Napster problems with RC1 (stuttering and ultra-slow VM performance)

Since upgrading to RC1 I've had intermittent problems with Napster UK. Whenever I try to play a downloaded file the music just keeps stuttering and the whole VM slows down to a crawl. I've tried disabling services such as System Restore and Indexing which has helped in the past, but nothing appears to work now. I've tried removing and reinstalling the Guest tools, but that also has not helped.

I'm running this on an iMac 20" 2.0Ghz machine with 1Gb of RAM. VM is running Windows XP Service Pack 2 with memory set at 256Mb initially and also 392Mb at one point - neither makes any difference with RC1 but Napster has been running fine with 256Mb RAM on beta 6.

M.

 

Could you check this issue in RC2 please?

 

Unfortunately it's made no difference whatsoever. I installed RC2, booted up the VM, installed/upgraded the Guest tools, rebooted the VM and tried Napster. Still jerky playback of all downloaded music. Rebooted Mac to see if it might be a kernel extension loading issue (just be sure it's loading the right versions) and tried again - still very jerky playback.

M.

 

Please find a sample (recorded by Audio HiJack Pro) of what the output sounds like when trying to play locally downloaded Napster files through the Napster interface itself. The CPU hits 100% and does not back down until I can get to do a 'End Process Tree' within the Task Manager.

Test output - apparently this is supposed to be Stand and Deliver by Adam Ant..

I've tried loading the files directly within Windows Media Player 10, but they just do the same thing - stutters over and over until I have to do End Process Tree (if I'm lucky) or a complete reset of the VM.

M.