ATI Anti Pop

[James]

I've written a little program, which solves the problem of pops with ATI 5xxx HDMI sound.

WARNING:

This software is intended for experienced users. Use at your own risk. It is a simple hack, which will force a constant audio stream to your receiver / amplifier.
Use only under Windows Vista and Windows 7. Use it only with ATI 5xxx cards. Use it only with the ATI audio driver, not the Realtek driver.

To use the program, copy it to your hard-disk and start it. You may want to create a shortcut in your startup folder to start it together with Windows.

The program will automatically drop the audio connection, if exclusive use of the audio device is requested (e.g., bitstream audio, using PAP, change of speaker config, using ReClock WASAPI, ...) and will reconnect if the audio device is available again.

To check if the program is running, you can check the Windows Vista / 7 audio mixer. To exit the program, use Windows task manager to kill the ATI-anti-pop.exe process. (Sorry, I'm lazy, and I hope ATI will fix this problem anyway...)

Enjoy.

 

[andy o]

Thanks a lot James!

 

[SamuriHL]

This is for the Silent Stream bug. However, the best news of the day (and yes, James, I just checked, too).....ready for it.....wait for it....the powerplay bug is fixed!!!!!!!!!

 

[James]

SamuriHL told me I should clarify:

This tool is a workaround for the "ATI silent stream" bug, not the "powerplay" bug. (The "silent stream bug" is not-so-silent with my Onkyo receiver, in fact it pops as soon as a sound is played, hence the name "ATI anti pop").

It looks like the "powerplay" bug is fixed with Catalyst 10.6.

 

[James]

This is for the Silent Stream bug. However, the best news of the day (and yes, James, I just checked, too).....ready for it.....wait for it....the powerplay bug is fixed!!!!!!!!!

You were faster.

 

[andy o]

This is for the Silent Stream bug. However, the best news of the day (and yes, James, I just checked, too).....ready for it.....wait for it....the powerplay bug is fixed!!!!!!!!!

Oops beat me to it, I just posted at AVS with this question. Never mind, I guess. Good news all around!

 

[SamuriHL]

Yea, this truly rocks. Absolutely unreal. There is now no need for the realtek driver. Now, if I can get my other problems under control I'd be in HTPC heaven. Thanks for this, James!!

 

[andy o]

Yep, working very well. Thanks again James.

 

[Sebastiii]

Whouuu oooouuu

So great
Thanks so much

 

[gcoupe]

Erm, will this run on W7 64bit OK?
Thanks

 

[SamuriHL]

Erm, will this run on W7 64bit OK?
Thanks

Yes. I'm using it on my W7 64 HTPC.

 

[andy o]

Well, if I may... one liiiitle thing...

This app is preventing my PC to go automatically to sleep. Is there any way to disable this behavior?

 

[Jong]

Well, if I may... one liiiitle thing...

This app is preventing my PC to go automatically to sleep. Is there any way to disable this behavior?

Ahh! I was just about to give big thank you to James, but this would scupper things for me.

A big thank you, anyway. But any way to stop this app preventing sleep without preventing all audio apps keeping the PC awake?

 

[Jong]

James, you probably know better than me, but a quick Google suggests this could do it, if you called it at the end of startup:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd405532(v=VS.85).aspx

 

[andy o]

Hmm at least Media Center goes to sleep while keeping the audio open. I think MPC-HC when paused also lets the PC go to sleep, so I don't think it's a limitation of the driver. Don't know how easy/hard it would be for James to implement it here though.

 

[Jong]

More possibly useful reading:

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...B-A97E-CE7CE0D98DC2/AvailabilityRequests.docx

 

[Jong]

Both WMP and MPC-HC shut down the audio stream when paused (although the PC does sleep).

If James cannot do it it might be possible by using a Request Override to stop the driver preventing sleep, but then only "well behaved" audio apps would work that explicitly turn off sleep/hibernate themselves and do not rely on the driver.

 

[andy o]

Even when using MPC-HC without exclusive mode? I wasn't sure about that.

 

[Jong]

Ah! It gets more and more interesting.

WMP does shutdown the stream, even in non-exclusive mode

MPC-HC does not shutdown the stream but then it does not cancel the power request either!! (see attached with mpc-hc paused (ignore the filesystem request that was caused by something else altogether)).

So, it seems an active audio stream prevents sleep at the driver level.

A RequestOverride would probably work. But I've just checked and although most of my apps do make a process request too my HTPC front-end, MeediOS, does not . So I'll fire up a post over there to try to get their audio player "Well behaved"!

 

[cybrsage]

Yep, in 7MC I lose the audio just like I do without this fix. I came here to see what I might have done wrong...though it seemed easy enough (double-click the exe file).