a different volume problem

[sy64]

I've just spent about 2 hours searching for this problem and come up with nothing so decided to sign up to try and get help.

I have Winamp 5.5 installed and the volume keeps going louder and then drops to normal as though some one was playing with the volume control on my speakers. It has been happening for a week or so and through a process of elimination I've managed to narrow it down to Winamp.

It might not happen for an hour and when it does it seems to be at random intervals.

I'm running windows Vista home premium and my sound card is a creative X-fi Xtreme music.

I have gone into the direct sound config and made sure my specific device is selected and done most of the other solutions for problems to do with volume that I've come across on the board. when i installed winamp i unticked the wave output so directsound is the only one in output.

Can anyone help me out with this frustrating problem? i really don't want to go back to using WMP!!!

Solution

[TheUniqueTiger]

More details please...
What types of files are you playing in Winamp? If it happens on particular files, then it may be a problem with those files. Does WMP also sound the same or does it have a consistent volume?

[sy64]

I'm playing MP3 files and WMP plays them without fault

[ChucksterDork]

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=279570

I posted with the same exact problem, and no has been able to give me a definitive answer yet.

To note, this was happening to me before Winamp 5.5, and I have a Creative sound card as well.

[sy64]

Hey chuckster, this has only started happening to me in the past week or 2. I thought it might have been something to do with me installing a TV tuner card but I've taken it out and it still does it. I reformatted my hard drive and didn't install any other codec packs (usually use ffdshow). I've also tried various settings in directsound.

I finally managed to narrow it down to winamp seeing as it doesn't happen in any other apps. WMP works fine but I don't want to go back to using that now that I have all my smart views set up. I reinstalled Wimnamp and disabled a load of unneeded plugins and the same happens. At the moment it isn't too bad but then it happens randomly so there's no knowing how long that will last!!

Are you using Vista? I'm going to install ALchemy and see if that does anything. I'm also poking around the internet to see if there's anything at all.

If I find anything I'll post it here.

Sy

[ChucksterDork]

Windows XP, actually. I have isolated it to Winamp as well -- when I played it in my Creative MediaSource Player, I encountered no such problems.

[sy64]

so that rules out soundcard and operating system as well.

I think it may be time to report a bug. I've been searching the net all afternoon and had no luck.

[ChucksterDork]

It just happened now as I was reading the thread.

I was hoping one of the mods could supply an answer. I don't think we're the only two with this problem.

[sy64]

Hey chuckster, does it happen just the once for you? when it does it on mine it might not do it for a few hours but when it does it will happen a few times. Sometimes it is worse than others and it gets to the point where it's best just to close winamp.

Not sure if the mods will be of any help [Reverse psychology sometimes works ], but I'm sure we aren't the only two.

I posted a bug report
here but because it is next to impossible to reproduce this problem I'm not holding up a lot of hope. I provided as much info as I could, maybe a good idea if you added your full system spec and other info to the thread as well?

[DJ Egg]

Using ALchemy worked for this guy:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=2251268#post2251268

on a whim I tried using the Alchemy thing which for those unfamiliar remaps directsound calls to OpenAL so those of us on Vista get hardware sound again. Enabling this fixed my sound, and looking at the Winamp Direct Sound output plugin status Winamp thinks it's using hardware acceleration

But yeah, that's for Vista. I've never heard of it happening under WinXP.
Though it's probably a rare occurence on Vista too.
Sounds like bad drivers or something to me...

Can we see a List Of Plugins?

Have you tried a clean install of 5.5?

You could maybe also try the ASIO Output plugin.

[sy64]

ok so I installed ALchemy and I'm giving that a try, so far so good but we'll see how it goes for the rest of the day.

Hey DJ Egg just out of curiosity is replay gain a good or a bad thing to have selected?

Chuckster have you got the latest drivers installed for all of your devices?

[DJ Egg]

ReplayGain is probably only good to have checked if all your files have RG values applied. Otherwise, it'll just apply whatever value you've got set for files without RG.

[sy64]

This is getting really annoying now!!! got ALchemy installed and it has just done it again several times. It has got to the point where I'm seriously considering dumping winamp or at least 5.5.

I don't remember it doing this on previous versions, unfortunately I deleted all other versions, is there anywhere I can download older versions from? it's got to be worth a try. I reported it in the bug section but I'm not holding up much hope for a solution seeing as it is next to impossible to reproduce the problem.

[Edit: I downloaded a previous version so will install that tomorrow and see how that goes on]

[ChucksterDork]

Yeah, I have XP, so I don't know how much it will help.

[DJ Egg]

^edited original reply^