Skittering sound

[tasbas]

I recently started using Winamp to play my music, where as before I was using Windoes Media Player (Windows Media Player never caused any sound problems when playing games). I have recently been having problems with Winamp causing my music to skitter only when I am playing computer games. It happens when I am tabbed into my game, but when I am tabbed onto my desktop, it stops skittering.

I told my friend about it, and he immediately suggested that I get a new sound card. Now as for my sound card, it is nothing fancy; it supports 5.1 sound, and came with it when I got my mobo.

Now I want to ask the Anandtech community if it really is my sound card, or is Winamp not very good for playing music when playing games?

 

[montag451]

See if your hdd is set to DMA or PIO in control panel.

Just also to make sure - your soundcard isn't onboard, is it?
If it is, your friend is right - get a pci sound card - some onboard soundcards can really suck up cpu cycles.

 

[tasbas]

My HDD is primarily set to DMA.

And by onboard meaning it is attached to my motherboard, then yes.
I guess I'll have to get a sound card then.

Thanks for your help!

 

[montag451]

No worries, post back with the result.

Good luck,
and welcome to the forums.

 

[tk11]

Why not try either adjusting or changing the winamp output plugin? Winamp comes with plugins for both direct sound and wave out. And each of those have settings you can adjust that may prevent stuttering. open winamp and press ctrl-p then look at the plugins>output page to see which output plugin your currently using. If your using the DirectSound plugin then try the waveOut plugin. If that doesn't help you can press the configure button to set options for the selected plugin.

Good luck