Here's another datapoint on this pause/freeze/hiccup/whatever:

If I have XMMS running, the problem seems to be dramatically
lessened (or eliminated) for the entire system---at least, if
XMMS is playing something (I tested with .flac files).

I confirmed this by running bzflag in windowed mode without
XMMS running, and saw the hiccups.  Then, keeping bzflag
running, I started XMMS.  The problem seemed to go away.
(I think that it came back a bit if the bzflag window was
large enough.)

Note that this is not just with any audio software.  It may
depend on how XMMS is accessing the audio device, or there may
be some other quirk about XMMS.  I know that I get hiccups with
some audio software.  (I guess that I have mostly played from
raw buffers or uncompressed .wav files; maybe something in FLAC
decompression is helping somehow?)

Given that XMMS playing .flac audio files uses about 1% or less of
the CPU (according to top, the system is 99% idle when XMMS is ~all
that is running), I probably not only get smoother operation, but more
CPU cycles, on average, by running XMMS.  (^&

The down side is that I use the system a fair bit for audio editing
with Audacity---and Audacity can't run at the same time as XMMS (and
editing with Audacity has hiccups).

(Of course, I also get the hiccups if no audio software is running...)


Anyway...back to your regularly scheduled mailing list.

-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/