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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
OK, "Editing resources in cicsMemoryPlayer.exe and cPlay.exe" would be a more accurate heading but it doesn't somehow sound as slick as "Slimming cPlay" seems to.Both programs carry some crud - icons, bitmaps and the like - that can safely be deleted. There isn't that much but, as another inmate has confirmed, the resulting improvement in sound quality is noticeable. Of course, those who use the track navigation buttons on the bottom of the cPlay window are restricted as to what they can delete but, even so, it might be worth at least trying both programs on a rigorous diet.
A little care needs to be taken with cMP. It seems that some buttons (e.g. the "Explorer" and "Startup" buttons in the top RH corner and the "Genre" ones on the bottom) are needed for it to load though I'm not yet certain exactly which ones.
If you alter settings from time to time, you need either to leave the settings dialogs in place or be prepared to pop the original executables and/or dot-ini files back while you do so. Might KS's recent batch file be suitable here?
What I also found was that I could edit various window parameters to get a display more to my liking AND get round, at least partly, cPlay's notorious Big Letters, Small Message limitation.
Do this by opening cPlay's Dialog 151 and using Edit Dialog to change the font size (takes a bit of finding). You then need to alter the dialogue's Width and Height inverse pro rata to the point size you select to get you roughly where you want to be. For example, to go from size 28 to 18 type (as pic - I presume it's points but it doesn't say), I changed the dialog size from 151 by 106 to 226 by 159:
28 divided by 18 = 1.5; 151 x 1.5 = 226 and so on
The result is not perfect but it's good enough to get started - you can always "fine tweak" later. As the pictures below suggest, I'm not finished yet. I plan to try a horizontal scroll bar as well.
Why I don't yet know but unusually long track title (> about 35 characters) are cut off before the end. See e.g. tracks 8, 9 & 13 in the pic - there's nothing wrong with either the tags in the files or the cuefile derived from them. As few track titles are as long as that, the bug may not matter much in practice.
You can do the same thing with cMP's UIs. If anyone does try anything on these lines, do please let us know how it goes. It might even be worth a try with Foobar . . . if you promise not to tell on me.Finally, many, many thanks to whoever first thought of using a resource editor in our context - it was clever. nagual19? (Sorry if I have the wrong name but you know who you are.)
Dave
Edits: 02/10/12Follow Ups:
I did some minimum cplay hacking and it was good. But now I have now replicated the above clean cplay look with Dave's help. Yes I lost some function (volume, balance, scrolling within a track, polarity control ...well maybe a bunch of function) but my oh my the sonics are way better. I mean way better...dynamics, strong tight bass, extended highs, very very upper midrange grunge free. You gotta try this. I now have 3 sets of volume controls to adjust but hey why should it be easy when it sounds so good. I wouldn't want it any other way.
Ted,
If you are not looking for the best "polarity" of a recording I wonder how you can hear the subtleties of this cPLAY slimming.
The file is not reduced that much!
I slimmed the settings dialog to just do what I want it to do. All of the other buttons and text are gone. I got rid of the diagnostics screen since I do not need it anymore (and since I deleted its button). Same with the add disks dialog (more buttons. Personally I think this is a better way to slim.
All is a compromise but being able to switch phase should be important to you. I know I could not live without it.
If you are not looking for the best "polarity" of a recording I wonder how you can hear the subtleties of this cPLAY slimming.
It's 4am in a sleepy suburb of Smallsburg, MO. All is quiet - not even audiophiles can hear cats prowling in the back yards. Three large cars pull up outside Theob's house; twelve officers of the Audio Enforcement Agency crowd round the front and back doors, all wearing flac jackets and carrying night-wavs.
Suddenly, all hell breaks loose as the doors are rammed. Lights ablaze, Sargeant Dwight B Test (known to colleagues as DeeBee T) barks orders, 'Officer Cable, listening room! Officer Tohnarm, basement!'
But it's for show only; they know what they're about.
A tense hour later, DeeBee asks, 'What have you got?' Cable lists six mini-ITX mobos. 'All bar one of them dead! What business has any honest citizen wrecking five of the things? He's up to something, I know it.'
Tohnarm agrees: 'Two Heathkit 60s-vintage tube amps, neither working, two two-way Miranda Wrights still with electrolytics in the crossovers and an old Quadraphonic Converter still in its box but not a phase button in the place . Never seen the like in twenty years in the AEA.'
'Arrest him. Read him his Magneplanars and take him to the station. I'll faze him soon enough. Good work, men; the lab boys will be round shortly'.
The gear you mention would probably not reveal the difference so there is no need with that set-up.
Once you hear the difference it is clearly audible.
It is not immediately obvious when you first experiment but with time and spending time with each polarity when listening it will become clear that there is a best position for each recording and sometimes for tracks within an album.
I find the difference to be, at least, as audible as many of these other mods we have used.
Plus without a remote it makes for a good excuse to get out of the sofa.
If you can't hear it, I guess, you can't hear it. But I think that is impossible ... unless you never tried!
Oh oh busted again!!! LMAO!!!
It is all a matter of compromise. Yes I do miss the phase switch. But cplay sounds way way better w/o it because of the great sonic impact of the tweak. You really have to try it. But you are right we all to individually decide which way is better.
Edits: 02/13/12
The listings are too large but the title--artist and album at top--is too small. I used to enlarge this via Display> appearance> advanced> Active Title Bar, but with nLite and slimming, especially hacked shell32.dll, this is undone. Anyone know where one can set the title bar font size in the registry directly?
Hi Riboge
The "WindoMetrics" key controls this. You can edit/ADD it in the DEFAULT hive... look for [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics], but the job is not as easy as setting "10 pt." to "14 pt." and your font increases.
There is a nice, detailed description of these items here -> http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/desk_reg.html
I suffered the same fate when I slashed my registry hives, and some settings reverted to the Windows defaults (just as you, I previously increased the title bar font for the very same reason).
My solution was to go back to a previous image of my cMP_OS (when the desktop settings were still as I has customized them) and export the entire WindowMetrics key. This was imported to my current DEFAULT hive - and BINGO !! - colours & font sizes appear just as before. In my case, since the DEFAULT hive had been mostly emptied (toward the goal of best SQ), I chose to ADD these few entries in return for the GUI I am comfortable with.
If you also have a custom colour scheme, the same technique can be used, where you export/import this key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors].
I hope this gets you back to where you want to be.
Cheers,
Grant
That's not a Toy... IT'S A TOOL !!
.
not just the frame dimensions and font size. This wasn't clear but became apparent in trying to reproduce this.
Thanks, Ryelands, I have been hoping for a way to do this all along and asked cics about it several times. Of course, he wanted none of it.
Nice sq pop...thanks Dave. Another item that maybe some of you may not
have done is the compacting of the Default hive provided by
Steppe/Jackwong96. When I 1st got this hive the results were so good
right from the go that I never looked at it. But if you do compact it,
it will go from 256 mb to 12 mb.The tweak above is very good. Ims I get louder, more dynamic, more
transparent sound all around.
Edits: 02/10/12
Nagual 19. Sorry that he is away from the thread so long.
Your Idea about horizontal scrolling is good, though I was against any "interference" before, now, that I have abandoned the tiny in-built touchscreen display in my zalman case, it seems MUCH more sensible. Also, don't know why and how to change it, but my cmp won't get into full screen no matter what I did. It was from NLite installation onward. Cplay can (by modifying ini file adding #M), but the "informative" part of the window will remain the same though it will jump top left, with the "canvas" expanding to the right and to the bottom. It doesn't matter musch, as I use it now mostly minimized.
Serge.
P.S.Have done some tweaking on both with reshacker some time now, good result, so I hotly support Your advice to other inmates.
P.P.S. I am looking for the way to attempt running a sequence of cmp-cplay being loaded at boot time as WINDOWS PROCESS with maximum priority. I hope, if achievable, it may bring a jump in performance, with most other services deleted or defeated.
My thinking is: would it work if I changed the stuff in the SOFTWARE hive to look in system32 instead of PROGRAM FILES and simply put the files in system32.
I think the problem is the .pth aspect.
I placed it in the system32 folder but I get the idea WINDOWS does not look in there for such a thing.
The machine would get to the point of the cursor showing but no cMP screen.
I should have tried it by leaving the .pth in the PROGRAM FILES folder but my premise was to attempt to get rid of the folder.
I did find that one cannot simply put everything back where it was and expect it to work. I had to copy the image back onto the disk to get back to a working machine.
So the question is: where to put the .pth folder and have it recognized?
One can get rid of more stuff in the folders. And delete stuff out of the .pth file. The last two items I remember for sure. I am writing from memory at work.
I suspect there is a way to do this and make the machine even more of a dedicated cMP machine.
Maybe find a way to put the .pth information in the REGISTRY?
Your Idea about horizontal scrolling is good
Except that the cutting off of long tags makes it a bit superfluous . . . there's nothing to see if you do scroll to the right. I should have thought of that!
cmp won't get into full . . . It was from NLite installation onward
Er, don't use nLite? Others may like it but I don't trust it.
attempt running a sequence of cmp-cplay being loaded at boot time as WINDOWS PROCESS
That would be excellent though I've no idea where to start.
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