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[Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - Printable Version

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RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - garysday - 2012-09-10

Guys,

Just want to say thx for the Audio Engine, now throught my ARCAM AV600 I can enjoy DTS-HD MA and Dolby Tru-HD Smile

FYI, I'm running this on a Zotac AD05 with an AMD E-450 CPU and the AMD Radeon HD6320 GPU, running a late Aug Nightly under Win7...

I had a lot of issues getting HD Audio to work, what seemingly worked for me in the end was disabling "Exclusive Mode" under windows configuration, I find
the GUI a little slower under the nightlies (rebuilding the screen with movie / music posters etc), but in general it's working very well for me, all audio is great
(DTS-HD, Dolby True HD, DTS, AC3, Stereo, FLAC etc)....

Thx Team..

G


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - moravec - 2012-09-11

What version to test AE? Nightly or now August 12 cycle?

Is either one "more" stable?

Christian



RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - solidsatras - 2012-09-11

(2012-09-11, 10:04)moravec Wrote: What version to test AE? Nightly or now August 12 cycle?

Is either one "more" stable?

Christian

HavenĀ“t tested it myself but I would start with
the latest snapshots like
xbmc-12.0-Frodo_alpha5 - 03-Sep-2012




RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - jjd-uk - 2012-09-12

Damian,

Just found something that made me think back to AE hogging the audio device and the silent stream bug you mentioned, so what is now the non-default behaviour that requires <streamsilence>1</streamsilence> set in advancedsettings.xml

See http://www.avsforum.com/t/1317491/silent-stream-bug and the refered website http://www.marcsapps.co.uk

Quote:How does AVR Audio Guard help?

AVR AUDIO GUARD sends a silent WASAPI shared-mode audio stream to your receiver, and keeps the stream open so the receiver does not need to switch modes to play other shared-mode streams. It means you don't miss any system or application sounds, and when an exclusive-mode application such as a bitstreaming media player requests access, AVR AUDIO GUARD pauses and lets it take over until it is finished, and then starts the silent stream again.

Couldn't the AE silent stream be made to run in shared mode? so AE would only enter exclusive mode when playback of an actual file commences.

No doubt you've probably already considered this & dismissed it, as I seem to remember AE did support Shared mode at one point but it was dropped.




RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - Fracino - 2012-09-12

(2012-09-03, 17:30)DDDamian Wrote: @Fracino - that is definitely related. The S24NE3 issue is a priority - just finishing up some previously started things as we're in the merge window for feature additions, whereas that ticket counts more as a bug and can be patched any time thru the cycle.

To address that one I'm going to have to link you private builds, largely due to the fact I can't test without going out and buying the hardware, so rather than hit and miss attempts via master a private build for testing would be my preferred route.

At any rate, stay tuned Wink

This bug was fixed by September 12th nightly build. Thanks a lot DDDamian!!



RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - DDDamian - 2012-09-13

@Fracino - np - thx for the testing and the excellent problem descriptions Smile

@jjd-uk - see post #2 for layman's description of the <streamsilence> tag. Wasapi shared is not a viable option for a few reasons - push vs pull models, no bitstreaming due to mixing, and the fact that the AE engine is used for both Linux, Android, Pi and Windows - don't want to add more complexity for a) a small percentage of receivers when the <streamsilence> tag solves it and b) Wasapi shared has neither of the plusses of DirectSound nor Wasapi exclusive - it's kind of the bastard in the middle.

Low power systems (and even high-power systems with energy-conscious users) get more advantage from the new model of "soft" suspending the sink, whereas those affected by the silent-stream bug or receiver dropouts can use the original model. Everyone wins.

Unless you're the one user who a) has silent-stream issues b) uses Wasapi Exclusive to bitstream and c) wants to hear Windows system noises too Wink


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - jjd-uk - 2012-09-13

I've never had the silent stream so I'm ok with how things are now working after your recent great work, just that saw that audio tool and wondered if the silent stream method could be improved along the same lines where shared mode is used only when audio device is idle. Keeping more complexity out of AE is probably for the best as it lessens the chance for bugs.


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - garysday - 2012-09-15

Guys,

I'm seeing an issue playing normal Dolby Digital files; the audio is funny; sounds kind of digitized or something; DTS, and HD Audio work great but I am seeing a lot of issues with AC3 on MKV files.

Any ideas how to fix this Huh

Gary


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - RogerS - 2012-09-16

(2012-09-10, 09:48)garysday Wrote: Guys,

Just want to say thx for the Audio Engine, now throught my ARCAM AV600 I can enjoy DTS-HD MA and Dolby Tru-HD Smile

FYI, I'm running this on a Zotac AD05 with an AMD E-450 CPU and the AMD Radeon HD6320 GPU, running a late Aug Nightly under Win7...

I had a lot of issues getting HD Audio to work, what seemingly worked for me in the end was disabling "Exclusive Mode" under windows configuration, I find
the GUI a little slower under the nightlies (rebuilding the screen with movie / music posters etc), but in general it's working very well for me, all audio is great
(DTS-HD, Dolby True HD, DTS, AC3, Stereo, FLAC etc)....

Thx Team..

G

Hi G,

I've also a mainboard with the AMD E-450 cpu running windows 7 with AMD Catlyst 12.8.
When I'm running the windows nightly build (15-09-2012) and I try to play an MKV with a DTS-MA enabled, the video starts to stutter and I've no audio. If I disable in the audio hardware setup that my surround processor (Emotiva UMC-1) is able to decode DTS-MA, the video plays fine and I've also about. Albeit this is DTS only (which is logical as I've disable DTS-MA bitstreaming).
Could you please exactly described how you managed to get DTS-MA working on a AMD E-450?
I tried both enabling and disabling exclusive mode in the AMD HDMI audio driver but no luck.

Did you perhaps install on top of the AMD HDMI audio driver also the Realtek audio drivers?

You also state that playing FLAC files works. Are you then taking about stereo flac files or also about multi channel (5.1) flac files?
Playing stereo flac files of at least up to 24bit/96KHz works great (also 2 channel 24bit/88.2KHz flac file which I created with Foobar from a SACD.ISO). But when I try to play a 5.1 24bit/88.2KHz flac file, also created with Foobar from a SACD.ISO, XBMC don't even start to play the file. (Foobar plays it correctly)

Thanks in advance for your help

Roger




RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - garysday - 2012-09-16

Guys,

I think i have found part of the problem; I think there is an issue when initialising the audio for "Dolby Digital 5.1", If I play a DTS-HD file the initialisation (or something)
resets and then DD5.1 works fine; however if I watch something else (like DD 2.0) and then go back to DD5.1 the problem is there..

Anyway I can register this as a bug

thx

Gary


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - Raytestrak - 2012-09-21

I'm at work right now, so I don't have any logs available, but I'm asking anyway:

I can't get AE to work. I have Daniela's patched build running fine on my Windows 8 (E350 based) htpc with DTS-MA and TruHD, but AE fails to initialize the WASAPI blablabla. Exclusive mode is on, priority is on. I have tried AE in the past, with success, but probably not on this install of my OS.

I'm running near to minimal now, meaning only Win8, AMD chipset drivers (for sata and usb 3.0) and the latest Realtek HDMI audio drivers. So no AMD display drivers or AMD audio drivers installed, imo AMD drivers are bloatware. Has anyone else got AE running on realtek drivers?


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - bossanova808 - 2012-09-21

>>>imo AMD drivers are bloatware

bloatware that works well with HD audio, though.

I think some of the shit (you can turn off) that comes with them is bloatware, but the drivers are .... kinda good.



RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - Raytestrak - 2012-09-21

(2012-09-21, 08:39)bossanova808 Wrote: >>>imo AMD drivers are bloatware

bloatware that works well with HD audio, though.

I think some of the shit (you can turn off) that comes with them is bloatware, but the drivers are .... kinda good.

You're right, let me rephrase. The AMD Installer contains a lot of bloatware. I can extract the drivers from the installer without any problems, but like I said: I have HD audio working fine with my setup, only not with AE. I don't really want to mess that up for an AE test.




RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - DDDamian - 2012-09-21

All you need is the AMD High Definition Audio driver - it's tiny and can be installed separately....


RE: [Windows] AudioEngine testers - Windows platform only - rkismet - 2012-09-21

@ Raytestrak
asuming you are running your audio via hdmi through the ATI card....i agree with DDDamian
read my long winded post earlier in the tread...you might want to avoid the realtek altogeather and disable it in the bios Nod

ATI/AMD does have alot of junk in there that you can exclude from the install (that you have to manually exclude EVERY Damn time) but the the core of it i have found helpful (recently) with my HTPC builds...im a nvidia convert...atleast for HTPCs