Playback cursor does not always follow the notes played

• Nov 11, 2019 - 11:51

Normally the playback cursor follows the notes played.
However at erratic times I get hiccups: The playback cursor stops while the notes continue to play. After several notes played, the playback cursor catches up and the playback is normal, until the next hiccup....
This happens both in continuous and page mode. As far as I can see it happens to all my scores.
At the moment I am using :OS: Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.3.0.8737, revision: 4761df6
But I noticed it also under previous versions of MuseScore; I have the impression that it is getting worse.
Is there something I can do about it or is it just a bug..

Comments

• Nov 11, 2019 - 12:09

Does the music playback (i.e, sound) have "hiccups", or just the cursor movement?
What"s your hardware setup - processor, ram, video on motherboard or dedicated video card?

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• Nov 11, 2019 - 14:11

The Asus P7H55-M motherboard has an Intel socket 1156 which was discontinued around 2011 - 2012. It can support a max. of 16 GB ram. The motherboard has onboard graphics (integrated GPU) with the capability to install a discrete (dedicated) graphics card for better video performance, otherwise your installed 8 GB ram is also used for rendering video..

Since you are running Windows 10, open the task manager during MuseScore playback and on the Processes tab check the CPU and Memory usage. You may be taxing your hardware's capabilities.

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• Nov 12, 2019 - 20:29

Are those the numbers strictly for MuseScore, or are they taken from the totals at the top of the Task Manager?
If they are totals, your system's resources seem adequate.

Also, the cursor's movement is by nature not as smooth as the piano roll editor's motion.
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/piano-roll-editor#Opening

Play the attached file and compare the cursor's movement in the two different sections. Perhaps the cursor appears as "hiccupping" due to the rhythm of the notes.
Also...
When you use the piano roll, does it "hiccup"?

Attachment Size
Cursor Movement.mscz 23.17 KB

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• Nov 13, 2019 - 15:06

The numbers I mentioned were not from the top but from MuseScore only. However in the meantime I have been watching the Task Manager more frequently and closer. The problem is that those hiccups occur intermittently. So I let a piece run in a loop and see what happened in the Task manager. When MuseScore plays fine with the playback cursor, the value of the the CPU usage remains normally even below 1%. However when a Hiccup occurs it spikes sometimes up to 25%. When I use the piano roll the CPU is normally around 20% for MuseScore. When a hiccup occurs it also occurs in the piano roll editor.
In you test file I also get occasionally hiccups, but not on the empty spaces and, so far, not on the bottom part.

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• Nov 13, 2019 - 15:47

You wrote:
The numbers I mentioned were not from the top but from MuseScore only.

You should watch the "totals" for CPU and Memory since you may have other open apps or processes besides MuseScore that are competing for system resources. See if there is any spike in memory usage.
For your motherboard, the Asus website mentions a "GPU Boost" feature to boost "the integrated GPU in real time for the best grahics performance". The motherboard manual is also available there too.

Since you said that the audio does not stutter, it appears to be a video rendering glitch. That is, the cursor is sometimes not "keeping up" with the music. The piano roll editor, which normally runs 'smoother' than the score cursor, also on occasion "hiccups", as you said. So again, this appears as a video (display) rendering issue.

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