Glitchy audio on Windows/Chrome

[mmontag]

Getting a couple reports of audio pop/glitches on Windows+Chrome.
+1 the issue if you have experienced this.

[polygonnedpotato]

this also happens to me but im on chrome os so i should have expected it

[applecuckoo]

@mmontag getting skippy/jumpy sound when changing songs, playlist used is /Nintendo 64/Super Mario 64 (1996)(Nintendo EAD)(Nintendo). Using Chrome 106. Explained further below #118 (comment)

[mmontag]

@applecuckoo This is a performance problem of emulating the N64.

The N64 miniusf/usflib support has bothered me ever since I added it, because it goes against the spirit of Chip Player. It is not sequenced music with an emulated audio chip, but instead a black box emulation of the N64 that just happens to write some audio output. The music sequence is not exposed, tempo and voice settings are fixed, and fast seeking is impossible.

This is why I've started working on MIDI+SF2 support (check the Soundfont MIDI folder at top level).

[Titanic4]

I think the issue is related to default audio buffer size given by Google Chrome, or any Chrome based browser, such as Microsoft Edge. I've added --audio-buffer-size=512 as the launch parameter for Google Chrome and the audio is butter smooth when playing N64 music files with Chip Player. Adjusting the audio buffer on the Chip Player itself could possibly fix the audio issues for users, who use default audio buffer size.

[Titanic4]

I've just noticed that the playback quality greatly depends on the sampling rate of the user's sound card. After setting it to 16 kHz I've got somewhat smooth audio without using any command line parameters, which would override Chrome's audio buffer size. To achieve that I had to use Voicemeeter, since its audio output allows me to set the sampling rate to quite wide range of selections. There was similar issue regarding the playback speed, which was also dependant on the sampling rate.

[danmons]

This has just hit me this month in Linux with Chrome and Edge. Previously fine, but now all FM based synth is very choppy (almost as if the system can't keep up?).

Firefox is fine for all music. Chrome and Edge are fine for anything PSG, MIDI or sample based, but FM synth across multiple systems has the issue in Chrome-based browsers.