VLC Media Player, audio (badly) choppy

[vEmpire]

Just playing around more with this toshiba A105 that has the intel hd audio. Got the audio working with the azilla driver and some modification to kext. It works fine with iTunes, but is a choppy to the point of unusable in VLC. I tried a few mp3's and a divx file, same behavior.

 

 

Also, no sound at all if I install an OS in parallels, but that's not really a big deal. Mostly noting it.

 

Are there other good video/audio players for OS X that I should look at or do I want/need to get VLC working?

 

Thanks.

[Rammjet]

Remind us of the OSX version, kernel version and hardware (cpu, mobo, etc)

[vEmpire]

Sure thing.. 10.4.8 semthex kernel from the jas reseed.

 

It's a toshiba a105-S4324

 

Intel core 2 duo t5200, 945 GM chipset.

 

Azalia pathced intel HD audio and 950GMA, selected during install.

 

Also, tried removing the AppleHWSensor.kext to no avail.

 

thanks!

[Rammjet]

OK, if you haven't updated the kernel to the latest one, you should do that. Follow the 10.4.8 link in my signature to find ways to do that.

 

If you don't want to do that, then for your older kernel, you need to set FSB at boot.

 

When using the Semthex kernel, you may need to set your FSB frequency. It is set to 200 by default.

 

At boot, type: fsb=xxx (where xxx is a number like 133, 166 or 200)

fsb is a frequency

fsb (freq) = fsb (speed) / 4

Find your fsb (speed) in your BIOS or:

(OSX) System Profiler -> Hardware -> Bus Speed (fsb speed)

(Win) PC Wizard -> Mainboard -> Chipset -> fsb (speed) and fsb (freq) are both avail

Remember to divide the speed by 4. If your FSB (speed) is 667, then your FSB (freq) = 166 because 667/4 = 166

 

At boot, type fsb=166 (using your value) or put the fsb in your boot.plist under Kernel Flags:

<key>Kernel Flags</key>

<string>cpus=1

fsb=166

</string>

[vEmpire]

cpus=1 fsb=133 helps, but it's still unusable.

I downloaded a couple test divx video's from their site, they play fine with the divx player in the browser, crash if I try to play them in the stand alone divx player, and have the audio problems in VLC.

 

It is definitely less bad when I set the cpus=1 fsb=133, but like I said, still not usable.

I also do not seem to be suffering any other ill effects from keeping both cores enabled.

 

You mentioned my older kernel, is the kernel on the 10.4.8 reseed DVD not the latest?

 

As for the video, I can play stuff in my browser if needed, I don't really watch stuff on my computer anyway, just wanted to see what would happen.

 

I'm curious to see if sound can be enabled under parallels, again more as a matter of interest than necessity.

 

thanks for your continued assistance rammjet.

[vEmpire]

FWIW, Mplayer is working fine...

[Rammjet]

You mentioned my older kernel, is the kernel on the 10.4.8 reseed DVD not the latest?

The DVD was produced in early November. We have had a ton of kernel updates and improvements since then. Don't have to set FSB in the kernels published for the last dozen or more revisions.

[vEmpire]

gotcha, that was easy as pie using the kernUpdt script and it did fix VLC, divx player still won't work stand alone, but who cares.

Also, I notice the OS sound effects are definitely nicer with the newer kernel, seems like audio is much smoother now that it was oh, four minutes ago...

 

 

thanks for the tip.

[tidalpassion]

I'm not sure if info from an earlier configuration helps, but perhaps it might be useful in narrowing down which aspects of the system are problematic.

 

I've had no problems at all with VLC 0.8.5 under JAS 10.4.6 on a Core 2 Duo in a AS Rock Conroe 945G-DVI system (using VGA video out not the DVI yet). I never did update the BIOS or do anything to show the correct buss speed. (The CPU is at 2.25 GHz, but is still reported as 1.86). I'll try a newer install version when I get another drive installed. The older one has been working so well I'm really afraid I'll mess it up. Best to work on a backup....

 

I'm not certain if the audio patch instructions I followed were called azilla. They got onboard audio out working, but there are flaws. My external USB Griffin iMic interface worked before the patches, but doesn't now. Some apps (like the current Eye TV software) list the audio output twice. The system profiler indicates missing dependencies.

The (2 channel) audio-out sounds great however. I've played a number of .AVI movies, mpeg 2 & 4 movies, and some DVDs with VLC. iTunes works well. Eye-TV sounds good although I've had audio go away a few times (I think virtual-memory use was high at the time, I only have 1 gig and throw a lot at this machine like editing video). Quitting/restarting the app brings audio back.

 

I believe that extensions mucked with without proper package receipts generated may prevent permissions from being set correctly by Disk Utility. I'm not certain of this, but I believe the package receipts may be what tells Disk Utility what permissions to use on added components. I think they also may be an essential part of determining dependencies and possibly are important to proper prebinding.

 

There are lots of things that can cause little quirks. Eye-TV presents the license screen every time I reboot but it doesn't ask for the registration code again. I think it is because it wants a system serial number. The system profiler says "To Be F.i.M." (to be flashed in memory??) for that. The source code for XPostFacto might be useful to examine for emulating PRAM from a file on the hard drive, as I think it already handled that on some earlier Macs where the PRAM was too small to hold the data used in later machines and expected by the OS.