I managed to hack around the problem; I installed XFree86 3.3.6 on this machine, and I can no longer make the music skip just by causing a lot of screen updates.
I suspect this is a bug in XFree 4's mga driver, and I will be sending in a bug report this weekend. Thanks for everyone's advice. On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 08:29:55PM -0500, Mike Simons wrote: > On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 03:03:22PM -0800, Samuel Merritt wrote: > > > > > If I have music playing and I move a window around, switch windows, or > > > > > scroll a window, the music stutters. I'm using XFree86 4.2.1 and ALSA > > > > > 0.9.0rc2 (defaults for Mandrake 9). > > === > latency_multiplier 8 > > min_grant_clocks 72, max_latency_clocks 0 > min_grant_clocks 0, max_latency_clocks 640 > min_grant_clocks 16, max_latency_clocks 192 > min_grant_clocks 0, max_latency_clocks 0 > min_grant_clocks 160, max_latency_clocks 320 > min_grant_clocks 128, max_latency_clocks 272 > > sum of minimum grants 376 > lowest latency allowed 192 > ==== > > According to that last URL your situation is hopeless, > because the sound device says it can't wait more than > 192 ticks, before being serviced and if the guy with > 160 and 128 happen to come along the sound card has hard > to wait too long. > I personally think that is bogus... there has got to be a way to have > them play along. > > > I don't expect this to work... but try it and let me know what the > results are: You were right; it didn't work. I ran those commands below. I also experimented with low latencies; with a latency_timer of 20 (32 decimal) for all devices, the stuttering was slightly worse. A latency_timer of 32 for everything but the video card, and a latency_timer of ee for the video card improved matters a tiny bit. I chose ee, not ff, because the URL below suggests that decimal 248 is the maximum possible setting for the latency timer. I did try ff for the video card, but it didn't seem to help. It should be noted that the stuttering still occurred with the network cable unplugged, so I don't think it's a problem with the network card hogging the bus. > ==== > # "open up" the PCI bus by allowing fairly long bursts for all devices, > # increasing performance > setpci -v -d *:* latency_timer=b0 > > # maximize latency timers for network and audio, allowing them to transmit > # more data per burst, preventing buffer over/underrun conditions > setpci -v -s 02:04.0 latency_timer=ff > setpci -v -s 02:06.0 latency_timer=ff > === > > that advice comes from the following URL: > http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-hw2.html > > Basically if it doesn't work I'd like to try some other settings. > > Let me know, > Mike > > ps: it's remotely possible your machine will lockup when you run those > set PCI commands, so be sure to save anything important. > _______________________________________________ > vox-tech mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech -- Samuel Merritt OpenPGP key is at http://meat.andcheese.org/~spam/spam_at_andcheese_dot_org.asc Information about PGP can be found at http://www.mindspring.com/~aegreene/pgp/
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