The VideoLAN Forums

Operating system: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit, Version 21H2, OS build 19044.1645 with latest updates, 8Gb RAM
Sound Controller: Microsoft High Definition Audio Device
VLC: Version 3.9.17.4 Vetinari (64-bit)

I have recently noticed that playing any audio file results in the output stuttering.
This seems to occur on all audio formats.

I have uninstalled and re-installed VLC but this has no effect.

The problem does not appear if I use another media player, (e.g. Winamp).

Any help/tips greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

What kind of sound card do you actually have? Creative, RealTek, Asus Xonar...?

The audio interface is on-board. I do not use a separate sound card.
Before re-installing VLC I had the RealTek HD drivers installed but I removed them in an attempt to see if the problem was resolved.
This did not fix the problem. So, having removed the RealTek driver and re-booted, the OS used the standard Microsoft audio drivers.

dmk.sys, HdAudio.sys, ksthunk.sys, portcls.sys, SysFxUI.dll, MAFXGFXDSP.dll

If RealTek is the actual on-board sound card, then download the Driver from RealTek.com (Computer Peripheral ICs - ALC898) called 64bits Vista, Windows7, Windows8, Windows8.1, Windows10 Driver only (Executable file) 258 MB.
Greater chance that this will work better compared to Microsoft High Definition Audio Device.

Thank you.
I've started the download and tells me that it will take 2hrs!!!

I'll let you know if it works!

I finally managed to download the RealTek drivers for Win 10 64-bit.
I installed the drivers and tried to use VLC to listen to my audia files.

No change!.
I still get stuttering on playback.

Try another audio output module:
http://wiki.videolan.org/WindowsFAQ-2.0 ... _anomalies

And/or:
Disable time stretching in the audio preferences in Menu Tools -> Preferences -> Audio
Use a faster resampler or no resampler at all in Menu Tools -> Preferences (Show Settings = ALL) -> Audio -> Audio Resampler

After the changes save the preferences then exit and restart VLC.


If it doesn't help then check your computer latency:
https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... cy-issues/

Thanks for the advice.
I tried using each output module: no success
I then disabled Time Stretching : no success
I tried each Audio Re-sampler, (including 'disable'): no success but markedly worse on the last two (Speex and disable).

I loaded an Audio CD just to ensure that I didn't have an HDD issue. The stuttering effect was the same.
I also ran the same Audio CD via WinAmp just to make sure that there was no stuttering via this application.

I checked your link to https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... cy-issues/.
Downloaded and installed LatencyMon.exe and found that I have Latency problems especially with storport.sys.

Searching the Internet for information on storport.sys I came across an interesting article from someone who is experiencing the same audio problem: link below, (had to put brackets around https in order to post the full url):

(https://)social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/1ff07d62-0768-4796-9b96-959f40df6a4c/storportsys-has-severe-dpc-latency-causing-audio-to-stutter-and-drop-out

I'm now trying to find info on how to solve this issue.

Many thanks for your help, any further advice is very welcome.

In Advanced Settings on Audio - Output modules, there is something called "Media role" where you can choose 9 different roles. It's on Video as standard, but you can choose it to Music.

Don't know if this has any affect at all.

Thank you.
Yes I saw that when trying the various combinations and I set it up to 'Music' but it had no effect.

Thanks again

Update:
Checking my Devices I saw that I was using a RAID software controller even though I hdn't installed it and had no disks configured for RAID.
Following the procedure detailed in my previously mentioned link, (https://social.technet.microsoft.com/....), I changed both BIOS and system to switch from RAID to AHCI, (making an image copy of my system disk first!) then ran "LatencyMon.exe" again to check latency.

The results were far better.
VLC media player now runs just as it used to with no stuttering.

Thanks for your help.