DPS 2.0 Testing (Windows)

[bef522b1-0846-4b91-9c0e-64605f6ae0d5]

The following is completely reproducible here:

1. Start PC, DPS autostarts with GUI off. Memory usage is staying at about 16MB.
2. Open GUI and memory starts going up and down as described above. Closing the GUI again won’t change that.
3. With open GUI the memory cycles between roughly 30MB and 150MB, however with closed GUI it goes up to 500MB.

[bef522b1-0846-4b91-9c0e-64605f6ae0d5]

4. Started playing a movie after point 3 in exclusive mode directly using the actual soundcard, i.e. without DPS (still on, just not used). Then the memory usage goes down to the smaller range but still cycles no matter if the GUI is open or closed. That explains the result from yesterday, as I did the same then.

[jimboden]

Just noticed an issue with volume levels. When DPS is set to headphones and I start it, the volume in my Sound Blaster control panel goes to 100% just like it does when DPS is set to speakers. I confirmed this by exiting and restarting DPS a couple of times and it does it consistently.

[xaqmusic]

jim:  I remember our discussions about making this feature same as 1.2.3 (no change in output driver when launching in headphones mode).  To remedy any drastic volume changes when starting DPS, we set the DPS volume level same as the headphone output level on launch.  Does this cause any problems with your setup?  Remember, if we don’t set the device output to max, keyboard volume controls will not allow you to ever achieve max volume (if you like that sort of thing).

hans:  The memory will always fluctuate because DPS is always processing the audio stream (even during silence).  However, the reason the fluctuations are going up above 100MB has to do with .NET garbage memory handling.  We are currently looking into ways to minimize this, however, Microsoft best practices state that .NET should handle all memory allocation duties.  There is also the possibility that memory usage is not getting reported properly (perhaps because it is changing constantly).  During my analysis using ANTS, I noticed anomalies that did not line up with Windows resource monitor.

I should mention that everyone should be looking at the Private column in Windows resource monitor (not task manager).  To launch this run resmon from the command line.

With regards to memory usage, we ask everyone to notice if this is actually causing noticeable performance issues on your machine.  If so, please let us know so we can re-create the issue.  Thanks!

[jimboden]

Joey:

I also remember our previous discussions. They centred around DPS setting the volume to 100% on EXIT for both headphones and speakers which it is still doing. This is a different issue. Starting DPS when it is already set to headphones is changing my sound card volume to 100% which it should not be doing and is the opposite of what you just posted. I have not seen this until now. It did not happen in previous versions.

Also have been watching memory usage again this morning. My system is literally doing nothing and DPS is running it up close to 1GB again while it’s also doing nothing. Does it affect the performance of my system? No, but it could if other tasks are using a lot of RAM. I only have an 8GB system but rarely see memory usage much beyond 4GB when I’m doing other things, especially gaming.

[xaqmusic]

on volume control:  So DPS now adjusts the volume on launch AND exit so the apparent change in volume with DPS running or not is very small.  So I can see a problem with this; if you launch into headphones mode and that output is set to max everything sounds normal.  Then you switch to your external speakers and everything sounds normal.  But then you quit DPS.  You plug in your headphones and BOOM, you get blasted because the volume has been set to max.  Am I right?

If you are getting blasted then we should absolutely go back to the 1.2.3 method.

regarding memory:  I am testing now using the Resource Monitor.  When DPS is not processing any audio, the Private memory is getting up to 150MB on my Win 7 x64 machine (it got up to 350MB on my Win 8.1 32bit machine).   As soon as I play any audio the usage drops down to 25-70MB.  When I close the player, the usage begins to cycle higher again.  I can’t tell if this is an actual problem or just .NET doing it’s thing.  It looks unusual but nothing is acting weird other than the numbers in Resource Monitor.  Let’s keep an eye on it…

[jimboden]

Joey:

I vote for doing it like 1.2.3. This issue just showed up in a12 and did not exist in the earlier versions of DPS 2. I thought the original reason for not changing the volume on start up if DPS was set to headphones was to prevent getting blasted. I actually didn’t have the headphones on when it happened and just happened to notice the volume go to 100%, so I turned it down before I put them on.

The memory problem is perplexing alright. After watching it run up to almost 1GB when it wasn’t processing anything, I played COD Ghosts and the memory utilization immediately dropped back to the low MB range.

[bef522b1-0846-4b91-9c0e-64605f6ae0d5]

About memory:

No, it’s not a performance problem but I think it’s unnormal.

I looked at the private tab of the resource monitor and it’s still the same:

Constant 16.8MB after starting the PC. Constant 16.92MB while and after playing some music. That’s fine.

Starting the GUI and bam!, the cycling starts. Closing it and I’ve got an even bigger range. Restarting the GUI brings back the smaller range.

For me this looks like a GUI problem since I can keep the memory constant at a very low level by never opening it. And I can see no reference to processing sound or silence, that doesn’t seem to have any noteworthy impact on memory.

[jimboden]

I did some digging into .NET memory issues and found this interesting article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163528.aspx

Some of it seems to describe the issue DPS is having.

[hoangngoc501]

It’s working fine on windows10 :D, but  it use high RAM @@

[jimboden]

Just a quick update about my report of DPS setting volume to 100% with headphones. I tried it again this morning and it’s not doing it so there was something strange going on yesterday. I’ll keep an eye on it and will report back if it happens again.

[ruslang]

Compatibility DPS 1.2.3 & DPS 2a12 with Windows 10?

jimboden & xaqmusic – you have already tested the DPS 2 on Windows 10 (x86 & x64)?

[jimboden]

ruslang:

I have Windows 8.1 and 10 looks like more of the same, with support for more mobile devices, which doesn’t interest me. It’s highly unlikely I’ll ever switch to Windows 10. What are you using it for?

[ruslang]

on windows 8.1 x64 dps 2a12 panel does not start with Windows does not auto-run at login in Windows &  system tray and also no, you have to manually run

although in the startup folder is a shortcut dps.exe

but although the sound processing goes through the driver dps, but the volume control The hardware hdmi sound output device is not visible in the panel does not adjust the volume with dps

[xaqmusic]

ruslang,

does not auto-run at login

The installer will put a link in the Startup folder if you wish DPS to run at login.  Is DPS in your Startup folder?  The location in Windows 8.1 is C:Users(USERNAME)AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup

The hardware hdmi sound output device is not visible in the panel does not adjust the volume with dps

When you click the volume control in the taskbar, do you see two volume controls?  You should have audio meters in Digital Power Station and your HDMI output.  When the HDMI device is connected and working does it show up in the Output Device drop down menu in the Settings tab?

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