Sound quality (Primary buffer?)

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:10 pm

Hi!

I use the latest Windows WIP of ZSnes on my system.

I can hear a "shhhhhhh" noise in games when it plays sounds and musique. The noise goes away when i check "Use primary buffer" but then there is a big lag between the game and the sound. I know Primary Buffer allows a big buffer, and this causes the lag.

I got that noise with 3 different ISA sound cards:

SoundBlaster 16
SoundBlaster 16 Value
AOpen Crystal AW35/37

I would have to double check but I think I don't have this noise in the DOS version.

Here are my System specs:
Celeron 300
128 Mb SDRAM
Windows 98
DirectX 8.1
Latest drivers for the sound card
Some kind of Intel Mother Board i think

Thank you!

Truth Unknown · Post by **Truth Unknown** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 9:56 pm

What are all the settings you have in the Sound Menu?

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:43 pm

Exactly why are you using an ISA sound card?

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:31 am

If you don't have any interpolation, enable gaussian.
Before a game is loaded.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:09 am

Sound Config:
Sound enable, stereo, 32000, gaussian. I read the docs and used what's closer to the real snes. But I tried various configs but the only option that changes something is "Primary buffer"

Why ISA:
Because the only PCI Sound Card I have is already used

And they are easier to get working under pure DOS (if needed)

Interpolation:
Using interpolation, whichever, doesn't help.

Post by **Agozer** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:07 am

Do you have this problem in earlier builds?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:23 am

Have you tried enabling "Sound Buffering" (both with and w/o the Primary Buffer option checked)?

One thing.. have you made sure the line-in and the microphone volume are muted?

Sometimes hissing sounds come when line-in/microphone is not muted.

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:56 am

Best solution evar:

Buy a PCI sound card.

They are cheap.

Very cheap.

Go buy one.

Now.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:16 pm

I'll try different versions when i have some time, thanks!

Tried with both sound buffering on and off. And the hissing is not steady. It gets louder as the game sounds get louder. As if it was of poor quality, like, 8 bits or something.

Haha, and if it doesn't work i'll buy a new PC, and a new life too cause life sucks with poor sound in ZSnes

Seriously, if everything else fails, i'll try with my SB128.

Oh, and could it be a setting in the BIOS?

MonkeyforaHead · Post by **MonkeyforaHead** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:31 pm

Strange. I had this problem when first trying Zsnes in XP, though it had worked perfectly in 98SE previously. Increasing the sample rate seemed to make it worse, too. I think what fixed it for me was setting the lowpass to hi quality.

But then, I also have a PCI sound card, so...

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:42 am

I tried with the oldest ZSnes version on the official site (1.20) and I got the same hissing sound, even with large sound buffer and interpolation settings.

I tried with Snes9X. I don't have the hissing sound in it.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:43 am

When creating a primary buffer, applications must set the dwBufferBytes member to zero. DirectSound will determine the best buffer size for the particular sound device in use. To determine the size of a created primary buffer, call IDirectSoundBuffer8::GetCaps.

If i looked far enough in the sources, I see that ZSnes just uses the buffer size that DirectSound establishes.

Code: Select all

lpPrimaryBuffer->GetCaps(&dsbcaps);
SoundBufferSize=dsbcaps.dwBufferBytes;

While it sets it when using a SecondaryBuffer:

Code: Select all

dsbd.dwBufferBytes = UsePrimaryBuffer ? 0 : SoundBufferSize;

Is it possible to actually set the buffer size when using a primary buffer?

EDIT:

You cannot specify the size of the primary buffer, and you must accept the returned size after the buffer is created. A primary buffer is typically very small, so if your application writes directly to this kind of buffer, it must write blocks of data at short intervals to prevent the previously written data from being replayed.

Duh... Found the answer somewhere else on the same site. Hail MSDN.

I think I understand... It's not the DirectSoundBuffer size, but zsnes's that is big so there's no gap in the sound.

If i'm right, It would be nice to be able to set the size of the "big buffer" in the GUI or in the config file, so we could fine tune it.

And talking about gaps, "to prevent the previously written data from being replayed." When there is silence in the game, the last written data keeps on playing in loop.

EDIT:
The looping sound when there's silence in a game happens when not using primary buffer. So there are 2 annoyance at the same time...

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:39 pm

I think we're getting away from the problem here.

The size of your DirectSound buffer should have little to do with the problem you described.

The size of the direct sound buffer simply dictates how often you need to write to(and how much data you can write to it) it to fill it up and prevent repeat.

I would recommend NOT using the primary DirectSound buffer. This seems to be a programming recommendation by many sources including MS. I can't remember which part of the documentation it's in though. The 'normal' way of doing things is to use secondary buffers and let DirectSound and your Sound card drivers control the primary buffer.

Assuming you use a large enough buffer and keep perfect track of things, you can seamlessly fill the buffer while it is playing while keeping sync and not adding any static or noise.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 5:33 pm

Nah, the size of the buffer doesn't fix the problem but using the primary buffer does...

The problem with primary buffer in ZSnes is that the sound lags to the game. I may be way wrong here, but i think it's zsnes' way to handle the primary buffer's small size. I haven't scatered the whole sources to figure that out yet.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:10 pm

Why is this options present to begin with? It shouldn't be necessary as far as I know. Yes, I know it fixes the problem... but WHY? I don't have the time to take a good look at the code to see the differences.

Something is obviously not quite right. Can we at least assume that the actual ZSNES software sound bufer which is fed to DirectSound is always correct regardless of primary or secondary buffer use?

It would be helpful if we could determine where the problem occurs.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:39 pm

Something is obviously not quite right. Can we at least assume that the actual ZSNES software sound bufer which is fed to DirectSound is always correct regardless of primary or secondary buffer use?

How can we tell... Nonetheless, I agree my own particular problem does not reside there and SecondaryBuffer should always be used.

I'm confused about if the problem is ZSnes related or not, because the hissing sound does not happen when using Snes9X.

It does not happen on my other computer running XP and a SB128, DX9. (The sound crackles on this one but it's another story...)

So in a nutshell:
Problem: Hissing noise, as if the sound was 8 Bit quality, and looping.
When: When not using primary buffer, regardless of the options used.

There's a version (DOS i think) that allows to set the sound to 8 Bit sample. I'll do some tests with it and compare.

Bahamut_ZERO_Clue · Post by **Bahamut_ZERO_Clue** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:23 pm

Not to smack on your Sound card as it not only is a good one and will work properly but it might be a driver issue and not related to ZSnes in any way.

I own a PCI512/Live 4.1 card. It requires I use the PCI 512 drivers by default and by all accounts it should but thankfully I was able to use Audigy2 drivers to run it. I will tell you the PCI512 drivers that were last released were crap and the current Audigy2 drivers are far better in quality of audio.

By all accounts those sound card are no longer officially supported by Creative and minimal function drivers are provided by Microsoft for newer NT based opeerating systems like 2k/XP/2k3. My solution for you would be to do one of the following so listen carefully:

A) If you have Windows 98 Second Edition, you have WDM driver capabiltity. Go out and find yourself a cheep SB Live/Audigy or other newer sound card for the PCI slots.

B) Go to Creative's website and search under the Windows 2000 drivers, yes I know you have 98 but these are WDM drivers and if you have 98SE you can use them though it's not totally recommended and your DOS audio may no longer operate.

C) Think about investing in newer hardware even to ay a new PC altogether, and using an updated OS like 2k or XP. Good PC configurations for even a Pentium 3 and Athlon now run dirt cheep and you can easily nowadays build a good system of 1GHZ or better for way under 1000 dollars that is way better supported not only by Microsoft but the hardware manufacturers.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 7:51 pm

Like I said I tried with three different sound cards: 2 from creative and one from uhm... AOpen Crystal.

I'll try to find out a WDM driver for one of those three.

I'll try to keep things as cheap as possible as we are talking about a dedicated nes/snes machine plugged on my TV

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 7:57 pm

Creative's website...
http://www.creative.com

Most of the time.. the default drivers that come with Windows has basic acceleration (that's what your SB16 falls into).. you definately want to download the drivers from Creative to get the most you can get.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:42 am

I get the same "shhhhhhhh" noise under the DOS version, and no difference wether the "force 8 bit sound" is on or not.

Oh and it doesn't happend when playing a WAV file in windows (neither in Snes9X like I said earlier).

Edit:
Just one question... Can we assume, considering the noise happens even in Pure DOS, that it's not a Windows driver issue?

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:52 am

Changed some settings in the BIOS and nothing changed.

I did some tests with my SB128 PCI. I took no chance and I downloaded the latest driver from creative's website.

No more hissing noise! But, I can hear some slight crackling, whatever the sound config.

I first thought it could just be that way. But I put my AW37 back in, enabled Primary buffer and the sound was flawless.

I also get that crackling sound with that sound card on my Athlon 1.3 GHz WinXP.

So, I get the best sound quality, and I would even say perfect, using my ISA soundcards and enabling Primary Buffer.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:55 pm

I thought about this further..

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=242937

I've had this problem before.. where I got static from ZSNES when I installed WDM based audio drivers on Windows 98SE (WDM drivers don't use .vxd(s))... I'm thinking that it is related to this:

M$ Article wrote:Calling the Multimedia API Programs that use PCI Audio Wave devices in full-duplex mode may elicit a system memory leak of 64 bytes each time an audio stream is created, or its properties are programmatically examined.

This leak seemed to cause static when I had a PCI sound card...

Try it and see if the situation changes...

Just one question... Can we assume, considering the noise happens even in Pure DOS, that it's not a Windows driver issue?

It probably isn't a Windows issue if you hear it in pure DOS.. but it does sound like something is enabled in the background (possibly controllable from DOS sound card driver controls)

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:20 am

when i had wdm drivers for windows 98se my pc's performance droped by approx 50% - 70% (so i stuck with vxd drivers) but now i have a new pc with winxp and wdm works fine

the crackling you speak of might be to do with not having cd audio muted or the microphone muted (or both)

my old pc was a p2 400mhz geforce 4 mx 4000 128mb (yes i know that vc sucks but amazingly the lates winxp drivers fixed most major issues with it (i think it flashed my vc) the sound card was a sb128 4channel and boy did it kick butt to some other cards i tested.

i tryed a soundblaster live value soundcard but it crippld my pc by 85% - 98% (because it only had wdm drivers and i think my pci slots were the wrong revision because looking at the manual i think it stated revision 2.3 pci slot reccomended but will run on pci 2.1 this requirement was not listed on the box itself)