choppy sound

[istorch]

The post with the specs for cpu is great-  I had a pentium 4 and as stated on previous posts, it was pre-historic and not running games well. just got a quad 4 ? don't know specs but runs everything in mame pretty well at first look- a gift from dad so can't beat the price.  The sound, however is very choppy- is there a way to fix this?

[vandale]

have you enabled multithreaded CPU? Can you give other info, like OS, ram, actual CPU model and what games are exhibiting choppy sound? Thanks

[AMG KC]

What do you have the sound and graphics settings set to? I have experienced choppy sounds with certain graphics settings enabled, although im not sure if that will be your problem. Setting the sound settings for individual games can cause issues. Turn off frame skip unless you need it, that could cause sound issues.

If youre running the latest version of MAME, which last i looked was .152 for the x64 ui version, you may need to have some of the ROMs for the newer version, as there is occational changes.

As Vandale stated also, we really need to know what game or games the sound is not working properly on.

It might also be worth running task manager to see the CPU load while the game is running, if its sitting on 100% then thatll cause issues with some things too. If it is on 100%, check the resourse monitor to make sure no cores are parked, although it shouldnt be an issue if you have the operating system set to high performance and no power saving features are enabled.

Press Windows key and PAUSE/BREAK key together and it will bring up a screen to tell you system properties, itll tell you CPU model and speed as well as installed RAM.

[BadMouth]

just got a quad 4 ? don't know specs but runs everything in mame pretty well at first look

Start>Computer> then right click in a blank area and select properties
That should give you the specs.
(I think that's still valid for older OS's like XP, but it's been a while)

For MAME and some other emulators, a quadcore processor doesn't make much difference if the emulator is limited to one core.
The extra core might help with overhead, but 2ghz is still 2ghz (when comparing processors from the same generation).

This is changing.  Some of the newer MAME drivers utilize multiple cores, but they also require killer speed.
I'm pretty sure I remember hap (a MAME dev) mentioning that Ridge Racer utilizes multiple cores.

Supermodel Emulator was utilizing up to 3 cores last time I checked.

[Howard_Casto]

Maybe if hap is around he can chime in and explain, but I don't even think it works that way.  The way I understood it, 64bit mame would use your cores to part out various tasks but that's about it.  Like maybe the sound engine would go to one core, the video to another ect.  How many processors the game had didn't really matter.

Like you said though, it doesn't matter because having multiple cores doesn't help THAT much, and most of the games people have issues with just need really beefy processors. 

What multiple cores are good for is if, for example you can run a game 100% but just barely.  On a single core system you wouldn't be able to enable the hlsl effects... they take too much overhead, but on a quad core system you probably could. 

[istorch]

I'm just not very cpu savy, the machine I was given has an intel quad core 2.4 ghz (HP) with 3gig of ram.  Its 32 bit with a NVIDIA 8500 GT.
I tried the games on the "cpu rating list" including cruising, ridge racer etc and all work well without framskip.  It's really the sound that's an issue?
Seems odd no?  Any way to fix the sound when the game is running ok?  I can't imagine that the graphics card is affecting the sound either true?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm running a core 2 quad at 2.5gighz. 

Those games all have sound-skipping issues for me. 

When your system can't handle a game, the sound suffers first on the newer stuff, then the graphics. 

[AMG KC]

Speed in GHz is no true indication of performance, its simply a clock speed and gives no information about cache sizes or design type. It means little to actual throughput. The fact its a Core2 Quad means it could vary in terms of cache size, and that will make a WAY bigger difference then clock speed will.

Press Windows key and PAUSE/BREAK together ( the easiest and quickest way to bring up system properties ) and either take a pic of it or post the CPU name ( will be something like E6600 )

The video card will likely have no real affect on it. An 8500 should be more than enough.

[Howard_Casto]

Oh I'm aware of my issues, I'm trying to assure the OP that his issues are NOT unique.  As you said, clock speed is quite misleading. 

[AMG KC]

Oh I'm aware of my issues, I'm trying to assure the OP that his issues are NOT unique.  As you said, clock speed is quite misleading.

Yeah i meant him

[istorch]

the cpu is q6600 does that help you help me?

[istorch]

also, got to try cruising exotica- looks good, cruising usa- too fast?? how do i fix this?

[BadMouth]

also, got to try cruising exotica- looks good

I didn't know that was even working in MAME.

The speed issue is probably that throttle is turned off.  The default key to toggle it is F10 while in game, but the option should be there in mame.ini
There have been some oddball cases of having framesync turned on causing games to run faster also.

[AMG KC]

Yes the framesync can cause strange issues on some games, alot of them have unusual refresh rates.