Having audio stutters?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I ran into this forum posting while looking for other stuff.. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1043281

As usual, experiment at your own risk.

Hi there, I've recently had an extremely annoying issue regarding sound, games, multiplayer, and Windows 7. When I would start up a game (such as Counter-Strike Source or Heroes of Newerth) and connect to server
, my fps and ping would be nominally OK, but the game would lag. In HoN this would be displayed by the heroes moving jerkily around the map, even though my fps and ping were good. In Counter Strike, this evidenced itself by glitchy nades that don't bounce smoothly, and whenever sounds are played, the ping spikes a bit. It's kind of like playing on a 33 tic server, for those of you familiar with the game. None of these issues occurred in single player games or in the aforementioned games with a local server. Symptoms included warping, skipping, and lagging while moving or viewing other players move.

Anyway, I searched and searched here and couldn't find anything, but finally I found something in Google (note: this is only a partial fix, don't do this, see update):

* Stop and disable the "Multimedia Class Scheduler" service
* Run regedit and go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi ces\Audiosrv"
* Double click on the entry "DependOnService" and delete the line with "MMCSS" from the text box
* Reboot and enjoy lag free games


I diagnosed the issue by realizing that by disabling audio devices in device manager, lag would disappear in-game. So glad I found this solution after installing 6 different audio drivers and generally being very frustrated. Just thought I'd leave this here as a reference for others with a similar issue.

Update: doing this will likely induce audio issues such as crackling, popping, stuttering, and skipping. My final solution was to leave this service enabled but disable it's network throttling component (if you already did the first fix you should undo it and re-enable the service). This resolved my audio issues caused by disabling the MMCS while keeping my games lag free. This is not a solution if you are not experiencing network issues. If you are experiencing audio issues only, you should make sure the MMCSS is running. The best way to test if you have this problem is to disable your sound device in Device Manager and then see if the lag persists. If it does, you have some other issue. If the lag goes away, re-enable your sound device and try the following fix:

Quote:
Leave the multimedia class scheduler service running, but disable its network throttling "feature":

* Open regedit
* Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
* There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; set it to FFFFFFFF hex (willl look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry)
* Reboot

Here are some example threads where this fix was useful:
Counter-Strike Series & Windows 7 = Lag?
stuttering in games. (mainly valve)
High Ping and Choke in Windows 7 (CSS/TF2)

Games affected:
Source Engine Games (Team Fortress 2 (TF2), Left 4 Dead, Counter Strike Source (CS:S, CSS))
Heroes of Newerth (HoN)
Call of Duty Series (CoD), possibly including Modern Warfare
Overlord Series (Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Overlord 2)

Post if you find another game that's affected so I can add it to this list!

For those interested, here are some articles on the MMCSS:
http://courtneymalone.com/2007/08/28...network-speed/
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/...slowdowns.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussino...7/1833290.aspx
http://www.thebits.info/windows/vista-mcs-56.htm


My optimal solution was to keep the MMCS service running, as if you turn it off your audio may start cackling/skipping in an annoying fashion. However, I disabled the network throttling component of this service. I believe it's a general audio problem specific to Windows 7 and multiplayer / online games. I don't think the audio card or the drivers make a difference, or at least they didn't in my case.

Leave the multimedia class scheduler service running, but disable its network throttling feature:

* Open regedit
* Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile
* There will be an entry for network performance throttling, default value is 10; set it to FFFFFFFF hex (willl look like 0xFFFFFFFF to the right of the entry)
* Reboot


This removed the lag I was experiencing while still enabling me to have normal sound in-game. Specs in profile.

[zack1234]

 

I run all my Sound through HDMI on my Graphics card because I had lots of problems with sound card

[Bino]

Ripley, I will try that throttling thing this evening. 

[doc1kelley]

Hmmm... wondering how this applies to Winblows XP?  Still a bunch of us old fart hard core fanatics that still run the game in XP.

All the Best...

   Jay

[Bino]

Here is the MS page about this:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948066

Does not apply to XP, apparently.  Just Vista and later.

[Pudgie]

I went & performed this tip on my box just to see if I could notice anything.

Game ran very smooth & couldn't detect any change in sound quality.

Waiting to catch a mega furball to really push it to see if I can notice anything.

Since I'm using the onboard sound on this RIV Gene I figured that it may help.

So far, so good.

 

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I went & performed this tip on my box just to see if I could notice anything.

Game ran very smooth & couldn't detect any change in sound quality.

Waiting to catch a mega furball to really push it to see if I can notice anything.

Since I'm using the onboard sound on this RIV Gene I figured that it may help.

So far, so good.

 

As a reminder to everyone: If your game IS working without stutters currently, do NOT perform any 'fixes' because you're bound to break something in the end. The old saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is 100% true with computers. Try this only if you are currently experiencing stuttering or hiccups that coincide with audio cues.