the Vice emulator. I don't believe this is a driver problem. I tested 4 different versions, all have the same problems. It seems that the popping gets worse when u use the mouse. I tried all sound settings including primary sound driver. The primary sound driver is a bit better than the default setting but it still pops and cracks.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:58 pm

As mentioned several times in the past, the Windows MCI WaveOut driver is prone to crackles/pops anyway (less CPU-intensive), but the Default Sound Device (DirectX) is better (more CPU-intensive).

Hakan is in the middle of making various improvements to the SID emulation, which will help correct some of inaccuracies, and will hopefully help to reduce the amount of crackling/popping.

There are various reasons for the sound inaccuracies that you hear - it is a mixture of Windows, DirectX, your sound drivers, and CCS64.