Sometimes I listen to audiobooks or podcasts via iTunes while I play and I always seem to get some graphics lag when I do. Running Fraps I've verified this. It's not the program being open, that issues no change. It's when audio is playing only. Pressing play will reduce FPS by 10-20 frames dropping me for 110 to 90-100 FPS.

 

Obviously this should be a non-issue as even 90 FPS should be so far above what the human eye can detect it's arguably a non-issue. However, it's also introduce lag. So I get stutter in the FPS/gameplay.

 

What is super odd about this, is that I dual monitor and often will watch a movie or TV show on my second monitor while I play and never see any reduction, stutter, or lag while I game. One would think that video would be far more taxing on my system than audio. So while this is entirely a guess, it seems that the problem is just being reproduced by a combination of the game and iTunes playback.

 

The easy solution here is to try a secondary program for listening to audio while gaming, which I'm happy to try. But I was curious if anyone else has experienced this problem with iTunes first to try to determine if it is a repeatable iTunes issue across multiple systems, or if it is just a conflict with the game and iTunes on my system.

 

Thanks for your help and feedback.

 

System specs:

Win7 64-bit

i7-920 OC 4.2Ghz liquid cooled

12GB G.Skill Sniper ram air cooled

ATI HD5850 air cooled

7200rpm Barracuda HDD

Simply put, use a different media player. iTunes is pretty horrible. Winamp or VLC maybe.

Yeah, best bet is to use a different media player.

Will give another a try. I have major issues with iTunes anyway. I'm still baffled by the fact that Apple is using an 11 year old music player to sync a smart phone and a tablet computer...

Will give another a try. I have major issues with iTunes anyway. I'm still baffled by the fact that Apple is using an 11 year old music player to sync a smart phone and a tablet computer...

 

Winamp was released around 1997.

 

Windows Media Player 6.1 was released around 1995.

 

VLC was started in 1996.

 

 

1997 - 2012 = 15 years.

 

1996 - 2012 = 16 years.

 

1995 - 2012 = 17 years.

 

If the age of the application is an issue, you're going to be dissatisfied with many of them.

I use PowerDVD or is that a completely different program to this subject?

I'm an iTunes fan. It was literally the first BIG (apple bought it, I know) media player with ALL your tunes in a library. First time I saw it in 2001 - I never looked back.

 

That being said - iTunes indeed tends to be resource heavy, but NOT to an extent that any modern rig could not handle.

 

I mean right now my Opera browser takes 1 gig of RAM, I have a video SWTOR podcast running on my second monitor, and all is nice and dandy.

 

Of course I'm only doing solo PvE atm.

 

Basically, no - iTunes should not be diminishing your framerate, but if it IS, then by all means, turn it off and try VLC or Winamp.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Rogoo

Winamp was released around 1997.

 

Windows Media Player 6.1 was released around 1995.

 

VLC was started in 1996.

 

 

1997 - 2012 = 15 years.

 

1996 - 2012 = 16 years.

 

1995 - 2012 = 17 years.

 

If the age of the application is an issue, you're going to be dissatisfied with many of them.

 

You clearly missed my point.

Omg.....

Avoid iTunes like the plague, piece of crap bloated software

 

Switch to VLC and you should have no issues

This is true actually. Onboard sound cards will tax your processor so if your cpu isn't just absolutely boss or you don't have a separate sound card this can add to your lag issues.

Try VLC for playing media.

 

It's so lightweight and customizable.

While VLC is nice, it does not have access to digital purchasing/cloud features (or content) of iTunes.

 

I don't like iTunes, but it does have it's strengths. I use Zune instead!

While I'm in no way shape or form the greatest font of knowledge when it comes to how SWTOR uses hardware, I have run into this exact issue in the past.

 

The crux of my issue (and it was to do with another MMO and iTunes) was that I didn't have a sound-card. What was happening was simply that the on board sound chipset was causing a bottleneck and slowing everything down at a processor level, as it has to use the processor - it simply couldn't handle iTunes and rendering another audio source at the same time.

 

I bought a cheap sound card (£20 ish) and it fixed it instantly.

 

Again, I'm not saying this will fix your issue in particular, but you didn't list a sound card while talking about audio issues, so I'm working under the assumption that you're using your on-board sound. People often don't think that audio requires processing horsepower too.

 

I've had this problem too in other MMO. Whenever I'd run iTunes (doesn't happen with Spotify) my current game would crash / lock up. Exiting iTunes fixed it.

While I'm in no way shape or form the greatest font of knowledge when it comes to how SWTOR uses hardware, I have run into this exact issue in the past.

 

The crux of my issue (and it was to do with another MMO and iTunes) was that I didn't have a sound-card. What was happening was simply that the on board sound chipset was causing a bottleneck and slowing everything down at a processor level, as it has to use the processor - it simply couldn't handle iTunes and rendering another audio source at the same time.

 

I bought a cheap sound card (£20 ish) and it fixed it instantly.

 

Again, I'm not saying this will fix your issue in particular, but you didn't list a sound card while talking about audio issues, so I'm working under the assumption that you're using your on-board sound. People often don't think that audio requires processing horsepower too.

 

... You didnt have a soundcard.. I'm sorry but the difference between onboard and dedicated sound cards went out the window about 6 years ago (you know, when the game was designed)

 

Even if people realise you meant to say you didnt have a 'dedicated' soundcard, i'd love to hear from anyone with a PC who had to buy dedicated sound cards because some game on their PC wouldnt work. (PS those people arent the ones who advertise your game).

Edited March 17, 2012 by Zilrota
removed, rude

... You didnt have a soundcard.. I'm sorry but the difference between onboard and dedicated sound cards went out the window about 6 years ago (you know, when the game was designed)

 

Even if people realise you meant to say you didnt have a 'dedicated' soundcard, i'd love to hear from anyone with a PC who had to buy dedicated sound cards because some game on their PC wouldnt work. (PS those people arent the ones who advertise your game).

Yeah seriously. Not 6 years either. Try 16. The last time sound was a performance concern I had a processor whose speed was measured in mhz.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Zilrota
edited quote

... You didnt have a soundcard.. I'm sorry but the difference between onboard and dedicated sound cards went out the window about 6 years ago (you know, when the game was designed)

 

Even if people realise you meant to say you didnt have a 'dedicated' soundcard, i'd love to hear from anyone with a PC who had to buy dedicated sound cards because some game on their PC wouldnt work. (PS those people arent the ones who advertise your game).

 

Wow. People complain about customer service and then when a dev does try and help they get such rude responses. Your opinion is that this wont work, we get it but you could have been nicer about it.

 

Ive also had issues with itunes in the past as well, rocketfish soundcard solved the problem for me. sometimes restarting my browser also helped if it had been up for awhile with many opened tabs.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Zilrota
edited quote

...

i'd love to hear from anyone with a PC from the last century who had to buy dedicated sound cards because some game on their PC wouldnt work. (PS those people arent the ones who advertise your game).

 

Well, gosh... I had plenty of PCs from 1980s through somewhere in the 1990s that I had to use a sound card with. 1901 through 2000 was the last century wasn't it?

Edited March 16, 2012 by AndasKastor

I also have issues when playing SWTOR while other 32 bits applications are consuming a lot of RAM.

 

In my case, I use Opera for mails, IRC and web and it uses around 1 GB of RAM, if I launch SWTOR, this one is constantly swapping so I suppose it's related to 32 bits processes virtual memory on 64 bits system.

 

The only things you could do :

 

- use 64 bits software

- close program that use a lot of RAM

 

In my case, I'm preferring 64 bits versions of applications but there are a few little of them

 

I don't understand why it's so hard to compile a game in 64 bits !

 

I'm a C++ developer and all my applications are compiling and working in 64 bits. I also have ported Ryzom, a science-fantasy MMORPG, to Win64 and it works like a charm.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Kervala

Whoa ive always wondered why I lagged with itunes running and no matter how much i updated my hardware, i saw no improvement. will be investing in a cheap soundcard tonight. thanks for the info!

Whoa ive always wondered why I lagged with itunes running and no matter how much i updated my hardware, i saw no improvement. will be investing in a cheap soundcard tonight. thanks for the info!

 

And it may do no good, or it may be worse, it's hard to predict. You can also get a pair of USB headphones and they don't use your on board sound either.

 

The problem with Chris's soundcard suggestion is that if it were the soundcard, you'd expect to see performance lag when the OP watches movies or does other things that use the sound drivers. If lag problems only happen with iTunes, it's because iTunes is being a pig, which is documented behavior, even if not everybody experiences it.

 

Two good freeware music players that you can try INSTEAD of iTunes are foobar2000 and MediaMonkey. If they perform better, then that's your problem solved. If not, then it may be driver related.