Video wallpaper randomly slowing down/freezing when resuming

[shyguy]

I'm having an issue where pretty frequently the wallpaper will stutter and slow to a crawl or just freeze when resuming. It happens randomly when it auto resumes or if I pause and then resume manually. The program itself doesn't crash and it will usually fix itself given enough time. It happened a little while ago and I just got busy doing other things and suddenly after around 10-15 minutes of being frozen the wallpaper starting playing again. I can also fix it immediately if I want just by switching between wallpapers but of course it's only a temporary fix until it happens again.

I'm honestly not sure what could be causing it. I use Rivatuner but I don't think that has anything to do with it because I've tried closing Rivatuner but still had the same issue. I'm using Windows 11 but that probably doesn't matter. I only just started using Wallpaper engine yesterday and so have only tried a few wallpapers. The wallpapers that have been affected by this are video wallpapers and the videos are in mp4 format. Has anyone else ran into this issue?

[Biohazard]

Try changing the option "other application fullscreen" from pause to "stop" in Wallpaper Engine.

What you are seeing is a buffering issue due to something on your system not responding fast enough, but since the video system is part of Windows and your graphics driver there isn't much we can do about it. If you use the stop option then the wallpaper will fully restart and this should avoid it.

[shyguy]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Try changing the option "other application fullscreen" from pause to "stop" in Wallpaper Engine.

What you are seeing is a buffering issue due to something on your system not responding fast enough, but since the video system is part of Windows and your graphics driver there isn't much we can do about it. If you use the stop option then the wallpaper will fully restart and this should avoid it.

I seem to have figured out the issue. I had turned off audio in the display settings. So when the video froze I turned audio back on and it instantly started working. Didn't have any more problems the rest of the day. However I'm now using two wallpapers in a playlist and both of them have audio. I have lowered the volume manually on each of them which worked initially. Upon restarting my pc one of them now plays audio and the volume slider has no effect. I have disabled the volume in general settings and see what happens from there. I think the sound issue might be a problem with the particular wallpaper since the other wallpaper doesn't have the issue. If the freezing resumes I'll just have to enable audio again and stop using this particular wallpaper.

[carter guitar]

i also have this issue and have had it for as long as i've used WPE. the devs have a problem admitting videos stutter, and you're basically told there is no issue, it's your hardware, etc. it does seem to be audio related from my research as well. i don't see this ever being fixed, though. it's not an issue in their eyes.

i use very few video wallpapers these days due to this issue. they are too big anyway and scenes typically look better as wallpapers.

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by shyguy:

Upon restarting my pc one of them now plays audio and the volume slider has no effect.

Are you using the high-priority auto start option? If yes, try it without. Windows will silently override the volume we are setting when the audio device changes and although we are already compensating for that, due to how Windows does this it cannot be solved reliably.

Originally posted by shyguy:

I think the sound issue might be a problem with the particular wallpaper since the other wallpaper doesn't have the issue. If the freezing resumes I'll just have to enable audio again and stop using this particular wallpaper.

Can you share links to both wallpapers so we can compare them?

You can also try using this alternative video system https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/videos/lav.html by default Wallpaper Engine uses the native Windows video system which we are legally limited to, so this is why LAV has to be downloaded separately first.

[shyguy]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Are you using the high-priority auto start option? If yes, try it without. Windows will silently override the volume we are setting when the audio device changes and although we are already compensating for that, due to how Windows does this it cannot be solved reliably.

Yes I am using the high-priority start. I'll try disabling it if the audio issue happens again with another wallpaper.

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Can you share links to both wallpapers so we can compare them?

You can also try using this alternative video system https://help.wallpaperengine.io/en/videos/lav.html by default Wallpaper Engine uses the native Windows video system which we are legally limited to, so this is why LAV has to be downloaded separately first.

Well the freezing/stuttering issue has occurred on multiple wallpapers but it was due to disabling the audio since all of them were video wallpapers with sound. I tried disabling the sound again in general settings and the stuttering/freezing returned. I only had the weird audio glitch on one in particular which was this one. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932039267
When I turned on my pc today it loaded up and then the sound started playing. The weird thing was that the sound of other wallpapers functioned normally. I could increase or decrease the volume in wallpaper engine. But this one no matter what I put the sound to it stayed the same volume. The really strange thing was that even Windows system volume didn't affect it until it was at 0. So if I had Windows system volume at 1 or at 100 the actual volume of the wallpaper remained the same. It was only when the sound was at 0 or muted that the sound stopped. I think this may have just been a glitch of some kind because yesterday the wallpaper sound functioned normally. It was only after a restart that it happened.

But in any case the freezing/stuttering has been solved. Since enabling audio and manually turning sound down on each wallpaper I haven't had the issue again. And I've tested out multiple wallpapers since. Thanks for the help.