From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Feb 17 18: 8:16 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from sasknow.com (h139-142-245-96.ss.fiberone.net [139.142.245.96]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B547837B90D for ; Thu, 17 Feb 2000 18:08:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from freebsd@sasknow.com) Received: from localhost (freebsd@localhost) by sasknow.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA82080; Thu, 17 Feb 2000 20:08:39 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from freebsd@sasknow.com) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 20:08:39 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson To: Bill Trost Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: problems playing back high-quality mp3's In-Reply-To: <38299.950838104@cloud.rain.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Bill Trost wrote: > I assume this is a well-known phenomenon, but I have not been able to > figure it out: If I try to use something like mpg123 to play back a > 192 kbit/s mp3, the sound quality comes out *awful* -- as though too > many samples were being stuffed through too slow a decoder. Is this > a limitation of the pcm driver, mpg123, my hardware, or a combination > thereof? > > $ cat /dev/sndstat > FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm) Feb 14 2000 21:05:31 > Installed devices: > pcm0: at irq 10 (1p/1r channels duplex) > pcm1: <(null)> (mixer only) > $ dmesg | grep csa > csa0: mem 0xfea00000-0xfeafffff,0xfebfd000-0xfebfdfff irq 10 at device 11.0 on pci0 > pcm0: on csa0 You haven't mentioned what sort of processor and storage medium you're using. You may notice problems if you're reading off of a potentially slow or lagged medium, like an older CD-ROM, or laggy NFS. You may also notice problems under some load with a slow processor. FWIW, I play 192 or 256 kbit/sec, and variable bitrate (typically 96-384 kbit/sec) mp3s fine on a somewhat loaded PII 400 with 1/4 gig of ram with mpg123. Playback has survived daily run outputs, backups, build/installwords, and a few IO benchmarks without a burp. I have played MP3s on slower systems (mid-range Pentiums, mostly), and have really only noticed problems under heavy disk and/or processor load (Read: Windows NT with Winamp :-). It's possible that your sound card or motherboard (BUS) is to blame, as well, but I am not familiar with the card you mentioned. -- Ryan Thompson 50% Owner, Sysadmin SaskNow Technologies http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E Saskatoon, SK S7H 0W2 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message