Audio Stuttering & Choppy Playback in Audacity 3.4.2 (Windows 11)

Audacity 3 Help Forum
1

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing an issue with Audacity 3.4.2 on Windows 11 where the audio playback is stuttering and choppy when editing large files (over 1 hour). This happens even when no effects are applied. The waveform looks fine, but playback randomly skips or lags.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

  • Increased buffer size (tried 100ms, 500ms, 1000ms) in Preferences → Audio Settings
  • Disabled Real-time effects
  • Checked latency correction settings
  • Changed sample rate (44.1kHz & 48kHz) and audio host (MME, Windows DirectSound, WASAPI)
  • Tried running Audacity in compatibility mode for Windows 10
  • Monitored CPU/RAM usage—seems normal, but Audacity still lags

System Specs:

  • OS: Windows 11 (22H2)
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H
  • RAM: 16GB DDR4
  • Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD (plenty of free space)
  • Audio Interface: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (4th Gen)

The issue doesn’t happen in other DAWs like Reaper or Adobe Audition. Could this be related to Windows updates or an Audacity bug? Any suggestions to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

2

It’s just a thought but maybe your issue is related to this: Only one core
Mark B

3

Thanks for the link! That discussion about Audacity’s single-core processing limitations makes a lot of sense, especially when handling large files. It seems like Audacity isn’t fully utilizing my CPU’s multi-core capabilities, which could explain the playback issues.

4

I doubt that a 12700H core would cause that. It’s probably down to something in Windows’ audio setup, it has always been crap. Also I’ve used the Scarlett and it gave me a big cheapness vibe, so based on my personal experience it might be that. Try without that. Also make sure Windows’ audio system is set to whatever Audacity is… “outputting”. It would be quite stupid if that made a difference, but I’ve seen worse from Audacity.

Personally, since my thread is now locked for no good reason, I think that Audacity should by default be a dual core program, one draws the UI and other related stuff, and the other for audio related systems. In the rare occasion that someone expects, unfairly so, that modern Audacity should be used on hardware with less than 2 cores, Audacity should switch to single core mode where this change isn’t made. Honestly that’s pretty stupid though, whoever is using single core hardware should just download Audacity 2.0 or something. What idiot is using 2025 Audacity on a system with a single core… how low one must go…

Of course the REAL solution is to rewrite the damn UI drawing, since that’s the problem that caused the single core issue to be raised, but as it hasn’t been fixed for years, I’d bet it’ll die out before it gets fixed.