Multimedia :: Laptop too slow to play audio?



Pentium 120MHz
48 MB RAM

I got sound to work on this laptop, mostly, by using the 'sb' module. However, it seems too slow to actually work. XMMS will play a small piece of a file, skip, play a bit more, skip again, etc. Running it in realtime mode just freezes completely.

I have tried shutting down the window manager to get more resources, but that doesn't seem to help. In text mode, ogg123 exhibits the same behavior, and prints this message every time there is a skip:

DMA (output) timed out - IRQ/DRQ config error?

I have searched and found some mailing list discussions regarding this error, but have found no concrete help or info.

Any suggestions? Perhaps try ALSA somehow?
It's power should be well enough - one of my laptops, P133 with 16mb ram, plays high-quality vbr mp3's with about 28% cpu usage, without any clipping, without any sound buffering.

So, first check your IRQ's from /proc/interrupts. If it says at the bottom that you have more than 0 ERR's, or even if it doesn't, change the sound card's IRQ in bios. This should fix the conflict.

After that, try enabling a sound buffer.
More info that I should've posted before: I'm also using an Orinoco-based PCMCIA wireless card, and the machine has no hard drive, it just runs from the CD.

catting /proc/interrupts does not lists any ERRs. soundblaster is shown as using an IRQ of 7. I don't recall if the BIOS allows me to change it, but I will try later. IRQs 4-6 and 9-11 are free, so I'll try 5 if possible.

XMMS's OSS output plugin has a buffer setting, but increasing it does not help me. By "enabling a sound buffer", what do you mean exactly? How would I go about doing so?
Got it to work :)

Disabled the parallel port in the BIOS, which was set to use IRQ 7. No more conflicts! Thanks for your suggestions.
Quote (curaga @ Dec. 23 2007,08:37)
It's power should be well enough - one of my laptops, P133 with 16mb ram, plays high-quality vbr mp3's with about 28% cpu usage, without any clipping, without any sound buffering.

So, first check your IRQ's from /proc/interrupts. If it says at the bottom that you have more than 0 ERR's, or even if it doesn't, change the sound card's IRQ in bios. This should fix the conflict.

After that, try enabling a sound buffer.

I'm having some issues with this as well.

I'mma check the irq's. But what did you mean by sound buffer? In xmms or the media player, or like a driver/module setting?
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