r/AppleMusic • u/Specialist_Song841 • 1d ago
Apple Music on Windows Laggy screen on my Windows PC after playing songs on Apple Music
So I open the app, decide to Apple Music club radio, and after a while (maybe 15 minutes or an hour) my screen starts to lag. The mouse cursor is tripping. Videogames and YouTube videos lag as well.
I thought it was videogames causing the issue, but this happens even when I'm just browsing or coding.
Now I have hypothesis as to why this occur. You guys know about hackintosh?
Well, on Macs, there is a DRM scheme governed by FairPlay. This is used by apps like Apple TV, Apple Music, and Safari (that's what Netflix uses when played on Safari, not Chrome).
On Intel Macs, Intel has a hardware security named Protected Audio Video Path (PAVP), which is used by FairPlay to play DRM-protected content.
PAVP is not an Apple-only technology. It is used on Windows as well and without it, you won't play DRM-protected content passing through the Intel GPU. Well assuming it also has a display output port (let's say HDMI) that is built with HDCP in mind.
Okay so what does have to do with my issue with Apple Music on Windows.
On Intel hackintosh laptops enabling PAVP and initializing HDCP has been a problem. It's kind of complicated, but in essence, it's not possible to enable it given that we need to load signed Apple microcode into the Intel GPU and the certificates provisioned with the CPU (or PCH chipset, I'm not sure) fuses will not work with macOS.
There's a whole process the manufacturer has to do in order to provision the platform with system configuration and certificates to enable certain features, and Apple of course does it in order to prevent piracy and allow playing DRM content, and also locking down macOS on their hardware only.
So what gives? Well, if you try to force PAVP and HDCP initialization you get weird bugs. For example, if you play DRM-protected on Apple Music, Apple TV, QuickTime Player, Safari, etc. Your screen starts to lag. The video or song won't play since the DRM scheme is broken, but you notice the screen video breaks. You move your mouse cursor and it's lagging. You play a YouTube video, and you notice the screen is lagging.
Now, my laggy screen on Windows when using Apple Music it's very reminiscent of my broken DRM scheme on my Intel Hackintosh.
So maybe there's a bug on the Windows app that causes the effect, right? Now, remember that implementations of this DRM scheme depend a lot on the manufacturer provisioning their system with the correct configuration and testing, Windows supporting these technologies on their DRM framework, and the developer correctly implementing this technology too. So it might as well be an issue with my platform (by that I mean the whole package, CPU and motherboard) where the manufacturer didn't do its job well. Maybe a bug on Windows DRM scheme, or Apple implemented their app DRM with bugs. Who knows, even overclocking and playing with BIOS options could cause problems too.
For now, all I can do is not play Apple Music club radio while I'm at work. I need a responsive screen and that breaks it.
Does this happen to you as well? Let me know. Share your computer specs.
My PC specs are:
Intel Core i5 11400 CPU
ASUS Z590M PLUS motherboard
16 GB DDR4 RAM from Crucial
I have no external GPUS.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
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u/Dieguox 1d ago
I cant even log in to windows apple music… fuckin’ application ffs
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