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In Reply to: RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO posted by cics on May 05, 2008 at 13:31:58
Hello, everybody!
1. This new set of tweaks comes in part (THE BETTER PART) from Jack Wong. He has sent us all the new slightly modiefied default hive, that contains only one entry with settings to SEVERELY MINIMIZE video interference on the motherboard level. This hive can be used BY EVERYONE, who has emptied his own. Just overwrite it and reboot. BUT BEFORE you do it, check that Your cplay-cmp can minimize-maximize. The tweak works in any case, but with cplay set to minimize, it's SIMPLY GREAT. So, anybody can e-mail me and get the hive. I also encourage and even ask inmates, who already have this new hive to distribute it to others. In case you get stuck in minimized mode, just power down your cmp, open its hdd as a slave from another machine, edit your cics play. ini file to delete MINIMIZE string, reboot.
2. Open Your system hive, control set 001, services and IN EVERY SERVICE set the ERROR CONTROL value to 0, don't touch other settings.
3. In RPCSS and SAM services entries open Security subentry and delete inside, see picture
4. In Services-vgaSave open Device0 and set InstalledDisplay drivers to vga, removing everything else. (Don't do it in any other place)
Happy Listening.
Serge.
The PICTURE SHOWS registry tweaks 3 and 4 from this set - vgasave, sam-security and prcss-security, hope it's not too confusing.
Edits: 02/05/12Follow Ups:
Long ago I eliminated AHK & Cicsremote from cics memory player. I use a ps/2 mouse. Now that I am going dark screen to listen it would be convenient to have the right click-- next track function-- back. So I restored the above files amended the .pth file...still does not work. Anybody know what windows files are required?
Edits: 02/11/12
Not very sure, but you can try restoring wsock32.dll
Thanks it was worth trying but it did not work.
...the magnanamous (SP?) graciousness of Grant. The ability to limit folders/discs in the music library does affect sq. I think the, what I call the Ryelands routine (loading only the cues into the folder only), is another example of this same principle. Some how or other I believe that the CMP library (not the files themselves but mapping to the files) is loaded into memory and that when you limit its size you make CMP sound better. Its just like getting rid of windows overhead not required for functionality.
. . . the CMP library (not the files themselves but mapping to the files) is loaded into memory
As we all know, when cMP is launched, it scans the folders listed in the (wait for this . . . ) "Folders" window in the Settings UI to look for cuesheets. Double-clicking the title of the displayed cuesheets launches cPlay.
The paths and names of the "watched" folders are stored in the .ini file in cMP's folder in "Program Files" but the content is not. The captured data reside in memory until the user either reboots or hits the "Refresh" button, at which time the folders are rescanned.
If you have a large collection of albums with all of them "reported" (as it were) to cMP, scanning can take a considerable time; a slowish machine scanning a large library over a LAN can take several minutes.
As no-one is ever going to tag every cuesheet perfectly and as cMP was never designed to cope with large libraries, it can be very hard to find a given album and the whole process is in any case impossibly slow.
I get round that by copying the cuesheet for an album to be played to a folder on the server that is "watched" by cMP then hitting the Refresh button in cMP. I've configured the server using shortcuts and the "Send To" menu to make this quick and easy - it's nothing like as cumbersome as it may sound.
The result is that cMP typically never has to "remember" more than a couple of cuesheets. As my 6,500-odd cuesheets come to over twenty MB of text, there is obviously a significant reduction in memory demand as well as in time wasted scanning thousands of cuesheets that will definitley not (for obvious reasons) be played this session.
I don't see off-hand how you can avoid superfluous cuesheets hogging memory where a system is controlled locally but Explorer is no longer available unless, of course, you use cMP's "Add/Remove" facility to browse the library. (This is certainly viable - a friends of mine does just that as he hates the cMP UI even more than I do.)
It should certainly make it easy to see if minimising the number of scanned cuesheets affects sound quality.
Could you please give the specifics of how you configure your server to do as you describe. It seems you must use another computer, the server I guess, to do this then return to the cMP computer to play the transferred cuesheets, yes? Or is this workable with a NAS only networked to the cMP computer?
Could you please give the specifics of how you configure your server to do as you describe.I'll try. This describes how I currently do things; it got simpler over time as these things tend to do.
Setting up:
1. The library sits on a 2TB HDD on a desktop computer organised in folders and sub-folders by genre and artist, pretty much like everyone else's. Call it the M:\ drive. Thus, there's M:\Classical, M:\Jazz, etc at the top with the usual sub-folders beneath.
2. There's a folder called M:\00 which I call the "watched" folder. The drive is shared at root level so that the cMP^2 box can access both the "watched" folder and the data. (Using M:\ for both local and network drivenames makes the cuesheets valid for local and remote use.) I made a shortcut to M:\00, moved it to the "Send To" folder in my Docs & Settings folder (which is normally hidden) and called it "00".
3. Cuesheets sit in a separate folder (where doesn't matter, whatever suits) whose sub-folders mirror the structure of the main library. (There's a DOS command that does that for you.) The cuesheets need to contain the full path to each music file but, again, AJ's Cuesheet Creator does that for you if you ask it nicely. Only the user needs to see this folder. Cuesheets have this form (with the absolute path underlined).
FILE " M:\Classical\18th Century\Mozart W A (1756-1791)\Concertos\Wind\Mozart - Clarinet concerto in A, K 622 - de Boer, NS Amsterdam, Markiz \01 - Mozart - Clarinet concerto in A, K622 - Allegro.flac" WAVE4. I made shortcuts to all the main or favourite folders in my library and put them in a folder out of the way but accessible. I created a shortcut to that folder, gave it a distinctive icon and put it in the Launch Bar. Call it the Browser icon. Next to it I have an icon that logs me on via UVNC to the cMP^2 box. (The shortcuts are not essential but they do save a lot of time.) See pic.
5. The cMP^2 box logs onto the shared drive on bootup using the Net Use command.6. cMP is configured using cMP > Settings > Add to "watch" M:\00. (I also tell it to watch a small folder on the local drive that has one cuesheet in it nearly all of whose data has been deleted. That helps to prevents irritating messages from cMP if, for whatever reason, the cMP box is not logged on and so can't see any cuesheets.) See pic.
To play an album or albums:7. To select an album, I click on the browser icon and get a basic view of the library.
Say I want to play some Chopin. I double-click "Nineteenth Century" then Chopin and then select a cuefile. I right-click on it and select "Send to" > 00. See pic.
The cue file is copied to M:\00. I usually shut Explorer down at this point as relaunching is quicker than navigating backwards.8. I go to the UVNC window tracking the cMP^2 box and click "Refresh" to have cMP display the selected album. Thereafter, it's as normal.
Edits: 02/07/12
Since like many I have lost a lot of functionality on cmp. So I rip new music on my desktop. When I have 10-15 discs ripped I shut down cmp, take out one of my data discs, load into my docking station and use copyto software to copy all the files onto the data disc. Thanks to Jack Wong for the tip on Copyto. While still in my docking station I create a folder on my data disc. Into the folder I load my cues. I name the folder Cues.You have to revise cues so they have an absolute path to the file. In my case the data disc is D: on cmp, so in the cue on the file name line (say the music is Taj Mahall Live) I revise the file name line to this
File name "D:\Taj Mahall Live.wav" wave
Now when I load the data disc back into cmp I can go to the ADD / REMOVE text and click add...then D:\ will show up along with the folder named Cues. So if I remove all other discs (yes even D) I only have those cues in the Cue file showing in CMP. Hit play and you get a nice sq pop. To test it load D:\ back into the CMP library and play Taj Mahal Live again and you will notice a sq degredation slight but noticeable.
I just did it and will now load all my cues into subfolders henceforward. A bit of work but isn't that we are all about in the pursuit of sq?
We can all thanks Ryelands for this easy tweak.
Edits: 02/07/12 02/07/12 02/07/12
... of ADD / REMOVE discs into cmp. I did this before by restoring Dialogue 1079 (as per Mihaylov...thanks again Serge)and Strings 267 1893 1907.
However when I tried loading user32 from either Pro or Home versions of XP sp2 I get a no boot error. I am using all the files from the Big Tweak and I presume that user32 came from xp 2k. Can you please send me user32 from xp 2k (or whatever its source for Big Tweak) or post it so I can get some the above functionality restored?
To everybody. DO NOT change (substitute) USER32.DLL and WIN32.SYS
I have written about it in Big Tweak.
Serge
E-Mail never got here.
I had no error messages, but I have sesent it with a different extention *.fix instead of *.dll this time, just rename it to its original name.
Serge.
..
I will resend it under absolutely different name and from another e-mail address. I wonder if Macrohard is watching their file distribution?
But this file is freely downloadable from dozen sites. BTW You have it in Your Xp disk, but it has to be unzipped.
Serge.
Hard to believe it can get that much better.
Yet another step forward in transparency - better definition extends further to the back of the image. I guess yet again a lowering of the noises that obscure.
Thanks, yet again, to Serge and Mr. Wong. Waiting with anticipation for Mr. Wong's next chapter.
I have a file---Gregorio Paniagua - La Folia De La Spagna that was a Harmonie Mundi France recording that, while another old fave of mine, must have been recorded on a warm spring/summer morning because you can hear birds chirping presumably through an open window in the recording studio. You can hear them throughout the recording but they are very faintly heard in the 1st cut. Well now you can darn near count the little rascals they are so very clear in this 1st cut!! Very nice. Resolution is incredible. I agree with Ric for those that have lost this functionality somebody has to find a way to restore it. I guess if you have a network and dont use the cmp screen or mouse maybe you dont need it.
I know I have no idea since I lost the ability long ago.
Before I knew it was something good to retain. Missed that one entirely!
Restore an unhacked user32 and the ability will return.
I think the key is STRING TABLE #57.
The rest can probably be done away with but finding out will have to wait until tomorrow.
I would have thought Grant would have posted this and seeing that he did not and that there are maybe two or three others out there who over-hacked this feature away I decided to post this myself.
Nonetheless, all credit must go to our favorite Canadian alchemist, Grant.
No more squeals.
Loads files quickly.
There is no question some of that stuff (I had deleted) is important!
Thanks, again, to Grant!
You are using now completely unhacked version?
Don't know if I should try, but I have no squeals ano problem loading files at all. I have taken fresh user and tweaked it a la Grant, only probably one or two dialogs less - I left native cursor and strings with minimize-maximize. Working perfectly. The problems You say about may be due to excessive registry deletions. I cannot make my system hive less than 412 kb, it bluescreens constantly, and I know that Mr.Wong has his config folder under 300 kb total.
Serge.
P.S. His SAM is 8 kb!, I think I will ask him to send it for me to see what else can be done. Also I have deleted more from software, will send later for You to see.
I had the problem start when I FINALLY installed the files you had sent instead of my hacked versions of the files I thought you were using.
I could only tell there was a difference by the size of completely hacked versions - yours were still smaller than mine.
I did the swap as an all at once operation and maybe I should have done it in stages as you recommended. But now the machine is running happily so I will leave it alone for the time being.
But now with Grant's minimally hacked user32 all is well. I iwll see how much more can be taken away and he is doing the same. Neither of us claim that this is the FINAL version but it did point the way for those who want to be able to minimize the cPLAY screen - for which I remain skeptical but all small things add up!
I would also like to hear the reasoning on the black screen. Being a cics loyalist I would like to know why this is better.
Of course, I was stuck with the default blue screen with nothing in DEFAULT before and must say I like the black one better!
Maybe the XPHome SAM allows one to see more stuff to get rid of? I do not think if we deleted EVERYTHING out of our SAM files would we have that same result.
I exchanged some emails with Jack and he said '...I've been dealing with electronics and noise which is the by-products. I love listening to music with absolute dark background so I've remove display chips and use batteries to achieve such effect.
After I saw this.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/6/65390.html
I tried and the sound was promising. However, it needs a graphic driver to work with. I then explored other means and eventually used the background color to shut off the display...'
A black body in thermodynamics is a minimum radiation (video interference in this case) source. So the color simulates a shut off display. Very, very clever!!
I have never tried it since I worried my mouse function has been minimized!
But the way I read that - this is very different.
That procedure, seems to me, turns off the monitor - disables it and then re-enables it. Which I would think would be ideal.
Has anyone every got it to work?
I do think good things are happening with the tweak. Since I did them all at once and I am skeptical about the black monitor thing I think the security entries being turned off is the big reason it has made an improvement. Plus my monitor looks like it is glowing black, not exactly turned off black!
I am skeptical about the black monitor thing . . .
As I understand it, monitors typically draw more power to display black than white. Before I stopped using the wretched things in an audio PC, I did measurements that tended to confirm that although the difference was a couple of per cent only. What difference, if any, it makes to the PC side, I've no idea.
Dave
...I am in the process of un-hacking some stuff in dialogue/strings in USER32 so I can ADD / REMOVE folders & disks in cmp. I found in the past that when you have multiple disks or folders it sounds better when only the one necessary to run is loaded.
I would insert the orignal, do what I needed to do and then go back to the hacked.
Now, I have not had a need to do this since installing Serge's shell32.
My issue is a little different. I have 3 data disks. When all are loaded it works fine. Also I can remove 2 so I can just listen to one. However when I try reload (the Removed discs or folders) nothing shows in the CMP screen...like there are no others. I want to do this all the time back and forth to get the sonic benefit. My CMP sounds better when a minimum of discs/folders are loaded in CMP.
Easy enough to modify a copy of the original registry.
Where this total tweak reveals itself is in large classical orchestral pieces. My all time fave of Suppe Overtures on Mercury by Paul Paray and the Detroit orchestra is simply wonderful. More space, more distinctiveness, more texture to the sound. On another old time fave that I had on Lyrita vinyl, then cd, then ripped file the Malcolm Arnold Dances recorded by the composer and the LSO never sounded closer to the vinyl as now. The strings & horns (difficult to get right) are so much better now. All in all a very good tweak.
Thank you Steppe and thank you Jack.
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