dpc latency checker: interesting if you plan to do serious Audio/video

[urlwolf]

Just found dpc latency checker, a tiny program that tells you whether your current hardware would let you play media without skipping.

There are plenty of ways you can hose your hardware (installed drivers, programs, etc) and produce clipping and skipping.

My laptop right now shows plenty of red bars and I have no idea why. Sound is ok though.

[urlwolf]

Update: I have not found the culprit after disabling most of the devices that I could disable. I'm stuck. I wonder if dpc is reliable. If it is, then XP is really bad for real-time stuff, my hardware is not out of this world (dell 1720).

[4wd]

Update: I have not found the culprit after disabling most of the devices that I could disable. I'm stuck. I wonder if dpc is reliable. If it is, then XP is really bad for real-time stuff, my hardware is not out of this world (dell 1720).

Surely the best way is to try and play clips in the encoding you want to test with?

eg. x264, MPEG4, etc

[Grorgy]

Its not specifically an XP problem, mine shows all green, mind you I don't  really understand what its measuring but it seems to feel happy about it  (XP home SP3 AMD X2 3800  and the laptop, xp home sp3 celeron 1.5)

[yksyks]

To urlwolf:

I also have Dell Inspiron 1720, but with Vista Business, and my latency was occasionally measured about 1 ms, usually .25 ms. However, if you experience crackling sound on this PC, there's a known, but very strange advice:

In Device Manager choose the 802.11n WLAN Mini Card, On the Advanced Tab choose Disable Bands from the list. In the dropdown choose Disable 802.11a.

Quite weird, but it really helped in my case. Some interrupt collision, perhaps... More on this at http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=2&SiteID=1&PageID=2&PostID=1373474.

[urlwolf]

Thanks yksyks.
I have a Dell 1390 WLAN minicard. Maybe not the same. I'm on XP also.

I don't get the crackling sound anyway. Don't fix if it ain't broke? But I do get plenty of red bars... Weird!

[urlwolf]

yksyks:
Yes it was the wlan card!
I can't believe how careless dell is with its own hardware (the wireless card is made by Dell). This was a recent driver: 09-2007.
I rolled back the drivers to the ones Microsoft provides (ancient, 2006). Still gives me some red bars, but a lot less.

Disabling the wireless card is the only solution. I have an ugly cable all over the floor to my laptop, thanks to stupid Dell.

Never again will I buy Dell. Maybe not even a PC.

[yksyks]

urlwolf:

I'm glad my research was not vain. However, for me it was enough to disable one not used protocol, not the whole WLAN card. And I'm very satisfied with Dell, except for this case and the case with the "software" sound card.

[Scott]

My sound has always been fine, until a few weeks ago.  Then, for reasons unknown, I started having "skips" in my sound.  It's absolutely maddening; I can't even listen to music on this machine anymore.

Someone in another forum pointed me to the DPC Latency Checker, but it's just a visual interpretation of what I already hear.  I guess it will be easier (and maybe slightly less annoying) to use, rather than playing music and listening for the dropouts.

My audio drivers are fine.  I haven't updated any other drivers lately except for TrueCrypt.  I'm wondering if that's at fault.