Poor streaming audio performance can occur from slow internet connections, slow servers, or when the computer is concurrently engaged in other work. On certain revisions of the PowerPC 5xx0, Performa 5xxx, PowerPC 6x00 and Performa 6xxx models, an additional cause of poor streaming audio performance was an interaction with the serial driver software, sound driver software, and serial hardware. This extension changes the behavior of the serial and sound driver software to better support the demanding, real time nature of streaming audio. At times when the sound driver is busy servicing the sound hardware, extra checks are made to ensure that the serial driver can properly service the serial hardware. For some computers this results in a significant improvement in streaming audio performance. The extension can be installed on Mac OS 7.6.1, 7.6, or 7.5.5. It will not load on earlier system releases. The improvement delivered in this extension will be included in future releases of Mac OS, and the extension will not load on releases after 7.6.1.
