Xpadder causes sound stuttering

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Primal Fear
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Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Primal Fear »

This problem occurs on my Netbook (2x1,65GhZ AMD E-450 APU, 4GB RAM) only, not on my gaming system. Whenever I press something on my Xbox360pad, the sound stutters. Even if there isn't a profile loaded.
First I thought that the USB-Controller and the sound chipset are interfering with each other (same IRQ, lousy electronic circuit :shifty:), but when Xpadder isn't running everything worked fine.
I finally came to the solution to change Xpadders priority in the Task Manager to "High" instead of "Realtime", that fixes it.

Has the lower priority any drawbacks?
Can you implement a setting to run Xpadder always with one priority level lower (guess for low performance PC's)?

Jonathan
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Re: Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Jonathan »

No major drawbacks - Xpadder used to be high (!) for years without major issues. It's just more accurate in realtime.

Xpadder shouldn't be causing any issues - if it is it's because it's taking too long to do one loop and the PC isn't get the CPU back until Xpadder is finished.
An optimization is what's needed but where to do it?
Can you perform these tests:

1) Try it with no controller file (just a blank) and no profile and press the button - this will test if it's due to Xpadder simply reading the controller
2) Try 1 again but with Xpadder minimized
3) Now try 1 but with a full image controller file and buttons loaded and onscreen (but still no profile)
4) Try 3 again but with Xpadder minimized
5) Question - what sound stutters? In game? What if playing MP3 on the desktop?

Primal Fear
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Re: Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Primal Fear »

1) Without a controller file loaded the sound problem doesn't occur.
2) If Xpadder is completely minimize the sound problem does't occur too.
3) With controller file loaded but without profile the sound problem does occur.
4) If Xpadder is minimized, the sound problem doesn't occur anyway.
5) The sound in games stutters massively, music of Winamp or the sound of Flash videos stutters only slightly.

I tried to record this sound problem, but the volume of the recording drops almost completely when the stuttering does occur. So except of much lower volume that doesn't exist in the actual sound, there is nothing to hear.
If you should be interested in how it sounds I can start a second try using my gaming PC to record the sound.

Jonathan
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Re: Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Jonathan »

It could be a problem with Xpadder displaying the controller image and buttons (display is disabled while minimized). Try a controller file with no image, no buttons or adjusting the controller transparency option?

Primal Fear
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Re: Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Primal Fear »

I have determined that there are almost no sound problems (really rarely) when I change the controller transparency to 0 or 100%.
Also I'm sure that that the animation of the buttons is causing the stuttering. It mostly occurs when I change the direction of a stick or hold a button that has the turbo assigned. More button with turbo, held at the same time, are causing more stuttering.

Another action that causes sound stuttering, independently from the controller transparency, is opening the controller or profile menu and clicking on "Open...". When the new window opens, the sound stutters massively, but only for a short moment.

Jonathan
Xpadder creator
Posts: 1737
Joined: 24 Aug 2009, 11:33
Location: England
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Re: Xpadder causes sound stuttering

Post by Jonathan »

It's definitely a problem with Xpadder's graphical system - I'll look into optimizing it in the future.

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