DAC start's cracking spontaneous in Vista's exlusive mode about cmediadrivers HOT 25 CLOSED

Sorry for your tweeter.
I've tested the non-WaveRT on my 64 bit installation of Vista and it works just 
fine 
without any noise, so I think only the WaveRT version might be affected by this 
bug. 
I've got a pretty good idea what might be happening, but for debugging purposes 
I 
need to install a 32 bit version of Vista first because the 64 bit version 
doesn't 
allow exclusive mode access from 32 bit applications to WaveRT drivers (tested 
with 
XM-Play, XX-HighEnd immediately crashes on startup).
So I'd like to ask you to install the non-WaveRT version and to try to 
reproduce the 
noise bug. Due to another Vista bug, you need to manually uninstall the 
soundcard 
from the device manager - in the uninstall dialog, the item for "Delete the 
driver 
software for this device" must be checked. Then click "Action" => "Scan for new 
hardware" and run the driver's installer.

Cheers!

I've just installed vista32 and the exclusive mode of WASAPI doesn't seem to 
work 
for the WaveRT version of my driver. Can you confirm that you installed the 
WaveRT 
version by starting cmicontrol and going to the third tab?

Please try this version:
http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/CMIDriver-pre1.1.9-x86.zip
If the problem persists, please provide further information on how to 
reconstruct 
the bug.

At first, thank you for your effort to help solving this problem.
Today i will follow your instruction and i will report them. 

About XMplay and WASAPI Exclusive mode. At start i get good music but after a 
couple 
of seconds there come's an error and the music becomes in a loop, which depends 
on 
the length of the buffer in XMplay. This effect also appears with other 
soundcards 
with there native drivers. A Vista bug?    

do you happen to play the music files from a network or usb drive?

No, only straight from a SATA HDD inside the pc. All my files are FLAC coded.

And about XMplay, sometimes the music plays fine for about 10-15 seconds before 
the 
error comes up. As i said before this is a common issue and not only related to 
your 
driver.     

I've experienced similiar behaviour when playing a file from a network drive 
through 
foobar2000/kernel streaming - the player becomes unresponsive and if its 
process is 
killed, chances are that the computer crashes. This is a Vista bug and I've 
informed 
Microsoft about it, but they haven't fixed it yet in the upcoming SP1.

From what i did to repeat the bug, the non-waveRT driver 1.1.8 doesn't have the 
noise bug. The 1.1.9 either. Is 1.1.9 not a waveRT version? i guess not, 
because i 
mis the 'enhancements' (4th) tab and in 'about' it's not waveRT. 

When i go back to 1.1.8 RT the bug is back. 

ok - what "engine" of XXHighEnd do you use?

Eng#3

mhh.. odd - XXHighEnd's third engine refuses to play when I've installed the 
WaveRT 
drivers.
What version of XXHighEnd have you installed? also, have you applied SP1 to 
vista?

[deleted comment]

[deleted comment]

Yes, i applied SP1 to Vista and i use the latest XXhighend version, 0.9u-6.

Should there be -in theory- a better soundquality using waveRT against 
non-waveRT 
while using Eng#3(XX)or WASAPI (MXplayer) in Vista's Exclusive mode, when just 
using passthrough 44.1/16 signal over to SPDIF? 

With non-waveRT driver, MXplayer's WASAPI output works ok in exclusive mode.

I wrote: "When i go back to 1.1.8 RT the bug is back" 
But i had to say the DAC-noise is back ;-)  

Maybe it's a Vista issue and not a bug in your waveRT driver...

I can't tell for sure unless I have been able to examine the bug a bit further. 
I've 
now installed SP1 and the "exclusive mode" of WaveRT works now, but I haven't 
been 
able to reproduce the bug (yet). What endpoint do you use for playback - the 
speakers or the SPDIF port?

The easiest and most troublefree and comfortable way to achieve bitperfect 
playback 
in Vista is by using the non-WaveRT version and winamp/foobar2000 in 
conjunction 
with the kernel streaming output plugin. Also, I strongly recommend against 
using or 
even buying XXHighEnd - I call BS on that one. Its author (PeterSt) fails to 
comprehend the most basic principles of signal theory which he demonstrates in 
a 
plethora of ridiculuous postings on his forum, and the program itself was badly 
written.

OK, I think I've found out what happens:
1. An application opens a playback stream with exclusive access by utilizing 
Vista's 
WASAPI
2. The application crashes (note that XXHighEnd creates another process for 
playback 
if the third engine is used).
3. The buffer which gets currently played loops ("stuttering" sound).
4. The crashed application is shut down and the playback stream is improperly 
closed 
- it isn't stopped, just shut down.
5. The soundcard is still playing stuff from a specific address which is now in 
use 
by some other system function which have filled it with their data => Bleeps 
and 
other random noise.

I've added a handler which stops a stream whenever it is unexpectedly closed, 
so 
please try whether this WaveRT version is still creating noise:
http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/CMIDriver-pre1.1.9-x86.zip-WaveRT.zip

[deleted comment]

Great that you found something! Thx.
Because i'm at holiday at the moment i can't test your new version until the 28 
of 
march. As soon as i'm back home i will try it and report the results. 

I would like to ask you if can try to explain if there is any advantage over 
using 
waveRT vs non-waveRT for playback through SPDIF? I use SPDIF to fed a external 
Stello 220MKII DAC (16/44.1) As i now experience XX (eng#3) i.c.w. waveRT gives 
the 
best soundquality, allthough, it can be placebo. There are so many combinations 
possible with players/output drivers (Asio, asio4all, WASAPI, KS) that it's 
hard to 
do a fair listening test between them. Ok, and XX maybe is not the perfect 
thing, 
but what do you think of eng#3 on is own? 

The digital highway from HDD to SPDIF inside a pc is like a fog to me. 
I'll try to find the best en shortest way out for my bits, but i don't have a 
good 
map ;-)                     

XX-HighEnd's third engine is bitperfect, but XX-HighEnd is generally crap. I 
can 
only recommend to avoid it at all cost.

I've just written a small article on the topic of bitperfect which explains the 
basics:
http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/wiki/Bitperfect

Thx for the Wiki! 
If there is no reason to use waveRT for bitpefect playback, what then is the 
advantage of the WaveRT version. I don't get that?

there are some additional effects in the sound control panel - but that's it.

[deleted comment]

Back home and tested latest version. No cracks anymore. Great!

ok, still one other thing (maybe new issue?) 
1.1.9 waveRT version does not not work in exclusive mode in MXplay, while 
non-RT 
does fine? 

Nice - another ugly bug swatted :).
the buffer in XM-Play needs to be smaller for the WaveRT versions - the DMA 
engine 
of the soundcard has a limited address range. XM-Play was quite crash-happy on 
my 
machine though when the buffer size was changed to non-default values.