Audio tweak that seems to make a difference - needs testing!

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dschur

Member
Feb 5, 2005
19
0
Chicago
Hi all,

The audio on my Jam (predominantly the output from the built-in speaker) was driving me a little nuts. I was getting stuttering and clicks in programs (games), in movies (WMV) and using the phone. Also, there was a lot of stutter in the notifications for incoming calls and SMS.

In attempting to resolve this, I noticed that GB-SOFT Tweak (http://www.gb-soft.cz/XDAII/products.htm) had an

interesting setting "Higher priority for audio media". I turned on this setting, soft reset, and Wham! sounds are as

smooth as butter globally. I haven't had any noticeable negative side effects, just better sounds.

I looked into what the GB-SOFT utility is doing, and it seems to just be setting one registry value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\BuiltIn\WaveDev\Priority256
from it's default
0x100 (256) to
0x80 (128)

This apparently gives the built-in sound processing DLL (WaveDev) a higher thread priority and eliminates the skipping sound.

Can some of you guys try this out (either via the GB-SOFT utility, or manually in the registry), and confirm your results?

This got rid of one of the most annoying problems for me with my Jam (A great device).

YMMMV
 

agiorgitis

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2005
69
14
Greece
Well, i've tested it and i found that while it does a lot of improvement on the sounds played from the back speaker (media player, ringtones etc.), it doesn't improve at all the audio quality from the front speaker. (I called a couple of friends...but it was still the same, robot, voice quality)
For the tests i went up to 500 (terrible audio, full of clicks and tsiks) and down to 20...
I'll continue the tests.... :?
 

Koksie

Senior Member
Dec 9, 2004
526
4
On my MDA Compact, the Priority256 key has the DWord value 110 (0X00006E). So I have no idea how to change the setting to 0X80 (128). Anyone know how to do this? I am interested in testing the results.
 

Koksie

Senior Member
Dec 9, 2004
526
4
I am using PHM regedit, that's how I found the settings I posted. But no idea what to put into that setting to change it to the settings posted in thsi thread. I will use the GB prog instead and see what it does.
 

Pc78

Senior Member
Jan 19, 2005
462
0
Slovenia
Koksie I have the same problem with Resco explorer registry plug-in... :roll: Will try the regedit at home...

Regards,
Primoz
 

dschur

Member
Feb 5, 2005
19
0
Chicago
Koksie said:
On my MDA Compact, the Priority256 key has the DWord value 110 (0X00006E). So I have no idea how to change the setting to 0X80 (128). Anyone know how to do this? I am interested in testing the results.

Koksi, if that is your default, then you actually have an ever higher priority set by default then GB-SOFT Tweak sets.

Hmm, I'm wondering if some other software (Or GB-SOFT Tweak itself) else lowered my priority to 0x100 (256) causing my problems in the first place.

GB-SOFT Tweak definitely sets the value to 0x80 (128) when you turn the option on, and resets it back to 0x100 (256) when you turn it off.

Can anyone else quickly check the value of this registry setting without using GB-SOFT Tweak?
 

dschur

Member
Feb 5, 2005
19
0
Chicago
andrewpmoore said:
my default was 256 and I know I've had terrible clicking sound when I tried to install a couple of games.
Andrew, if you set it to 110 you will have much better sound.

Everyone else, if you're already below 128, you're fine. Somehow a couple of devices (Andrrew, mine) got off the imate factory default (which seems to be 110) causing really bad sound.

Of course if you want some fun, you can manually set it to 256 and soft-reset to see how bad it is, then set it back ;-)
 

Artosoft

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2005
190
1
www.geocities.com
My report:

Mine is 110 (factory default).

Set to 80, and found the sound is less clicking when hearing from the phone (talk like normal handphone, not from the speaker phone at bottom).

For sound like from Windows Media Player 10, or phone ringtones (midi), looks like the sound is a bit soft than before, but clearer.

I keep on 80.

Best regards,
Arto
 

bnycastro

Senior Member
hi have to report something weird! anyway a few posts up I said my default was 128... however I noticed that my mp3s seem to be playing out of sync or choppy and the quality was worse than before my ROM upgrade. when I checked the value it was set to 256. I'm not saying it is the ROM's fault as I have also installed/tried some other apps after the ROM upgrade and maybe these apps were responsible for lowering the audio quality for my JAM (maybe for performance purpose) anyway I've set it back to 128 and the sound is better. Maybe for people just about to do the ROM upgrade can check the before and after value so we know if it is the ROM doing the changing or just some apps.
 

swamp2

Senior Member
Feb 4, 2005
575
57
San Diego
THANKS SO MUCH FOR A GREAT THREAD!

After posting this same question here (BA Forum) and at howard forums I finally found this thread. I had the bad clicking/skipping during mp3 in WMP and during wav playback in the voice in GPS nav. My setting was 128 but I already installed the GB-Soft tweak. I still had the poor performance. I adjusted down to 110 and all problems seem to be gone. It definitely was some devious app that made a change because my device did not do this for a long time then it suddenly began. BTW, I have a pda2k not Jam. Anyway, thanks so much to all for a solution this was driving me nuts.