Author Topic: Suggestions for 2.9/3.0 (Read 92973 times)

mklp · « **Reply #25 on:** 1 Oct '03 - 17:58 »

yup, 2.8.3 works aok, sorry

diabeticus · « **Reply #26 on:** 1 Oct '03 - 20:49 »

My only suggestion, which has already been mentioned by someone else, is to give XMPlay the ability to play audio cd's.

What would make it super cool would be the ability to encode MP3's from audio cd's.

Maybe a plugin or something?

I have been messing around with BASS, but can't figure out if it can access CDDB or not.

XMPLay kicks. It keeps getting better. God Save the Queen!

Pike84 · « **Reply #27 on:** 1 Oct '03 - 20:59 »

in_CDReader.dll plugin should allow you to play CDs. Get it from the support site

.

I don't think there's need for encoding mp3s (or any other formats) in XMPlay, when there are so good dedicated programs like EAC and CDex around. I think it would be excessive for a music player.

diabeticus · « **Reply #28 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 03:59 »

Quote from: Pike84 on 1 Oct '03 - 20:59

in_CDReader.dll plugin should allow you to play CDs. Get it from the support site .

I don't think there's need for encoding mp3s (or any other formats) in XMPlay, when there are so good dedicated programs like EAC and CDex around. I think it would be excessive for a music player.

Man.

I wish I had known about the support site A LONG time ago. I always thought the only plugins were teh ones on teh XMPLAY site.

How about making a nice link to the support forum from within the app? That would be my only suggestion.

Thanks for the tips. The only reason I found the support link off tha tlittle ICON on the XMPLAY download page, was becasue I couldn't find a link anywhere else that was obvious.

Maybe make getting to that site a little less obfuscated?

Pike84 · « **Reply #29 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 04:19 »

I was going to say, that there already is a link within the player, but actually it seems like Ian didn't remember to add it in the new options dialog - see, it was under one of the old menu pages, that got ditched in 2.8. Anyway, I agree that the support site could be made more easily locatable. How about at least adding it to the menu at the left frame of this site?

deusdiabolus · « **Reply #30 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 04:20 »

Seeing as how XMPlay seems to be the only thing on my computer that will playback streaming .ASX files right now (go figure), I would like to request a couple of things.

an Always-on-top switch, and
adding the .asx format to the list of default playback formats (I had to go into the Windows filetypes and manually configure it to work, and it still won't stream the files unless I drag them to the player and drop them in, hence the always-on-top switch).

diabeticus · « **Reply #31 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 04:32 »

Quote from: Pike84 on 2 Oct '03 - 04:19

I was going to say, that there already is a link within the player, but actually it seems like Ian didn't remember to add it in the new options dialog - see, it was under one of the old menu pages, that got ditched in 2.8. Anyway, I agree that the support site could be made more easily locatable. How about at least adding it to the menu at the left frame of this site?

There is a link to the un4seen main page within the player, but it is not obvious. In the Options and Stuff, the UN4SEEN logo is also a button that links to the main page.

I don;t know if it would make sense to add another tab for HELP. have the links to the main site, the forum and the support site maybe. Maybe even include a CHM file in the XMPlay zip that could get launched via a link from withun this HELP tab.

Or at least launch the README.TXT. I think having obviuos links to the support page, etc ... is very important.

Jace · « **Reply #32 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 04:33 »

Quote from: diabeticus on 2 Oct '03 - 03:59

How about making a nice link to the support forum from within the app? That would be my only suggestion.

Try the [ ? ] button next to the [ X ] button on the Options and Stuff window

And about the cd playing 'issue':
Opening a normal audio cd is fairly straight forward, open Open dialog -> scroll Files of Type down to .CDA -> select all tracks on the cd -> click 'Open'. (Try to teach that to your mother though, that's what I've been trying to do

)
But cd's with a data track as track #1 is another issue. First you need to do the previous step with a normal audio cd, then save the playlist, insert the data+audio disc, use the normal's playlist (remember to remove the track #1!), pray it has the same amount of audio tracks, unless you feel like editing the .pls with a text editor.

It's the second step I'd love to get a bit simplified..

Remember, Mothers use XMPlay too

_{Ehm.. Three new messages were posted while I wrote this one.. *Feels kinda slow*}

diabeticus · « **Reply #33 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 14:11 »

Quote from: Jacer on 2 Oct '03 - 04:33

Try the [ ? ] button next to the [ X ] button on the Options and Stuff window

Goodness gracious me. You are right. Would your mother have found that though? Do we care if "mothers" can't find it? More importantly, does IAN care? I say "we" as if I am somehow involved or invested in XMPlay. I love it though. Just giving my input as to how I think it would be easier to use. Guess "we" don't want it bloated. That's the offset.

I guess having more obvious "help" is what I am talking about. Maybe make it so the button with the logo on the Miscellaneous tab is obviously a button? With a mouse over highlight or something. Maybe make that dialog a tiny bit higher and stick the link for the support forum in their with a hyper link called "Support Forum" or "XMPlay Support and Help".

Even consider renaming the tab to "Misc & Help"?

Quote from: Jacer on 2 Oct '03 - 04:33

And about the cd playing 'issue':
Opening a normal audio cd is fairly straight forward, open Open dialog -> scroll Files of Type down to .CDA -> select all tracks on the cd -> click 'Open'. (Try to teach that to your mother though, that's what I've been trying to do )
But cd's with a data track as track #1 is another issue. First you need to do the previous step with a normal audio cd, then save the playlist, insert the data+audio disc, use the normal's playlist (remember to remove the track #1!), pray it has the same amount of audio tracks, unless you feel like editing the .pls with a text editor.

It's the second step I'd love to get a bit simplified..

Remember, Mothers use XMPlay too

That is a pain in the buttocks. The audio cd thing would be a nice thing to see enhanced, either by the plugin author or Ian.

And I want cake and a foot rub while I'm at it!

Torkell · « **Reply #34 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 16:35 »

Quote from: deusdiabolus on 2 Oct '03 - 04:20

Seeing as how XMPlay seems to be the only thing on my computer that will playback streaming .ASX files right now...

Try using the little-known mplayer2.exe to play them. It's basically Windows Media Player version 2 - the one that was around before the flashy skinnable one, and it still comes with Windows XP. It understands anything the newer version understands, but with the absence of a bloated memory-eating GUI. I use it mainly for videos on my PC, but it'll quite happily play WM9-series files as long as you've got the codecs installed.

Tsorovan · « **Reply #35 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 17:00 »

Or if you want a glorious piece of media player, you should definitely check into Media Player Classic obtainable from http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

You'll like it. Probably.

Gabest and Ian should live together and create beautiful programs together. No kids though. They stink and they are ugly.

Zarggg · « **Reply #36 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 17:23 »

Quote from: Tsorovan on 2 Oct '03 - 17:00

Or if you want a glorious piece of media player, you should definitely check into Media Player Classic obtainable from http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

You'll like it. Probably.

Gabest and Ian should live together and create beautiful programs together. No kids though. They stink and they are ugly.

The kids, or Ian?

I've been using MPC for a bit since I started using Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative. It's a neat little player; much better than the in_tara.dll plugin.

Pike84 · « **Reply #37 on:** 2 Oct '03 - 23:21 »

I should have known those links in the options dialog.. Ian mentioned about the support site link sometimes before but oh, well. Anyway, they should definitely be made more obvious; the pop-up info for the support site link, for instance, only says vaguely 'help', and not that it's a web link. The links should have noticable buttons, that get high-lighted when pointed at, and a pop-up info that tells what actually happens on pressing them. No biggies though

.

WizeTron · « **Reply #38 on:** 4 Oct '03 - 02:16 »

I'm probably going to get thrashed but......

how about adding a few more bands to the eq.

and how about increasing the speed of the program (reducing latencies)

Sub-Zero · « **Reply #39 on:** 4 Oct '03 - 10:08 »

Ian, here's what I'd like to see in the new release.. I'm sure you'll find them familiar :P

1. SSE optimizations for the module mixing code if you think they'd give a significant reduction in cpu usage.
2. The return of the cubic spline interpolation mode in addition to the existing modes. I realize this would affect the skins, but maybe you could move it to a dropdown in the options n stuff dialog box. Just use the button on the skin as a toggle to cycle through the various modes.
3. After having listened to the Sinc interpolation for quite awhile now, I still find a lot of situations where it 'whistles.' when I try modplug I realize how much better 8 point tap oversample (I think that's the algorithm it uses) mode sounds. Obviously this is subjective opinion.

I realize these are all heavy hitters in terms of time consumption, but I've love to see them in a version 3.0 release :).

Pike84 · « **Reply #40 on:** 4 Oct '03 - 17:55 »

Quote from: WizeTron on 4 Oct '03 - 02:16

how about adding a few more bands to the eq.

I suggested this quite a while back, but it wasn't a reasonable addition then, as it would have made pretty big changes to the GUI. Now, however, some more bands could be added to the options dialog without affecting the GUI at all. So, how about it? Some opinions, please

.

I'm adding this to the thread starter too.

Zarggg · « **Reply #41 on:** 4 Oct '03 - 23:56 »

I'd have no problems with adding more EQ bands, as I almost never use them anyway.

Ian @ un4seen · « **Reply #42 on:** 5 Oct '03 - 15:15 »

Quote from: WizeTron on 4 Oct '03 - 02:16

and how about increasing the speed of the program (reducing latencies)

That's not a speed issue, it's dependant on the buffer length. Reduce that in the device options to reduce the latency of DSP changes.

D-503 · « **Reply #43 on:** 6 Oct '03 - 13:49 »

Quote from: Sub-Zero on 4 Oct '03 - 10:08

1. SSE optimizations for the module mixing code if you think they'd give a significant reduction in cpu usage.

Um.. what about those that don't have a CPU which supports SSE?

I'd like to see the cpu usage drop from about 17-20% on my AMD K6-2 550 to about 10-15% & I'd like for music not to skip while I do other stuff (like surf the web in Mozilla Firebird) this is not impossible. Coolplayer (http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net) only uses 10% of my cpu.

Tsorovan · « **Reply #44 on:** 6 Oct '03 - 18:29 »

Uh...so... just because you don't have a processor with SSE support, everyone else is going to suffer? Great logic there, heh.

D-503 · « **Reply #45 on:** 6 Oct '03 - 21:59 »

Ok, well lets use your logic..

Lets use SSE2 optimizations for the module mixing code if you think they'd give a significant reduction in cpu usage! Whoo.. All those people with PPros, P2's, AMD K5 n K6's, Cyrix 586's, Durons & Athlon XP's will be happy when XMPlay doesn't work on their machine. Yippie! Lets go out and get a P4 just to run XMPlay! Hell, just change the name of it to P4Play.

Tsorovan · « **Reply #46 on:** 7 Oct '03 - 05:13 »

Ever heard of options? Or autodetection of processor features with subsequent branching codepaths?
Sure, you will get the best performance boost if you do a whole SSE2-dependent compile (if we're talking purely SSE2 here), which will make it impossible to run on non-SSE2 processors, but that's not the only way.

D-503 · « **Reply #47 on:** 7 Oct '03 - 19:05 »

I've heard of compiling options, I haven't heard of autodetection of processor features with subsequent branching codepaths, which sounds like it would be extra work on Ian's part and increase the size of the program.

I think the easiest thing to do would be to use compiler options and release different builds like the dudes at mozillazine do with unofficial mozilla firebird builds.

AMD K6-2 is best with -O1 -G6 mmx & 3dnow aswell as other AMD chips which don't support SSE.
Athlon XP and some newer Durons with SSE (-O1 -G7 -arch:SSE)
Pentium 4, Pentium M, Celeron 1.7GHz+ and Athlon64 with SSE2 (-O1 -G7 -arch:SSE2)
Pentium III and Pentium III based Celerons with SSE (-O1 -G6 -arch:SSE)

I forget what ppro/p2 is best with.. I think its -0x -G6
although p2 would be good with some mmx optimization.

Knurek · « **Reply #48 on:** 7 Oct '03 - 20:07 »

Umm, you know... Optimized for != not working on other than that... It will just work faster.

Tsorovan · « **Reply #49 on:** 8 Oct '03 - 01:09 »

I didn't mean compiler options. Though I agree that separate releases could be neat.

If say, Virtualdub and TMPGEnc can have processor extension options, I don't see why something like XMPlay couldn't.
Game engines and 3D packages usually do the processor feature detection thing.

That said, I don't really see much use for a huge amount of these things unless they really do aid performance a fair bit in such a terse (sorry, Ian :D) program as XMPlay. But if it's fairly effortless to include, I don't see much reason for leaving it out either.

Author Topic: Suggestions for 2.9/3.0 (Read 92973 times)

WizeTron

D-503

D-503

D-503

Knurek