OK, so, I've spent the better part of the day ripping some CDs to flac to preserve their quality (and to upload as torrents to sites, but that's beside the point), but when I play some of them, they have noticeable skips, as if the CPU can't keep up to play them. All my regular MP3s play just fine, but all my new flacs skip. Could this be because I was doing other things while ripping the CDs? Is there some sort of way I could've ripped them better, like ripping them straight to wav files and then encoding them as flacs? I just need some help so I don't go through my whole collection ripping these if they're all going to skip. Edit: I'd like to point out I was playing the files using Winamp earlier and they weren't skipping at all. But now they skip. They even skip in VLC. And also, I restarted my computer and tried playing a file before opening any other program (other than the ones that come up on startup) and the files still skipped. Edit2: This also happens when trying to watch movies. The audio and video both skip. But I've got a 2 GHz processor, an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 graphics card with 128 MB onboard memory, and 2 GB RAM, so I don't see why they should be skipping.
I'm no technology expert (hell I didn't even get the full meaning of the acronym 'flac' right) but have you tried checking for spyware/adware on your system lately, or doing an anti-virus check? If something in your system processes is taking up a lot of resources in the background, it could be causing the performance of your PC to suffer and thus not play videos and/or high quality audio files correctly. Again, I'm no expert but I'd recommend trying that first.
Do you have any sort of wireless internet device in your computer? I know that has lagged music for me before. Other than that, consider what Derek said.
It makes sense to do that, but I'm more than sure that's not the problem. I started experiencing problems a couple months ago, but then I formatted and still had the same problems. So I know it's not a virus or anything like that. But like I said, MP3s play fine, but flac and video (divx, actually) don't. Edit: Nope. I believe in wires. I've got nothing wireless.
Do you have a LOT and I mean A LOT of programs running in both the foreground, and background at the same time simultaneously? If so, I know when I do remixing I gotta close a lot of shit down because otherwise the software 'falls behind' a little bit.
Nah. I mean, I guess you could say I've got a lot of programs running, but it's "the norm," I'd suppose. Along with all the system services, I've only got maybe 8-12 other background programs running. But now that I think about it, just because I've got 2 GB RAM doesn't mean the CPU is going to be able to handle anything easier. Let me shut off some programs and see what happens.
Yeah try that. If you have a lot of demanding things running in the background, it can be enough to slow down even the best PC to a commanding halt. Take me for example. Great processor, decent ram...but once I load a lot up on this thing...AIM/Firefox etc all start to lag.
Nope. No dice. The files still skipped. This is really stupid and frustrating and annoying. Because now I can't tell whether the skips are within the files themselves, or just my computer being shitty. Actually, that was a dumb thing to question, since I played Thrice's "Red Sky" earlier with no problems, but now it's skipping. Ugh. Technology. Edit: A new development: I'm defragging the hard drive all my flac files are on (since I've got them all by themselves on one drive). When I analyzed the drive, my computer wasted no time in telling me that I'm an idiot and should defrag the drive, so that's what I'm doing. We'll see if that helps.
A fragmented drive would make sense. High quality and large files are spread across your harddrive in an inefficient manner, making them harder to access, therefore slowing down your computer.
I don't know what to tell you other than what has already been said. Maybe lower the compression ratio. Only thing I can think of.
Have you downloaded any decoders lately? I know you're on Winamp, but if you've downloaded a program such as ffdshow then that will "take over" if you will, and sometimes it goes south. I've got a top of the range computer but I have an .mkv video in 1080p and it stutters too much to watch because ffdshow just can't cope. What might help is if you try playing files in several different formats and among several programs then let us know if you get skipping among all of them.
No, I haven't downloaded any other decoders. I downloaded dBpoweramp to rip my CDs to flac, and it was doing its job just fine until a certain point, and then all my flacs started skipping (including "Plaster", which I downloaded and didn't even encode myself). No other formats skip. Mp3s are fine, wmas are fine, aacs are fine and oggs are fine. I've used Winamp, dBpoweramp, VLC and WMP but the files (the flac files) all skip.
I have a feeling your drive is having trouble ripping directly to flac, which is creating the skips. Try going CD --> wav --> flac .
Okay. I'll try that. But the thing is that I ripped to flac just fine earlier in the day. I was listening to a flac of Thrice's "Red Sky" and it was flawless, but just a few hours later it skipped. Edit: So far ripping straight to wav and then converting to flac seems to be working. I also left the compression at default (five) and things seem to be okay for now. Thanks for your help, guys. Edit2: Well, several hours later, and the files are skipping again. The only thing I can think is that there are too many of them on the disk or something. That shouldn't matter though. But the disk is about four years old now. Shouldn't have anything to do with it, but that's my best guess right now. I guess I'll have to go with high quality mp3s instead.