Mp3 faq - stop Winamp from skipping when playing MP3 files

How do I stop Winamp from skipping when playing MP3 files?

There may be various causes, and some may be difficult to get around (e.g. some video drivers conflict with audio output in some circumstances, as do some modem operations, and these problems may be hard to fix, other than by updating your device drivers). Here are a few suggestions...

1) Turn off stuff in Winamp that's unnecessary, such as the scrolling title display and the graphic frequency analyser. (Right click on the corresponding part of the Winamp window to control these options...)

2) Get rid of any programs in memory that you don't need. Use Ctl-Alt-Del and then "End task" anything that shouldn't be there. Don't kill Explorer or Systray, or anything you're currently actually using.

3) If you have more than one hard disk, make sure your using the fastest one for Windows virtual memory - this can make a *lot* of difference. Windows will default to using the c: drive usually, but if you've installed a second hard drive later it will probably be faster, and using it for your virtual memory instead will give you better performance. Go to Control Panel / System and select the Performance tab, then press the Virtual Memory button, and do Manual Configuration.

4) Go to www.winamp.com and download the Nullsoft Cross-fading Plugin (Experimental). I believe it can be found under both "Best plugins" and "Output plugins". Despite its name, crossfading (bringing a new song up as the previous one dies away, rather than having a gap in between) is only one feature of this plugin (and oddly enough, despite the name, the cross-fading feature is turned off by default). It seems to do a bet job of managing output than the standard Nullsoft Wave Out plugin, and it gives you more control - if you select it as your Output plugin under Preferences and then press the Configure button, it allows you to set the buffer size, the thread priority, the pre-buffering percentage and the block-size. Actually the default values seem to work well... but if you still have skipping problems, tinkering with these parameters should help. Also, if you actually want the cross-fading feature (which I kind of like myself - it fades from song to song on the playlist
rather as a radio station would in a song set), turn it on by checking the "No gaps on stop or next" box in the configuration window.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd probably do these steps in the reverse order I've listed them, more or less. Try the new plugin first - it may solve your problems. The virtual memory things is definitely worth doing anyhow if you have a faster hard drive, since it will improve your overall system performance.

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