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Playing Music Slows Vista Network Performance?

An anonymous reader writes "Over the months since Vista's release, there has been no doubt about the reduced level of network performance experienced compared to Windows XP. However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput. Whenever any audio is being sent to a sound card (even, several users report, while paused), network performance is instantly reduced. As soon as the audio is stopped, the throughput begins to climb to its expected speed. It's a tough one for users — what do you pick, sound or speed? So much for multi-tasking."

50 of 748 comments (clear)

  1. Conspiracy! by suso · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is clearly an attempt by Microsoft to encourage people to buy more music to listen to while waiting to download the the upgrade to Vista SP1. I have pictures of a meeting between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at a Carl's Jr. Steve handed an envelope under the table to Bill. Who knew?!?! Now it all makes sense why iTunes was promoting a track last week called "The Biggest EULA of Her Life" by Randy Newman.

  2. In The United States Of Alphane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Playing Vista slows music performance.

  3. Wow! by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Funny

    However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput.

    Wow! I bet streaming audio must suck!

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    1. Re:Wow! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wow! I bet streaming audio must suck!

      Whatever you do, absolutely do not try this with RealPlayer on Vista. That has the potential to result in catastrophic system failure.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    2. Re:Wow! by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just tried it ago five minutes ago. As soon as I started streaming, all my cable in the house caught fire and my house burned down. Then a Microsoft guy came and peed on the ashes. It was awful.

    3. Re:Wow! by TommydCat · · Score: 3, Funny

      [--Streaming witty comment--72%--Please Wait--]

      --
      This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
  4. coldplay by raffe · · Score: 2, Funny

    What if you play the song Speed of sound by coldplay??? What will Vista do then?

    Sorry, could not resist.

    1. Re:coldplay by everphilski · · Score: 3, Funny

      Seeing as the speed of sound is proportional to the square root of temperature, and the group is coldplay, it might not be very fast at all :)

    2. Re:coldplay by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

      What if you play the song Speed of sound by coldplay??? What will Vista do then?

      Mu. Only Mac users listen to Coldplay.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  5. Re:how on earth? by sunami88 · · Score: 4, Funny

    How on earth does the sound and network subsystem overlap?
    My 0.02? Its all the DRM piling up at an astounding rate, bringing the network to its knees.

    CHECK SECURITY CERTIFICATE...NOT FOUND
    CHECK SECURITY CERTIFICATE...NOT FOUND
    CHECK SECURITY CERTIFICATE...NOT FOUND


    And so on and so forth. Could be wrong though.

    --
    Sex. Drugs, and Unix.
  6. Re:how on earth? by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    How on earth does the sound and network subsystem overlap?

    The smoke from the cigars mixes in the air of the smoke-filled back rooms where these things are decided between the content cartel and the company that makes Windows Media Central or whatever that thing used to be called.

  7. Re:antiFUD of poorest quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course you can write anything you want negatve about MS in /. and some fanboys will refuse to believe it with one anecdotal test....

  8. Introducing... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 2, Funny

    Windows 3.11! Boost your network performance with our TRULY multitasking system!

    Music Benchmarks:
    Windows 3.11_ **********
    Windows Vista ***


    And it comes with Reversi, too!

  9. Clearly by Colin+Smith · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft's customers, the music industry, have to make sure that the criminals who play music over the internet are very limited in the amount of intellectual property they are able to steal.

    Seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you don't like it, there are plenty of alternatives out there.

    --
    Deleted
  10. Re:how on earth? by AshtangiMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I sort of want some proof before I start stringing people up.

    You must be new here . . . but how did you grab such a low UID?

  11. Re:how on earth? by sinator · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's a low ID? :)

    --
    Three Step Plan:
    1. Take over the world.
    2. Get a lot of cookies.
    3. Eat the cookies.
  12. Re:That is nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Oddly, if you play music backwards Vista's network performance jumps to 150% of the theoretical maximum.

  13. Re:how on earth? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Run along, newbie.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  14. Re:how on earth? by eggoeater · · Score: 5, Funny

    This, of course, comes with a huge disclaimer to the effect that I have no inside information as to the structure of the Vista kernel, and might be completely making all of this up. Yeah, I think that might be Microsoft's problem as well.


  15. Re:how on earth? by Trails · · Score: 4, Funny

    Grampa? But... we thought you were dead...

  16. Re:Or more accurately by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Funny

    Installing Vista slows Vista performance.
    Still don't see any reason why someone would use this as an OS over XP right now. They like the view?
    Still amazed they encoded "it's eye candy!" in the name of the OS.
    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  17. Re:how on earth? by Isaac-Lew · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pot/kettle/black

  18. Re:how on earth? by phil+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Run along, newbie.

    Who are you calling a newbie, newbie?

    --

    ...phil
    "For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
  19. For teh win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I am not a number.

    1. Re:For teh win by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am not a number.

      No, you're not. He hasn't posted in a while.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  20. Re:how on earth? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pot/kettle/black

    There is one thing that can summon the Great Old Ones.

    One.

    And that is the implication that someone with a higher UID is one of them.

    I claim my prize for having successfully beckoned a few and retire to the library for brandy and cigars.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  21. Re:how on earth? by Aceticon · · Score: 4, Funny

    You must be new here . . . but how did you grab such a low UID?

    The Slashdor ID was probably inherited from a "wierd uncle" which died in a strange accident in his basement when a pile of old Sun workstations fell on top of him.
  22. Re:you're being passive aggressive by ischorr · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always wondered WHY OS X was designed to be so utterly foreign, and incomprehensible for Windows users to pick up. I never understood why you have to stand on a balance bar and lean to interact with the computer. Or why you have to punch a dog in the face to launch a new application. Or why their display device is a constantly reshaping bowl of mashed bananas.

    I guess they just want to Think Different, but you'd think that they'd use desktop and GUI concepts similar to what Windows uses. And yet strangely, several million Windows users started using Macs this year.

  23. Re:how on earth? by latro · · Score: 4, Funny

    You know, this can go on all day...

    --

    -------

    "It was people! People soiled our green!"
  24. Not very accurate by Liquidrage · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think it's a superior OS to XP. I think the design is more secure and stable, though I consider XP to be rather stable as well.

    The new look and feel can be turned off, in which case it certainly isn't slower. I'd consider it faster then XP to be honest.
    I like its smart use of dead cycles and unused RAM for indexing and precaching. I like the new explorer options and much improved searching.

    All in all it's certainly a step forward.
    I don't know if I'd say it's worth upgrading over XP for most people that are running XP just fine now. But I certainly would suggest Vista over XP if one were going to be buying one OS or the other.

  25. Re:Or more accurately by nschubach · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hear Duke Nukem Forever is exclusive to Windows PecanPie and DirectX 11 (Whipped Cream Edition) since it could never run on some weak DX10 platform due to the new hyper-channel mega buss that cannot be back-ported into such a weak platform. They also claim at least 349% boost to disk access rates simply by using off the shelf Microsoft Win-SSD Ultra drives (available only at a premium price of 40% above other drives).

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  26. Re:DRM strikes again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    How would Bush have time to listen while he's electrocuting Iraqi orphans, cutting down trees to make way for his Halliburton oil cronies' mansions and yachts; all the while raping Mother earth caribou-by-caribou so that Dick Cheney can drink the blood of clubbed baby seals? That, and planning the next 9/11 takes time away. But I'm sure he's listening to you, sir.

  27. Re:DRM strikes again? by DrLov3 · · Score: 0, Funny

    Actually, Bush has plenty of time to listen to all the slashdot crowd complain. He spent so far 418 days of his 6.5+ years of presidency in vacation. See : http://politics.netscape.com/story/2007/08/10/bush -creeping-up-on-reagan-as-the-vacation-president
    Now I don't think Vista is slowing down network traffic while listening to music to send hash-info about what you are listening to the RIAA, because : I don't think the RIAA would be smart enough to think of that or know what to do with hash-info, let alone info. But it's just my opinion, while we may not have the source code of Vista to know what it is doing, I'm pretty sure it's either somewhere in the EULA :P, or VISTA is just defective by desing.

  28. I found out why my boot times were poor by OricAtmos48K · · Score: 2, Funny

    Windows Theme Music !

  29. Re:DRM strikes again? by kimvette · · Score: 2, Funny

    They really ought to push to outlaw speakers and headphones. After all, if you can hear it, you can remember it, and each time you get an earworm, you are "enjoying" an uncompensated performance of that copyrighted material. Likewise, if you can hear it, it can be recorded. Clearly, analog devices such as speakers and headphones are designed primarily for the purpose of copy infringement and ought to be outlawed.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  30. Re:DRM strikes again? by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Funny

    The issue here is that Vista's sound subsystem does a lot more audio processing that previous generations do. For example it will delay the streams to your multichannel system so that the sound from each speaker reaches your head at exactly the same time. So why is this necessary on a laptop with 2 speakers? Vista is taking into account the delay in the audio reaching your cojoined twin's head? Either that or Vista sucks, not sure which is the more likely explanation.
    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  31. Re:DRM strikes again? by bberens · · Score: 5, Funny

    Disclaimer: I run linux servers as well as vista, I'm not particularly biased in any one direction. /. is no place for that kind of rubbish talk
    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  32. Re:DRM strikes again? by apt142 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Type mismatch found on line 4.
    Talented artists like Britney Spears
    ---------------------^

  33. Re:not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I help my mom, and my wife. I bought my mom a Mac mini, and my wife as a MacBook. You bought your wife as a MacBook? Did the I/O panel convince you?
  34. Disclaimer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    Hi, I'm twitter. You might now me because I've posted over seven thousand times on Slashdot. While the post above this one might seem like it contains statements of fact, it is in reality nothing more than my own speculations, which I base partly on the twisting and misrepresentation of facts and personal anecdotes, partly on my religious attachment to software, and partly on my weird hatred of Microsoft.

    I use terms like "M$" and "Windoze" because I believe that they're clever, and Netcraft confirms that cleverness scores people mod points around here, although it doesn't always work.

    As always, I ignore people who reply to me to point out I am either lying or just flapping uselessly in the wind. I find reason and logic to be inconvenient in my quest to convince the world that they must switch to free software or suffer the consequences. I consider myself an "evangelist" and I believe people should put up with me because I Am Right.

    But, I urge you to just use your head when reading my posts. Most of what I say can safely be discarded as sophomoric fluff designed to bring out the worse in people. Make your own choices about technology and be smart.

    Thanks.

  35. Re:how on earth? by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Slashdor ID was probably inherited from a "wierd uncle" which died in a strange accident in his basement when a pile of old Sun workstations fell on top of him. I have to admit, "crushed by workstations" does sound better than "autoerotic asphyxiation." I'd stick with that story.
    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  36. Re:how on earth? by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Funny

    >Nah, this looks far more like run of the mill incompetence.

    Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence. Or is that the other way around?

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  37. The truth about Vista sound by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It uses the microphone to detect echo from your head. This starts with the first approximation that your head is symmetrical, smooth, and round. If the echo shows any sign of left/rigth asymmetry, it brings in the next layer of feedback control by simulating a rotated ovoid head, and progressively brings in more features such as topological variations (nose, eyes, ears, open mouth). It is continually trying various time delays to make sure it isn't confused by emenations from your own mouth, nose, or ears (tintinabulation).

    Once it determines the maximum quality feedback parameters, it backs off various parameters to try to reduce the computational footprint. It keeps a record of these adjustments and periodically adds them back in temporarily to make sure the basic parameters are still valid. If any of these trials show the need, it will restart the complete feedback search cycle.

    Where does the network figure in all this, you ask? Simple. All that I have described so far is reactive feedback. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or more usefully, predicting how much feedback control is necessary can pay bigger dividends -- more bang for the buck, so to speak -- than reactive analysis. If it can tell what you are doing from packet analysis, it has a better chance of predicting your head position. It looks at HTML pages and tries to guess what content is shown, in order to know if it is likely to affect your head position, and then tries to guess where that content will show on the screen, in order to predict where your head will be.

    Coupled with mouse and keyboard controls, this can lead to amazing sound quality from the piss-poor speakers found on most laptops, even simulating 5.1 speaker systems with just the two speakers found on most computers.

    Now you know.

    1. Re:The truth about Vista sound by m-kirkcaldie · · Score: 2, Funny

      Surely it would need to use the built in camera to image facial hair and hairstyle, in order to map the reflectance/absorbance parameters of the area around the ear. Future implementations might also employ EEG recording to determine the actual frequency mix reaching the brain, so that the sound can be EQ'd to compensate for variations in sensitivity at different frequencies - important for age-related hearing changes.

    2. Re:The truth about Vista sound by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      What I hate is that Vista doesn't take into account the length and distribution of my ear hair. The proximity of that and my earwax to my eardrum is the single most important organic environmental consideration.

      Of course, nose hair should be factored, unless its distortion floor is overwhelmed by facial hair.

  38. Re:DRM strikes again? by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Funny

    Modern pc's, use a gigabit controler, to offload the bandwidth and processing, before it reaches the pci bus.

    Dude, who taught you punctuation? Arnold Rimmer??

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  39. Re:how on earth? by Paul+Crowley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, I resisted for like about three minutes.

  40. Re:Microsoft user here. by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now, I have no intention at all of upgrading to Vista.

    s/upgrading/changing/;

  41. Re:DRM strikes again? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Funny

    How did she figure that out? Did someone forget to hook up the vocal processor unit?

  42. Re:DRM strikes again? by irby0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was thinking William Shatner.