Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

Return to Computer Audio Asylum


Message Sort: Post Order or Asylum Reverse Threaded

Page: [ 1 ] . . . [ 48 ] [ 49 ] [ 50 ] [ 51 ] [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ] . . . [ 60 ]

cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO

41.183.0.21

Posted on May 5, 2008 at 12:31:58
cics
Audiophile

Posts: 1320
Joined: November 9, 2006
cPlay

The open source high-end audio player using ASIO

May 2008

cPlay delivers high quality audio playback using ASIO 2. Playback is achieved using any ASIO compatible soundcard. cPlay is a minimalist audio player using the latest high quality SRC resampler (Best Sinc SNR 145.68db or 121.33db) or SoX (VHQ or HQ). cPlay's design offers state-of-the-art ASIO-only playback and caters for touch screen users. Installation, setup and use is easy. cPlay is built in c/c++ and operates on Windows XP SP2 Professional (32 bit).

FEATURES

  1. Resampling is sourced from LibSampleRate (version 0.1.5) and SoX 14.2.0 under GNU GPL license. LibSampleRate is aka SRC (Secret Rabbit Code) and supersedes the version as used in foobar2000. Best Sinc converter now offers a SNR of 145.68db or 121.33db (versus 97db). SoX VHQ offers better than 170db SNR. Resampling is bypassed when input rate matches output.

  2. Supports Steinberg's excellent ASIO 2 and is backward compatible to prior ASIO versions (as required by ASIO drivers).

  3. Offers high quality 64 bit double precision digital volume control (in 0.5db steps). This can be bypassed.

  4. Playback is achieved through .cue, .wav or .flac files. cPlay loads entire .wav or .flac (decoded) into RAM before starting. Playback is done directly from cPlay's internal buffer. Cue playback requires .cue files as created by EAC (single or multi file standard).

  5. Ensures efficient CPU resource utilization allowing for low specification processors or high levels of upsampling. This means CPUs can be underclocked / undervolted.

  6. Supports up to 3 ASIO soundcards with each having up to 100 output channels.

  7. Advanced optimizations are applied (if available from ASIO driver) during playback.

  8. Best results achieved when using cMP (i.e. cMP²). This allows for low level Windows optimizations. Use cMP release 1.0 final or later as this allows for bypassing RAM load in cMP (set RAM Load in cMP Settings to No) otherwise wav file is RAM loaded twice. cPlay allows for both svchost and lsass to be suspended during playback thus reducing the Windows footprint. Only exception is EMU's ASIO driver which requires both (svchost and lsass) to be operational. Set cMP's Optimize setting to Critical.

  9. Full remote control is achieved with cMP: offering volume control, track navigation, next/previous and stop/eject via (wireless) mouse.

USER MANUAL

Visit cMP² website (http://www.cicsMemoryPlayer.com) for more details and setup.

Screen Shot




GETTING STARTED

Download cPlay's installer here (1.3MB). Installation and startup is straight forward.

If you don't have an ASIO compatible soundcard, use ASIO4ALL. Note that ASIO4ALL does not support channel mapping (use default) and rarely handles above 48k sample rate.

Your feedback will help guide cPlay's future development. Source code (4.1MB) is available via email.

 

Hide full thread outline!
    ...
RE: You use Fat32 sys.file, how do you, posted on December 25, 2011 at 13:28:16
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
I use fastfat.sys instead of ntfs.sys in drivers folder. That's all.
I did not disable "Windows checking Fat32 integrity", I don't know what's this.

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

Inmates, Question about boot.ini parameters, posted on December 25, 2011 at 13:43:33
HarryEt
Audiophile

Posts: 2
Location: Montreal
Joined: November 20, 2010
Hello, hope you're enjoying holiday season!
I've been following most of the tweaks by amazing inmates, especially Steppe, Mihaylov, and Jolida.

I'm currently using a laptop and usb digital-to-digital transport to play music (completed all modes up to resource hacker tweaks).

Recently, I've found some more switches for boot.ini file.
They are,
/USE8254 ( use8254 timer chip as its base timer),
/MAXPROCSPERCLUSTER= ( MAXPROCSPERCLUSTER : max cpus to use in cluster),
/INTAFFINITY ( INTAFFINITY : sets interrupt affinity).

(there are explanations on parameters)
http://www.cspv.nl/info/boot_ini.htm

I took a different approach for tweaking boot.ini.

1. When I apply /maxmem=256, it seems music files are divided into small pieces, (2 or 3 spilts for 3-4 mins song). And there is abrupt mute for a half second during music playback. I guess it's where a music file is spilt and cPlay's loading the other parts into the ram (or it could be converting left over parts of flac file to wav pcm).

2. Also, I don't want to leave out computing power (not so much for atom processor though), which is actually benefiting the way the processor was built - using two cores for more stable performance. I don't use any upsampling method.

3. While, I keep things simple as possible, which is the main goal of most tweaks so far.

So, I took out /onecpu parameter and raised /maxmem size, not to have many spilt parts (I have 1GB ram installed physically).

I also replaced /usepmtimer (ACPI controller's) with simple 8254 Programmable Interval Timer /use8254, which is about 30 yrs. old :).
(I'm not sure whether XP supports HPET, but my laptop doesn't support HPET in BIOS and I deleted HPET from hardware manager long ago.)

/INTAFFINITY for directing interrupts to CPU 1. Process Explorer tells me that cPlay takes entire CPU 0 during playback. (So, why would I interfere CPU 0?)

My parameter list is the following
/FASTDETECT /noexecute=alwaysoff /CLKLVL /timeres=9766 /nodebug /pcilock /use8254 /nopae /noguiboot /maxmem=512 /MAXPROCSPERCLUSTER=4 /INTAFFINITY /minint

I'm doubtful what /MAXPROCSPERCLUSTER= actually does. But, I set it to be 4 for more organic sound.


It would be much appreciated if someone tries and gives us feedback!

Merry Christmas!

 

RE: Inmates, Question about boot.ini parameters, posted on December 25, 2011 at 14:31:56
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
I'll give some of these parameter changes a try, but first:
I do not experience the half-second or any interruptions/mutes using maxmem=256 on my laptop. I have not seen any report from any one else about experiencing this either. You may well have some other issue to resolve.

 

RE: Inmates, Question about boot.ini parameters, posted on December 26, 2011 at 05:19:56
Jolida
Audiophile

Posts: 329
Joined: June 26, 2009
I do not experience any pause during playback using the maxmem=256 switch. I am using a 1gb ram too. I have tried various combinations in the boot.ini file & I liked the one suggested by Serge (except the onecpu switch). Don't know why but it did not make an improvement in my case. The maxmem & pmTimer did improve the sonics, especially in the detail & liquidity of the mids, & also separation became better. I will try the ones suggested by u above & post a feedback.
At the moment, I'm at nLite with just the Registry tweaks done, along with the boot.ini mentioned above. I love the way this sounds as it is.
Tweaking the shell32 using reshack or Restorator served like fine-tuning my set-up. Though at one point while deleting quite a bit of stuff from the shell32 ruined the bass. So I guess it has to be done in stages & analysed carefully.
I strongly believe its all about getting the correct Balance in Ur system, more than reducing the size of windows or it's files.
The sound behaves strange while tweaking certain files so I am doing a lot of listening at every single stage, so as to not slip in the wrong direction...
And I'm glad that Rick finally agrees with me that nLite with Acpi does sound a lot better :)

Junaid

 

RE: Tweaks of the year, Part 2, posted on December 26, 2011 at 09:06:18
OB2
Dealer

Posts: 4
Joined: December 25, 2011
Thanks for the files. I used resource hacker to slim my shell32.dll. Problem is that I need to use "Explore" button in CMP to copy files (e.g. copy music files from USB memory stick to the harddisk). With the slim shell32.dll, the file explorer is not working properly. That make me hesitate to go for the hacked version.

Any suggestion?

 

RE: Tweaks of the year, Part 2, posted on December 26, 2011 at 09:18:43
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
With the slim shell32.dll, the file explorer is not working properly.

The version of shell32.dll I sent you works fine with Explorer at this end (though some of the icons look a bit funny). I got some loss of functionality - e.g. batch files that used to work now don't - but the improved sound quality makes that a small price to pay. It is, at least in my setup, a quite extraordinary difference.

FWIW, my suggestion would be to delete a few resources at a time and try the file at intervals to see what resources you need to keep and to find a compromise between "slimmest of the slim" and what is, for you, a viable setup.

That said, there are others here better informed about this process than I am.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: Tweaks of the year, Part 2, posted on December 26, 2011 at 09:47:50
OB2
Dealer

Posts: 4
Joined: December 25, 2011
Dave,
Thanks for your suggestion. I'm making deletion bit by bit. First AVI and bitmap are quite safe. Will work on icons tomorrow.

Barry

 

I'm always serious about HiFi and , posted on December 27, 2011 at 03:47:33
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
friends! I don't want to persuade anyone to try something risky like I did. That's all.

I've been working last night and today auditioning CMP on XP Home Edition. Will post soon on this.

I'll show you the components to be removed, but be reminded that it's more risky this time.

 

CMP on XP Home Edition, posted on December 27, 2011 at 04:13:25
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
I've been using XP Professional Edition SP2 for Cplay/CMP upon recommendations made on cicsmemoryplayer.com, ever since I started the CMP project long time ago. Recently, when I found you guys slimming your Windows and Registries, I have this in mind - Why not use XP Home Edition? It's less sophisticated.

The Home Edition is perhaps a simplied version of the Professional one and has a lot of features trimmed down. I think that's what we are lookng for. You may refer to the below links for the differences.

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article10-002
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/wxpdifs.html

The only issue for not being able to use XP Home Edition for good CMP playback is the absence of "lock page in memory". Nevertheless, I tried installing an Nlited version of XP Home. Upon first boot, it's about 50mb less than the Pro verion of XP. With basic optimization and registry tweaks applied, it sounded very good, and in my view even better than the XP Pro platform with AWE enabled and minlogon applied.

Somehow, I was able to enable AWE in the XP Home by installing a third party software called "Local Account Manager". You may download it from the link. You will need to enable AWE for all users and groups. You may delete unnecessary users before uninstalling the program, after confirming that AWE is working in Cplay.

I did registry tweaks and minimun trim down on audio and video codecs only, feeling this is more balanced.

I feel the AWE enabled XP Home CMP platform sounding better than its Professional sibling. It's more musical, more airy, more presence; everything is better.

Just try it to see if you like it or not.

*What is missing in Home Edition:

Only supports only one CPU
Does not include the IIS Web server
No System Preparation (Sysprep) utility
Does not support Dynamic disks(instead, support Simple Disk type)
Does not support Encrypting File System (EFS)
Cannot be used to logon to an Active Directory domain
Group Policy Objects not available in Home Edition
cannot be used to logon to an Active Directory domain
Home Edition does not support RIS deployments
No user interface for IPSecurity (IPSec)
No SNMP
No SAP Agent
No Network Monitor
No Multiple Roaming feature











 

Steppe some added clarity please, posted on December 27, 2011 at 04:20:45
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
You said: '...ALSO Kernel files contain background bitmap THAT ARE USED by logonui, so they can be removed only with /noguiboot option, there is also rle animation code and winlogo rle inside and a lot A LOT of text. Stripped from this sh*t the sound of ks, and kernel-hal files is akin to a minlogon tweak in it;s power...'

By kernel files do you mean only kernel32, ntoskrnl, hall?

And just to confirm you delete everything accessible in these, correct?

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition, posted on December 27, 2011 at 05:35:49
Jolida
Audiophile

Posts: 329
Joined: June 26, 2009
That's cool. I presume nLite does take off most of the stuff from the pro edition though, making it as simple as it could get. Never tried an nLite xp home edition. Good to see u found it interesting...

Junaid

 

RE: Tweaks of the year, Part 2, posted on December 27, 2011 at 07:31:30
OB2
Dealer

Posts: 4
Joined: December 25, 2011
I finally deleted icon group by hand and keep around 20 icon groups which looks familiar in file browser to enable copying file which is all I needed. The size is now 3,542KB.

It sounds great to me, vocal is now more natural and organic. I used to have problem playing a 24/192 very complex record. Now I can very comfortably play that record and the instruments never mess up again.

Highly recommended. Thanks Dave.

 

One wonders if it makes any difference when you trim ..., posted on December 27, 2011 at 08:03:56
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
PRO down to 28 mB?

I doubt any of that stuff us still in use but I have o real way of knowing.

I know my registry is quite small at this point.

PLUS - I do not think I am ready to do it again! (today)

 

I will look forward to your instructions, posted on December 27, 2011 at 08:06:28
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
There has never been a doubt in my mind that you are as SERIOUS MINDED about audio as one can be.

No one could accuse you of baiting anyone into taking your advice.

But for those of us wanting a challenge ...

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition, posted on December 27, 2011 at 08:12:08
Douwe01nl
Audiophile

Posts: 71
Location: Amsterdam
Joined: September 29, 2011
Hi Junaid,
Do you remember what you included/excluded in your minimal nLite?
In my setup (dualcore atom) your minimal nLite recognizes two cores, but not the hyperthreading. Despite of this it is very musical (see The Sining Atom in the HW-forum (http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/10/100814.html).
I want to try to make a new minimal&musical install which can use two cores and hyperthreading (virtual 4 cores). Much thanks in advance!
Douwe

 

No doubt the registry is written without those complicated, posted on December 27, 2011 at 08:34:02
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
Windows components and utilities in XP home. Even with Nlite, things are written in the registry anyway. I believe one cannot manually trim down XP Pro registry to equal that of XP Home. The comparison I did was fair, both OS underwent the same tweaks and optimization. Assuming the trimming effects on both OS are the same, as they have the same structure and files, in the end one may get a better sounding Windows with XP Home. May be more files can trim down in XP Home too. Who knows the outcome? But it is worth exploring. We have installed Windows hundreds of times recently, would you mind doing one more on this one?

One thing I know, both OS use the same shell32.dll and kernel etc. And from what I saw during resource hacking, XP Home is not going to use most of the dialogues and menus etc, therefore perhaps we can delete more things without adversely affecting on XP Home.

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition, posted on December 27, 2011 at 08:40:46
Jolida
Audiophile

Posts: 329
Joined: June 26, 2009
Email me. Will reply with the details, as I quite don't remember what I left in. It's been a while since I looked back at my nLite ini file. Two things I quite remember leaving in are MultiProcessor support & Internet Explorer Core.

Junaid

 

Tried deleting all in advapi, kernel32 and ntoskernel (except noted exceptions)..., posted on December 27, 2011 at 09:28:10
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
...and it would not boot or should I say it just hung for 30 seconds during the boot process. So I retreated. Is this boot delay normal? If yes how long does it last?

I did add noguiboot to the boot.ini file but at the beginning and not the end of the list.

 

If you think it is worth pursuing, then it is ..., posted on December 27, 2011 at 10:52:02
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
Now to find an old copy of the thing laying around the office!

 

You might wait a little longer, posted on December 27, 2011 at 11:00:01
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
not sure how our files compare but as I mentioned to Serge, my machine, after leaving the BIOS screen will first give you the LOADING OS screen then go black, it blinks a couple of times and then after 25 seconds or so I get the blue screen, about five seconds later the cursor appears and then momentarily later the cMP screen.

The first time I thought for sure it was not going to work. I walked away for a moment and came back and THERE IT WAS!.

 

RE: No doubt the registry is written without those complicated, posted on December 27, 2011 at 11:50:40
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
Jack,

I LOVE your lateral thinking! Great direction!

One thing you didn't mention was if you tried to get Minlogon to work with XP Home. While the conventional wisdom is that it shouldn't work, the way we do it (with registry & file hacks) might work. If you've got a good backup of your XP Home setup, it's worth a try.

Back in the day, I did quite a few XP Home->Pro upgrades, mainly to use the PC's on a more sophisticated network. Since we generally AREN'T using domains & such and do little account management, these features are useless to us. BTW, watching those upgrades, they end up replacing a large portion of the Windows files.

In a similar vein, I've stuck with XP Pro version SP1 for my cMP. Unless you are doing advanced networking (and likely just wireless networking) and/or using USB (as I remember, there was significant upgrading of USB functionality with SP2), then SP1 should result in a smaller and likely cleaner (and hopefully better sounding) Windows. But honestly, I've never compared.

It's funny... with the development of cPlay halted, one might think cMP is in it's twilight. But with all the Windows-hacking that's being developed, it's like a new and better setup all over again! While I don't think we'll be able to get it down to the same footprint as a clean Linex-based player (or firmware), the flexibility of being able to use a wide variety of hardware (MoBos, processors, soundcards, HDDs/SSDs, etc) and configurations (networked, headless, stock, etc) due to the flexibility of Windows and availability of drivers is just too beneficial to pass up!

Again, THANKS! And also, belated thanks to all the slimming Windows pioneers & brave beta-testers!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. I should put the latest evolution of my Extreme Juli@-modded digital section into the system today for break-in and audition. It features very tightly-coupled power-bypassing upgrades and a combination of organic-polymer (Oscon-type, but not all Oscon-branded), low-inductance high-value ceramic (on the deep-digital processing chips ONLY) and SMD film capacitors (PPS film, also low-inductance/high-bandwidth). I'll post an update in the 'Further Juli@ Follies' sub-thread in the next several days.

Next steps after this one are to try undervolting (especially the 3.3v rail) and clock upgrades (including a try at replacing the 24.576Mhz clock with a low-jitter 49.152Mhz)!
Everything matters!

 

RE: You might wait a little longer, posted on December 27, 2011 at 12:16:35
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
Ok I will retry. Thanks rick

 

Finally got it to boot..., posted on December 27, 2011 at 13:51:16
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
...but for only kernel32 bitmap hacking. I could not get advapi and ntoskrnl hacked versions to boot.

I did get all bitmap stuff out of ntoskrnl but only that.

Good sq pop.

 

RE: No doubt the registry is written without those complicated, posted on December 28, 2011 at 01:31:55
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
I admire your insight on the use of SP1. Simple is the best for CMP. I will try to compare the sonic differences between service packs and w/o it.

Can't wait to see your development on Juli@ modifications. Because I'm building a second machine using Juli@ and network. I'm an eager audience waiting for your update.

In addition, I've just bought a few cheap ESI MAYA44 @$22USD each. I want to use them as alternative to Juli@, as I believe they share similar digital section.

 

RE: No doubt the registry is written without those complicated, posted on December 28, 2011 at 01:51:53
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
if you tried to get Minlogon to work with XP Home

I suspect minlogon will work fine with XP Home, it's AWE that is available only in XP Pro. (I find the sound in my system better with the feature disabled.)

Unless you are doing advanced networking (and likely just wireless networking) and/or using USB

Networking should also be fine in that as much as possible is switched off. The USB audio side I can't comment on but proprietary drivers typically by-pass the MS stuff anyway.

I look forward to Jack's report - as you say, it's a clever idea.

 

In my attempt to de-robe the mermaid...bad news and good news, posted on December 28, 2011 at 06:40:33
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
1st the bad news I was not able to replicate Steppe's strategy to delete (almost) everything. Every attempt resulted in a no boot or gross instability (boot screen goes crazy). I am talking kernel32, ntoskrnl, advapi32 and shell32. So if any of you are going to attempt to strip these files have Snapshot or SS equivalent handy because you will use it. The only thing that worked for me was Jack's recommendation to eliminate all menu stuff in ntoskrnl and all kernel32 bitmap stuff. Good news is that this is zero short of fantastic ... sound quality wise. The soundstage is enormous, bass is real, highs pristine. Airy, airy and airy. I have not yet attempted user32 stuff (per Jack) but that is next. WRT shell32 I have bottomed out at 2.497 mb.

 

It is only one dollar less than PRO, posted on December 28, 2011 at 11:05:39
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
Looking around for a cheap copy and there does not seem to be such a thing.

I see copies with SP2 selling on EBAY for sixty dollars without the COA which I guess means no key. So what are supposed to do with it without that?

From legitimate retailers it is around seventy eight dollars. For one dollar more you can get PROFESSIONAL. I thought the price difference used to be greater than that.

 

RE: It is only one dollar less than PRO, posted on December 29, 2011 at 00:34:28
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
There is no need to buy one. Please wait for my report.

 

Interesting effects with Resource Hacker, posted on December 30, 2011 at 05:06:36
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
So as noted above I was able to get shell32 down to a 2.497 mb level but realized I still had all the Dialogue stuff still intact. Recall that initially while hacking shell32 I took out all the Dialogue stuff (and it booted fine) but I lost the function to ADD / REMOVE folders from the cmp screen. So with Mihaylov's tireless effort to help he recommended reinstalling Dialogue 1079. Ok so now after reinstalling 1079 (along with all the Dialogues) but after other shell32 hacking I realized I had an opportunity to go back & hack away at all the Dialogue (except of course 1079) so I did. And it would not boot. Almost as if these things were interacting and some combinations work and some don't. So its really a crap shoot when you get into these system32 hacks.

 

My initial findings on SQ of XP Home Edition , posted on December 30, 2011 at 10:56:15
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
Hi inmates, happy New Year!

What are your wishes for 2012? Expecting to receive New Year gifts?

OK. Back to XP Home Edition. After having some hard time installing XPHomeSP1, I compared its sound quality with XPHomeSP2 and XPProSP2. Each OS underwent the same basic optimizations,including the latest registry tweaks, AWE and minlogon.

I mentioned in the last post that the SQ of CMP on XPHome SP2 is on top of XPProSP2, the HomeSP1 is one step forward. Greg, you are right! The differences between HomeSP1 and ProSP2 are profound. For example, less harshness, better minor details and focus, lighter but more real highs in HomeSP1 than ProSP2. A note lasted a bit longer in HomeSP1 and there were more minor reverberations. More importantly, the sound is more musical and appealing.

The HomeSP1 brings a jump in SQ, which I we believe is difficult to improve with the trimmed XPProSP2. However, I experienced difficulties in making HomeSP1 work with CMP, e.g. it couldn't shutdown in CMP and often couldn't reboot into CMP at all, occasionally no AWE. I didn't have such problem with HomeSP2. By chance, I made a few working installations, out of more than 12 attempts on 3 different computers. That said, however, I think it's still worthwhile to do so for the sake of SQ improvement.

In addition to the differences in SQ , I have the following observations:

1. The files in the 2 versions of SP2 are of the same size, but smaller in the SP1 version. This would potentially offer better chances to manipulate dlls to smaller size with Resources Hacking. There may be fewer AVIs, Icons, Strings and Dialogues.

2. HomeSP1 does not work well with CMP. It could hardly reboot into CMP mode. According to my experience, there was only one chance to do it right, i.e. CMP-Reboot-CMP. Thereafter, one cannot reboot into XP mode or shutdown. Should one missed the golden opportunity, will have to reinstall again.

3. After minlogon, User's ID was no longer recognized and the OS sometimes behaved erratically - settings were changed, I know, but some were very difficult to optimized because sometimes explorer wouldn't run in CMP mode.

4. The Registry of HomeSP1, and predominantly its simplicity rather than the size of files I believe, accounts for most of the improvements in SQ.

How did I find out it's about the Registry? Well, I think you should take the opportunity to explore and experience this. I have some instructions, if you want, to try this out on your XPProSP2. Therefore, I urge you, my friends and brothers, if you are interested or want to experience upgrade of SQ to another level without installing XPHomeSP1, please send me an email. A New Year gift is awaiting your collection!


 

Very exciting - but concern about the AWE download, posted on December 30, 2011 at 11:29:10
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
I thought I would go ahead and download the GROUP POLICY EDITOR and see that the machine must be connected to the internet to work. I have never connected my music computer to the internet and suspect I will do without AWE.

RYELANDS has mentioned that he does not like what AWE does and I have noticed from numerous installs; a few nLite installs that would not allow AWE (I had gone too far) and I could not honestly say what was missing when AWE was missing, also.

One wonders just how important it really is at this point?

Thanks for another discovery. Just when you think cMP is done ...

 

RE: Very exciting - but concern about the AWE download, posted on December 30, 2011 at 12:06:29
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
Hi Rick,

Your emails were received. I'll send the gifts to your personal email.

Apparently, there are compatibility problems with SP1 and CMP, or perhaps associated with minlogon. I didn't delete any file at all when CMP was installed and I try to reboot.

You can download the program with a working computer, copy to your CMP machine and install therefrom. My gift is for use with XPPro, there is no need for any installation, a few basic steps will do the job. It's magic!

As for AWE, SP1 works well without it, though it is a bit better when enabled. XPHomeSP1 beats XPPro even without AWE.


 

Oops... sorry, forgot to mention that problem..., posted on December 31, 2011 at 09:09:24
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
I've been living with the in-ability to easily switch between cMP-mode & XP-mode since first starting to use cMP 3 years ago or so. And since I've learned to get around that limitation, I have sorta forgotten that it was a problem caused by use of SP1.

I originally asked for help in this sub-thread about the time of cPlay 2.0b18: http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=pcaudio&m=45174

There's a lot of extraneous content in that sub-thread, but bottom-line is that the suggestions did not help get me out of cMP-mode. Of course, I didn't realize then the issue was mode-switching not playing well with SP1.

Grant had a similar experience over a year later when he was playing with SP1: http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=pcaudio&m=78335

The suggestions that he received also didn't help, I did respond to him with how I get around the limitations of being stuck in cMP-mode.

I also had some direct communications with cics on this. First, he pointed me to the registry entry that was changed to switch the modes:

" At the key 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon\'

/v Shell /t REG_SZ /d Explorer.exe

That is, at above key, the value for "shell" string is Explorer.exe for XP Mode."

But just changing this did not switch modes.

Cics also suggested "From Process Explorer, try resuming winlogon & smss processes. Then only shutdown."

Doing this, then selecting 'XP-mode' or 'cMP-mode' in cMP would sometimes switch it. I never spent enough time to totally troubleshoot and make it work consistently as using the 'Run' command from Task Manager to bring up 'Explorer' or 'Regedit' would suffice for about anything I wanted to do. The main exception to that is that the Juli@ control panel GUI only seems to be accessable when Windows is the shell... At least I haven't found another way to get into that GUI. But it hasn't been an issue for me so far, so I haven't pursued it further.

Jack, I am very intrigued by the SQ improvement you've reported using XP HomeSP1 and before I setup an installation of that, I'd really like to try your registry tweaks if you'll send them to me... I'll send you an email requesting via the normal channels.

Then to throw a couple more wrenches into the mix... Discussing this and a few other things via phone with Grant, he reminded me that SP1 was the first upgrade of Windows XP and that going to the original installation might provide further benefits. Now personally, I'm a little cautious with that because I remember SP1 making WinXP fairly stable and a lot more bug-free. But OTOH, I suspect most of the bugs fixed won't bother an optimized cMP setup even without the extreme slimming-down, so it might be another good direction in looking for the ultimate in SQ from windows.

And of course, if you can get access to them, the pre-release Beta versions of XP might even be better.

And in that vein, I don't know if any of you saw this thread on DIYAudio.com discussing making your own SATA cable and SQ improvements from doing that:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/202369-hand-made-sata-cable-cat.html

In that thread, a post by Wombat from Germany says:

"Don´t waste your time with Seriel ATA!

The best sound without a doubt you get from some well engineered IDE drives. German senior audiophiles have heard this as 3 times more dramatic improvement!

Most hunted for are well matured Samsung 320GB Spinpoints drives jumpered as SLAVE, running on an Intel ICH2 IDE Controller rev. B0. Beware! Later revisions sound edgy!

Finetuning with endless listening sessions for the best 40 pole cable are still in progress but you can expect a real winner. Rumors intensify around some UDMA/33 IDE cables delivered by a still *secret* Taiwanese manufacturer.

All this you best pair with the Intel chipset beta hotfix driver released at the end of January 2003. We talk about Windows 98SE of cause, all other OS´s are way to overloaded with all their tasks to ever be in the audiophile league we talk about here!

More surprises to be announced soon here!"

So the ultimate Ops System is Windows 98SE?

GACK!!!!!

Realistically, while I have copies of that around still, I doubt cMP or cPlay (or most other players around) will run on Windows 98!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. Ultimately, if sticking with SP1 or even going back to the original WinXP distribution is deemed to be the hot ticket for SQ, I suspect we could spend some of our collective brain-power and figure out how to fix the 'stuck in cMP-mode' problem for SP1 and earlier.


Everything matters!

 

For those of us that have deleted EXPLORER, this is not an issue, posted on December 31, 2011 at 09:26:08
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
Who needs to go back and forth?

Just connect the drive to another computer to do what you want to do.

You might be pleasantly surprised by what happens with a minimal installation. There is no comparison to where you are (per Grant) and where this can be with all unnecessary files and folders deleted and corresponding removal of references to these files in the registry.

To each his own. But one wonders how to compare these old WINDOWS versions to the minimal setup when the folks who are experimenting with them (as far as I know) are not comparing them to a fully minimized XP PRO SP2.

I would have thought you would be one of the first to forego convenience for sound quality. I suspect greater gain is there than making one's own SATA cables though that is something worth trying. My concern is where to get the connectors since I don't think cutting off the ends and soldering some new wire inbetween is a good idea. The bad wire is still there and soldered joints can be a problem for digital signals if one has not done it perfectly which is, of course, impossible. We have to do the best we can.

You have this great wire with two bottlemecks.

Now if you want to make it REALLY good you would directly solder the good wire to the HDD and the MB doing without the connectors. That would probably do something worthwhile.

IDE is out of the question for me since I have unsoldered the chip!

 

Junaid needs your help for Bitch Batch!, posted on December 31, 2011 at 11:48:04
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
In order to complete Bitch Batch program, Junaid needs your help!!!

He requires the list of exception files (files that cannot be deleted) for Juli@ card and, possibly, for EMU 1212.

He also requires the list for firewire interfaces.
Ribogee (Play-mate or anyone else), please we need your help.
I remember you saying all 1394 dll/sys/exe files, but you had to look further for ASIO.

You can all post your reply here. Thanks

 

Good points all, Rick..., posted on December 31, 2011 at 11:59:58
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
I'm a big fan of the work you, Steppe, Jolida, Theob, Grant. JackWong96, and others have been doing in developing the 'slimmed-down' WinXP installation. Honestly, the only reason I haven't applied all of the tweaks to my setup is that I wanted to keep the software side constant while I've been tweaking on the Juli@ digital section to make it easier to hear the differences. Once I get to a good settling point on the Extreme Juli@ mods, I'll go down the slimming-down route. I will say that applying the first set of slimming tweaks to my system (Steppe 1-5, the early Jolidas) made the largest system/software-related improvement in my setup's SQ & was on par to any one of the major power supply upgrades (Antec->Hybrid/Linear w/PicoPSU, Hybrid/Linear->Fully Linear, Bus-powered-Juli@->separate power). Having heard that improvement, I'm clear on the magic that I'll hear when I perform the Slimming-Windows tweaks.

But one assumption I've held (and as far as I know, as yet untested) is that starting with an SP1 or Home system that starts out with a smaller file and installation footprint and sounding better than the typical by-the-instructions SP2 system will result in an even better sounding final setup after doing the Windows-Slimming. This may not be true... A lot of the work done in the slimming effort will minimize the footprint differences between the various versions of WinXP. But the remaining components will likely still be a bit simpler if they come from an SP1 or Home initial install (or earlier). Will it make a difference? Dunno... And honestly, I probably won't take the time to setup that comparison, got too many other interesting areas to explore.

But it was good to hear confirmation from JackWong on the SQ benefits of using an earlier, simpler Windows version over Pro/SP2 or later.

About the link to the SATA cable thread on DIYAudio.com, I really was only pointing out the post on the German audiophiles using Win98 for their audio systems... Makes even the most extreme cMP-Windows-Slimming efforts look a bit mainstream by comparison!

But on the subject of SATA cables & sounds, I'm not sure where I'm at on that. I do wonder about the suggestions from Mihaylov & others about small, simple IDE-connected drives for the OpSys drive, but I suspect that's more a matter of IDE processing vs SATA. These also come in SATA-connected versions, but I got the impression from their comments that IDE had some benefits. But back to the actual SATA cable, I'm open to it making a difference (remember Peter D's comments on that 3 1/2 years back?), but would tend to go with an ultra-short exotic-wire ones like Peter used... And soldered at one end like he did (and you also suggested).

On the connectors, I found some cables in one of my local computer stores that have snap-apart end-housings. So one can pop them open and solder directly to the end-connectors instead of retaining any of the original wire. If you ever care to experiment, if you can't find this locally, I can send you some.

But I think that power to the drives, SATA or IDE, is more important... and when I have a few spare minutes, I've got a 3.3v undervolting SATA power regulator to put in and try on my SSD, inspired by Douwe01NL's posts.

And finally thanks to you for being one of the 'beta-testers' on chip removal. Another great mod direction!

Later!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. You do have me pegged as a 'hair-shirt' kind of guy with my audio stuff. Two of my not-too-distant past digital sources were a Peter-Daniel-inspired Shigaclone (bare-bones home-built CD drive) and before that a modified Sony PS-1 (not even a track display although I was able to come up with a remote for it!).


Everything matters!

 

Which is why I am mystified, posted on December 31, 2011 at 15:23:42
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
It seems to me that you are trying something analogous to deciding how to voice a preamp using what you know is an amplifer not as good as it can be.

The transparency that results from getting rid of lots of sonic clutter could only make your task easier. I feel certain what your mod's effect would be more clearly apparent with the best cMP installation.

Tell me the brand name of the SATA connectors. I still think the way to mazimize it would be to solder one end directly to the board. I have found connectors to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to acheiving good sound. I am thinking for these frequencies the Allen Wright silver foils might be really good. I see the connectors are far apart on the standard SATA cable which would reduce capacitance at the expense of inductance which does seem kind of strange for a high frequency conductor but is this because the buffer/drivers (?) are not up to driving a higher capactitance? Was this discussed?

Simple is always better until it isn't. My most recent experience with this idea was installing a non-acpi version of XP Pro. I thought it sounded really good especially after it was "minimized". I fought with Junaid who said the acpi version sounded better. I did not want to do another re-install this quickly and I assumed the archaic had to be better. In this case it did not turn out to be so. Of course no rule holds fast for everything and it well could be that a more archaic version of XP Pro or Home could well be better. I would be glad to give it a try.

To close this brings me to what I consider a discontinuity that I cannot resolve - why would someone try the archaic OS without having first tried the minimal Pro since both seem to offer the same level of inconvenience which I know (damn well!) that you are a not a slave to. I know, that like myself, you take pride in making digital audio as difficult to use as a well set-up turntable!

If it were tricky to get to this current end point I would understand your reluctance but it is actually simple to get there. Just connect your drive to another computer and get rid of the files. No need for batch files, just delete all of the files between the ones you need. Just make sure you leave the OS in cMP mode before doing this (which seems to be the case, anyway) Especially if you get rid of EXPLORER which NEEDS to be got rid of.

I tried deleting JULI@ Controller in the registry and it no longer worked. I do not think one can get rid of this.

 

Just read the SATA cable thread at DIYAudio, posted on December 31, 2011 at 15:52:37
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
and I feel sure WOMBAT is being as facetious as a human being can be.

I think I will wait this one out!

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on December 31, 2011 at 17:58:23
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
A couple of questions:

- Does the difference between the versions (SSE2, SSE4) only affect sampling ?

and

- Is there a way to set cPlay to output the exact same sample rate as the file's encoding ?

Many thanks !

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on December 31, 2011 at 18:59:26
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
Does the difference between the versions (SSE2, SSE4) only affect sampling ?

As I understand it, it's upsampling where the differences matter. (My earlier point that versions other than SSE4 would not even do 192KHz seems to be incorrect.)

Is there a way to set cPlay to output the exact same sample rate as the file's encoding ?

Not automatically, no. Sample rate switching is not, to put it politely, one of cPlay's strong points.

HTH

Dave

 

One can seriously trim XP PRO registry/current list of files remaining, posted on January 1, 2012 at 09:10:31
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
The "size" of the registry never changes. The space that is required to build the registry at installation seems to remain no matter how much stuff you remove. It can grow but does not seem to shrink.

As it is, the XP Home registry is only about 200 kB smaller than what my folder contains but there is no comparison with what is inside mine and what is inside the XP Home config folder.

In fact, it looks like none of the STEPPE registry mods have been done.

Beyond that there is Mihaylov's suggestions per his screenshots.

I have gone beyond that with lots of trips up and downstairs to see if it still works and, if it does, taking out more.

What was sent does not look much different than what I had after the nLite minimal install. Not to say this basic registry is not a good starting point but there is much work to do to get this into top condition for listening to music.

There is so much extraneous audio and video stuff left in there.

I have found the best approach is to as closely as you can (or dare) have the registry match what .dlls, sys's, and exe's are left in your WINDOWS. Should not have left out the .nls's.

I would be glad to send my config folder as a guide to anyone who would like to see where it is at the moment. I doubt it will work, as is, but I feel certain if you made your config folder look like mine it will work.

Now this is with the understanding that this is a registry based on a FINAL STEPPE machine with no Explorer. All of the files removed per his lists (and a few more). Using the Gigabyte H55 board, PS/2 mouse.

LIST OF REMAINING FILES
config folder
drivers folder
advapi32.dll system32
authz.dll system32
basesvr.dll system32
bootvid.dll system32
c_1252nls system32
c_437.nls system32
comctl32.dll system32
comdlg32.dll system32
cryptdll.dll system32
csrsrv.dll system32
csrss.exe system32
ctype.nls system32
dnsapi.dll system32
FNTCACHE.DAT system32
framebuf.dll system32
gdi32 system32
hal.dll system32
juliaasio.dll system32
kbdus.dll system32
kdcom.dll system32
kernel32.dll system32
l_intl.nls system32
locale.nls system32
lsasrv.dll system32
lsass.exe system32
mpr.dll system32
msasn1.dll system32
msprivs.dll system32
msvcp60.dll system32
msvcrt.dll system32
ncobjapi.dll system32
netapi32.dll system32
ntdll.dll system32
ntdsapi.dll system32
ntoskrnl.exe system32
ole32.dll system32
oleaut32.dll system32
oledlg.dll system32
olepro32.dll system32
rpcrt4.dll system32
samlib.dll system32
samsrv.dll system32
scesrv.dll system32
secur32.dll system32
services.exe system32
setupapi.dll system32
shell32.dll system32
shlwapi.dll system32
shutdown.exe system32
smss.exe system32
sortkey.nls system32
sorttbls.nls system32
svchost.exe system32
sxs.dll system32
umpnpmgr.dll system32
unicode.nls system32
user32.dll system32
userenv.dll system32
vga256.dll system32
vga.dll system32
watchdog.sys system32
win32k.sys system32
winlogon.exe system32
winmm.dll system32
winspool.drv system32
winsrv.dll system32
winsta.dll system32
WLDAP32.DLL system32
ws2_32.dll system32
ws2help.dll system32

acpi driver
atapi driver
classpnp driver
disk driver
dxapi driver
dxg driver
dxgthk driver
ftdisk driver
hidclass driver
hidparse driver
hidusb driver
i8042prt driver
Jula driver
kbdhid driver
ks.sys driver
ksecdd.sys driver
mouclass.sys driver
mountmgr.sys driver
npfs.sys driver
ntfs.sys driver
partmgr.sys driver
pci.sys driver
pciide.sys driver
pciidex.sys driver
vga.sys driver
videoprt.sys driver
volsnap.sys driver
wdmaud.sys driver
wmlib.sys driver

FONTS
8513fix
8514oem
8514sys
arialbd
l_10646
marlett
micross
tahoma
tahomabd
trebuc
trebucbd
vga850
vga860
vga863
vga865
vgafix
vgaoem
vgasys

WINDOWS
fonts folder
system32 folder
win.ini keeps showing back up!

Documents and Settings
Program Files
RECYCLER
System Volume Information
WINDOWS
boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntdlr

There is the problem with drives being different and depending upon how much you have removed or hacked you might not be able to make it work.

I have found when needing to reconfigure the drives within cMP if you will replace the hacked shell32 with the standard one you can make the changes.

 

I'm not worry about cables, posted on January 1, 2012 at 09:37:33
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010



as I'm using this device. My 120mb SSD as boot device does not sound as good as this small DOM(Thanks to Mihaylov!!), so I have to attach the big SSD as a secondary. And I'm moving over to network, as the size and quality of HDD/SSD won't affect SQ too much during data transfer over the network. I have a WD Book Live with 2TB HDD. I can't tell which config sounds better!

Thank for your advice on SP 1 startup. Never mind, I can live with it.

Regarding IDE HDD sounding better than SATA, I think we can't just look at the drive alone, rather it should a bird eyes view on the overall setup. I will no doubt IDE is better sounding, sure it was, at one stage when all SATA drives were using IDE-SATA convertor chips. They were erroneous in data transfer. In fact, I have used IDE drive for CMP in the early stage, but I didn't find them sounding better than SATA ones.

Even if IDE drives would sound better, I'm seriously doubtful if mobos with Intel ICH2 IDE and those old switching regulators would be worth for
use in CMP! No to mention the old CPUs generating high current, heat and noise.

Let the audio guru do what he think is right. We have to compromise and use everyday products. I find this change of hardware giving one motivation, as one switches to a new mobo/cpu and hears the improvement.
I would bored to death to stick with an old mobo, would you not!


 

RE: I'm not worry about cables, posted on January 1, 2012 at 10:40:17
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
What a great innovative product! Thanks Jack/Mihaylov.

 

And to buy DOM SATA it is possible here for example, posted on January 1, 2012 at 13:45:23
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
but I did not buy yet because at first wanted 128 MB, and already 64МB or even 32МB, and such was not present :).

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition (safeboot), posted on January 2, 2012 at 04:09:39
erin
Audiophile

Posts: 31
Joined: May 29, 2010
Using XP pro, I have done a few of the registry tweaks, minlogon, and removed some but not all drivers, noguiboot etc etc....
I also added the /safeboot:minimal switch to the boot ini file.
I also removed a few services from the safeboot registry.
I use a USB SPDIF converter using the ploytec driver.
The sound is better using the safeboot option. But I know my os is not as tweaked as some of you guys. Perhaps someone else can boot into CMP running in safe mode, on home or pro, and see if it sounds better for you also.

Now when I start CMP taskmanager says I use about 34Mb of RAM, about 900 Handles and about 90 threads. I can give exact numbers tomorrow if interested.

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition (safeboot), posted on January 2, 2012 at 05:44:06
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
You said '...I also added the /safeboot:minimal switch to the boot.ini file. I also removed a few services from the safeboot registry...'

Just so I understand add /safeboot:minimal to the boot.ini file? Is that right? Also which services did you remove from the safeboot registry and how do you do that?

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition (safeboot), posted on January 2, 2012 at 06:14:51
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
This is useful for no tweaked non-cMP2 systems. cMP2 users already have disabled or removed (in registry) unnecessary services.

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition (safeboot), posted on January 2, 2012 at 06:36:34
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
This is useful for [untweaked ?] non-cMP2 systems.

Agreed - but it also suggests a very quick way of demonstrating that "slimming" is, despite claims by many a guru on this forum and elsewhere, a worthwhile exercise.

Folk who find that the tweak offers no change need bother themselves (or anyone else) no further.

Dave

 

Would Someone Help Please! , posted on January 2, 2012 at 08:20:00
jackwong96
Audiophile

Posts: 219
Joined: April 20, 2010
I would appreciate someone's help in activating XPHomeSP1 on a non-network environment. It started checking the licence when I load it config folder to XPProSP2. I've no such problem in CMP mode when minlogon is applied.

Thanks

 

MINLOGON is the answer, posted on January 2, 2012 at 09:53:35
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
Why would you not want to remain in MINLOGON?

I would think your only choice other than MINLOGON would be to call MICROSOFT and get the key.

I would stick to MINLOGON myself, AND cMP mode.

 

Comparison: CMP on XP Home Edition to trimmed stepped XP pro, posted on January 2, 2012 at 12:22:29
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
I have just been comparing
1)the result of fully cics-optimized xp home with all boot.ini tweaks, codec disables, and minlogon but not yet with Jack's files to

2) fully optimized xp pro(except no bios refinements possible on my laptop) after 19 Steppes and all boot.ini tweaks, minlogon, reduced shell32.dll and all fishies. For unknown reason, on this second system I can't get Mikhaylov tweak 1 to work as it did in the first system so didn't do any of his.

Even before I just did minlogon, which worked first try, 1) sounded fuller and had deeper, more apparent bass. 2) had more 'air' by a bit. After minlogon, 1) is even better in these ways plus air with a clear liveness and richness advantage.

I will now try to use the reduced shell32.dll and fishy reg changes to xp home and see what that does.

 

Watchdog, performance counters and 8dot3Name tweaks work, not shell32.dll, posted on January 2, 2012 at 12:58:42
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
The first 3 brought greater clarity and detail.

Shell32.dll supplied to us that works in the trimmed stepped cMP with the xp home system produces a startup halt with error: cics Memory player: procedure entry point AssocGetPerceivedType not found in shlwapi.dll.

 

RE: Watchdog, performance counters and 8dot3Name tweaks work, not shell32.dll, posted on January 2, 2012 at 13:31:42
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
I found that some times you have to hack your shell32 or other OS file yourself (with Resourcehacker) and then it will work versus using a supplied file from elsewhere.

 

RE: Watchdog, performance counters and 8dot3Name tweaks work, not shell32.dll, posted on January 2, 2012 at 13:46:12
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
Yeah, I thought I might get this suggestion. I have been daunted by the prospect of taking this on. Is it easy and straightforward or tricky and requiring many trial and error cycles?

 

RE: Watchdog, performance counters and 8dot3Name tweaks work, not shell32.dll, posted on January 2, 2012 at 14:07:37
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
Always tricky for me...I dont know about trial and error cycles. What I do is load my os disk into a docking station on my desk top and hack it from there.

Forgot to mention have your Snapshot or Ghost program ready to use you'll need it.

 

Appears you must edit shell32.dll from xp home not xp pro, posted on January 2, 2012 at 15:41:07
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
I took on editing with Resourcehacker. My first try was to edit shell32.dll copy I had from earlier xp pro version. This produced the same error. Then I edited shell32.dll from the xp home installation down to 2.66MB from 7.95MB. This worked with some overall improvement. Statement made earlier by someone, ?Jack, that the shell32.dlls are the same appears incorrect, but I am don't know how or why.

 

In most cases, posted on January 2, 2012 at 18:05:30
steppe
Audiophile

Posts: 641
Joined: September 28, 2006
Hello, everybody! In most cases you can delete everything inside your file with reshacker. In some cases you can substitute your file with a supplied one or !!! with the one from another OS!
There are two conditions that should be observed:
a. The file should already reside in your system32 folder
b. Your config folder should contain hives and logs to them (remember, I said remove /minint from boot.ini), dated from a time AFTER the file appeared in your system32 folder. AND YOU SHOULD HAVE A SPARE COPY of your config folder with THE SAME hive files
NEVER try to substitute kernel32.dll, ntdll.dll, gdi32.dll and ESPECIALLY USER32.dll. Files samsrv and samlib should be substituted only in pair, FOLLOWED by rpcrt4. But before You do it, substitute lsass.exe and lsasrv.dll. Oh it's a jungle! If You will get a BSOD and after that you 1. restore original file, reboot and get a message, that your system32\config file (no name given. It's a system and software hive that is broken) is missing, open your hdd from another windows, 2. delete everything inside config folder, ALL HIVES, all logs! and 3. populate it anew from a reserve (spare) folder. Reboot. It should restore, reboot again to create new timestamp on the registry. All the crucial files are registered by system and software hives every 24 hours. I am now finishing a big tweak, that directly concerns xp pro, xp home and some other things. Will post it soon, but need to recreate it several times - very dangerous. WORK ONLY WITH YOUR OWN FILES!
Serge.

 

RE: CMP on XP Home Edition (safeboot), posted on January 3, 2012 at 01:34:19
erin
Audiophile

Posts: 31
Joined: May 29, 2010
Yes you are correct, just add safeboot:minimal to your boot ini file.


To edit your safeboot registry entries:

Start> run > type regedit hit enter

find and open the folders: Hkey_local_machine > system > control > safeboot minimal.

I intended to delete; Help SVC, SR Service, Crypt SVC, RPCSS, Dcom Launch, winmgmt. But actually there were at least two of these that I didn't delete. Sorry my memory isn't able to tell you which ones exactly I deleted.
Perhaps someone else can advise if its safe to delete all of the above?
And perhaps any others that can be deleted.

Before deleting, I right clicked each service and exported (and saved) it as a .reg file so I could double click and re-instate the service in case I made a mistake.

 

Note there is also /safeboot:network for network users (nt), posted on January 3, 2012 at 07:38:36
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
.

 

Mihaylov, can you help with Juli@?, posted on January 3, 2012 at 11:03:05
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
Could you please supply list of files for Juli@ that cannot be deleted?
Thanks

 

RE: Mihaylov, can you help with Juli@?, posted on January 3, 2012 at 11:40:06
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
JulaASIO.dll and Jula.sys.

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

Serge, You are intriguing as always!, posted on January 3, 2012 at 12:09:13
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
:).
Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 00:10:27
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
I compared cPlay to MusicBee to MusicBee playing the same 24/96 file from Ramdisk.

Ramdisk made a mild improvement, but cPlay was noticeably better yet.

So, what does cPlay do differently from other players - other than RAM Memory playback ?

(Or is it some sort of secret?)

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 01:33:11
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
is it some sort of secret?

I don't think it was ever a secret though it has never been formally written up, the nearest thing to a write-up being the Release Notes, esp (obviously) those for the last version, v 39.

Though noting that this or that release features "DSP improvements" is a bit cryptic, it does suggest that the program was continually honed to make the code more efficient rather than, as is more common, taken to the point where it worked well enough then inflicted with "features". The approach is in line with the general thrust of the cMP2 "project".

cPlay is of course feature light with a CUI (Clunky User Interface) rather than a GUI. Those who followed the program through fifty-odd releases can testify that its sound quality did steadily improve over the two years (Sept 2008 to October 2010). Try comparing (say) v 2.1 with 2.39 and bear in mind that the only difference between the two besides minor GUI improvements is the efficiency of the code.

Interestingly, the developer of Pure Music, an affordable player for the Mac, seems to be taking much the same approach with, if users are to be believed, much the same results.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 09:57:24
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
Thanks for your reply.

You stated:
"Try comparing (say) v 2.1 with 2.39 and bear in mind that the only difference between the two besides minor GUI improvements is the efficiency of the code."

Okay, my question then is, "efficiency in doing what ?"

cPlay is doing something differently than other players, that causes the audio waveform to have less added distortion in the playback process.

At first glance, I thought this was due to RAM memory playback, but the comparisons with other players using RAMdisk confirmed that this is only half the story.

It's not related to timing, because I am using an asynchronous USB DAC that creates its own timing internally.

So, some other usually found distortion has been eliminated in cPlay, and it would be quite worthwhile to everyone to pin down exactly what it is.

(Perhaps what is needed is a very detailed change log, if one exists ??)_

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 10:37:10
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
my question then is, "efficiency in doing what ?"

In crude terms, the number of instructions the program executes to perform a given operation. I'm no programmer but I recall working with programmers who would write a program so it worked after a fashion then spend a long time refining the code so it ran faster. Compare e.g. "the square root of the product of the square of four and the square of two divided by four times the square of one" with "one plus one". (I think I have that right).

One particularly skilled programmer I worked with would get his routines working in Fortran then re-write them in Assembly language. I've seen differences of one, maybe two orders of magnitude in runtime.

cPlay is doing something . . . that causes the audio waveform to have less added distortion

As I see it, no waveform is passed to the DAC - the DAC creates one from a stream of data but has to do so in real time. (The meaning of "real time" has been disputed here but it's clear enough IMHO in the USB audio context.)

It's not related to timing, because I am using an asynchronous USB DAC.

An asynchronous transfer protocol reportedly reduces USB timing errors (I say 'reportedly' because I've never heard a device using one, let along compared it with others) but developers on this forum at least are adamant that it is not a panacea. I don't think that anyone seriously suggests that a correctly-configured Foobar (e.g.) is not "bit perfect". USB cables apparently affect asynch devices. And so on: the effects are subtle.

If I may say so, it is refreshing to read a post that starts with perceptual evidence and queries the orthodoxy rather than the other way round. A common response is "I don't see how it can . . therefore it doesn't".

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 12:04:18
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
Fortran...I used to program in that many years ago as well as Basic and APL. We had a version of Fortran developed by Nasa called Nastran that did highly sophisticated stress analysis (for its day) of Vehicle parts. For sure this was a long time ago when the computer was humongus in size (maybe the size of todays c class car (focus)). Ahh the good old days.

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 12:25:14
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
"As I see it, no waveform is passed to the DAC - the DAC creates one from a stream of data but has to do so in real time."

Yes, "audio waveform" is talking about the eventual analog. In terms of digital, it would be alterations of data values.

Now, I can certainly see how electrical noise, voltage spikes, etc. could cause alternation of data values in a PC, so all the hardware mods make sense (with the only variable being the actual degree of benefit of any particular mod, which varies with each listener's ears and audio setup).

And I can see how any process running the same time as an audio player could cause a disruption (skeptics clearly do not understand the difference between a real-time streaming digital process and an error-corrected "offline" process).

But I don't understand how any non-faulty code in a player, can sound better than non-faulty code in a different player, both of them running on the same PC, so the above factors of hardware and OS generated noise and spikes are the same for both players.

You state: "I've seen differences of one, maybe two orders of magnitude in runtime." An audio player has to process one second of audio data within one second, since it is real-time. I don't see a benefit for completing it in a tenth of a second.

I'm not using upsampling, so that is not part of the equation, and it's a 2.80ghz dual core processor, so it is not being taxed at all by any audio player.

PS I'll table the USB/jitter issue for now, except to agree that it is not a panacea, because timing jitter is certainly not the only distortion.

 

We are putting the horse behind the cart, posted on January 4, 2012 at 13:33:07
steppe
Audiophile

Posts: 641
Joined: September 28, 2006
as the saying goes. Hello, everybody. You have probably forgotten, that cplay appeared at first as a supplement player to the cmp shell. CMP was designed earlier to, mainly, stop or kill or suspend other processes that a pc is running commonly while playback takes place. I have seen a diagram of the windows audio process - its TERRIBLE. Before data reaches kernel and after it passes through "fire and water and copper pipes". Then asio itself, its driver uses several other dlls and drivers like portculs.sys and f*ng drmk.sys that portclis is dependent on, but there are many many stages, where echo canceller and audio splitter and sysaudio and redbook and codeks all take place (sorry for punctuation). Cplay was specifically designed to avoid many of the nasties and it is and was to exploit the benefits of cmp. Also, if you read the logs with care, you will find that mostly Cics wrote of ASIO refinements, not DSP. especially at first. Note that cplay is an asio-only player, no foo-out dlls and crap. It's the shortest and most minimalistic player, that I know of. Even video interference was partially taken of by cmp tweaks.
I bet, cics would explain better. But it's ASIO changes that matter most, IMHO.
Serge.

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 16:45:34
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12586
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
hey Ken,

I certainly dont know for certain and Ryelands and steppe have given some good explanations.

But I don't understand how any non-faulty code in a player, can sound better than non-faulty code in a different player, both of them running on the same PC, so the above factors of hardware and OS generated noise and spikes are the same for both players

Not sure it is that simple. And I definitely DONT think that all players create the same hardware and OS noise. I know this for a fact.

Let me explain. There was a time when none of my outlets were grounded (it was an apartment). There was a something similar to hum, but it was different in that there were just noises that ranged up and down the audio spectrum. Some players sounded like a growl, some like a delivery truck backing up, some a bit of both. I think that alot of the sound might be from the HDD or cpu, etc.. The sound was soft and with the volume down you could hear it but it didnt change with the volume. The computer noise was definitely different among different players.

The main things that people complain about cplay are IMHO some of the reasons it sounds so good. For instance the black and white no nonsense display. That cuts down on video noise. The ASIO only capability. As steppe mentions that bypasses a bunch of badsounding os stuff. I recall cics talking about "period jitter" and how asio could control it. See the link below. I know he spend a bunch of time on asio refinements and i can tell you from my Lynx card that asio drivers make a huge difference.

Finally cplay is the only player I know of that was designed around a comprehensive hardware and software approach and I think it shows.

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO, posted on January 4, 2012 at 20:02:39
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12586
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
Hey Ken,

More on the async usb

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 5, 2012 at 08:11:18
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
I got no response posting under Jack's thread so...Seeing what can be achieved without it, I am doubting that trimming per se is worth it. Once you have done all cics optimizations including minlogon, boot.ini tweaks and fishy tweaks to xp home cMP you end up with a much more natural, rich and balanced output with all the great detail, soundstage and localization of instruments that trimming xp pro brought while maintaining many convenient functions with no seeming sacrifice to sq. At least, that's how it is seeming to me after a couple days of playing a xp home cMP.

Do others agree? Or are there those who have trimmed xp home and achieved even better sound, that is, better without the imbalances,'thinning' and somewhat artificial 'air' of the highly reduced xp pro setups? Or are there those who prefer the sound of the reduced xp pro?

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 5, 2012 at 09:28:55
kclo
Audiophile

Posts: 68
Joined: August 21, 2010
I have been using Aspire One as the music server ever since I started the cMP2 project. Since XP Home came with the netbook, I have no choice but be a XP Home user since day one. I have never had the opportunity to have a XP Pro setup to compare with XP Home side by side on my system, but have always been extremely satisfied with the performance of cMP/cPlay on XP Home. In fact, I am more than satisfied with it, the current implementation way surpassed anything I could have expected and I considered it to be the best source I have ever achieved in my long hifi journey.

I do not go all the way in my Windows trimming. I stopped at steppe 4 + jolida 2. I had ventured way up to steppe 8 but found the sound thin with artificial high and had to retract back to steppe 4. Though I did found the latest steppe (and others) tweaks extremely beneficial (maxmem, watchdog, performance counter, and sliming of shell32).

I am planning to build my 'real' server soon. May be by then I can compare the full slimming of XP Home with what I have now.

KC

 

cMP Mode hangs on Welcome Screen in Vista 32-bit, posted on January 5, 2012 at 16:45:14
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
I tried cMP shell on Vista SP1 32-bit and it hangs at the Welcome Screen.

I followed what everyone calls "disabling the Welcome Screen in Vista", which is to use only one account, and to untick the checkbox to ask for a password logon. But even when you do that, there is a screen in the boot process in Vista with the word "Welcome" and it hangs at that point when you try to startup in cMP mode.

Has anyone managed to fix this in Vista ?

Thanks !

 

Well, I haven't done, posted on January 6, 2012 at 01:25:13
steppe
Audiophile

Posts: 641
Joined: September 28, 2006
tweakings on XP home, truly, I am somewhat tired with all this long search in a away, but I can say from my own experience that really good and balanced sound comes to you at the end of part 15,, then after part 18, then at the end of part 22+ fishies, that is now. I don't think it's artificial, I rather prefer to call closer to studio reality, though it is by no means an "audiophile"-smooth or comforting. I don't know what music you are listening to, but if you put the following cds on your player, you will immediately hear what you have achieved with tweaking
Deep Purple 1970 In Rock
Rainbow 1978 Long Live Rock'n'Roll
Ozzy Osbourne - Ozzmozis
Serge.
BTW I am using several xp-home files in my setup...

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 04:53:21
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
=I do not go all the way in my Windows trimming.=
I think this is the reason. In fully tweaked system as my cMP2 there can be no differences between pro and home.

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 06:00:18
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
I have never regreted any of the Steppes. Yes some were better than others but as Steppe mentions after Steppe 16 it was all good. The fish tweaks, resource hacker stuff plus watchdog et al even better. But where it really enterred the sacred zone for me was when I started registry slimming. About a week ago my registry was 16 mb. I, through the invaluable help of an anonymous inmate, have slimmed this to about 7 mb. The results are simply staggering. I know I have further to go and will do it but its a long and painful process, lots of no boots. Others have reached simply mind blowing levels of registry size and while this is not goal in and of itself it is a rough indicator. For me the biggest gains were from eliminating unused sevices entries and software stuff in the registry. I really thought that the tweaking was done but no it goes on. The open source nature of cplay/cmp is the only way this could have been accomplished. I just wish cics could hear his creations fully tweaked as Steppe, Mihaylov, Mario, and others have shown the way.

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 07:27:21
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
You don't say if this refers to use of xp home with all these trims. I have done all save your latest registry radical trimming with xp pro and liked the results but prefer xp home with boot.ini tweaks, reduced shell32.dll and fishys without trimming.

 

Don't doubt what you are saying, I'm just saying..., posted on January 6, 2012 at 07:41:18
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
...like Mihaylov says if you skinny it down on xp home or you start with xp pro once you get down to the bare min windows including registry you are there. Maybe it was easier for you with xp home and yes that is certainly worth something. If I was starting a new I would take your route with n-lite. In reality in all honesty, if I was starting anew I would never take this journey. I had a steep learning curve as an audiophile who knew zero about computers just launching cmp/cplay. Hell I didnt know what a driver was let alone all this stuff regarding the registry. And I believe a lot of 'would be computer audiophiles' not yet into it will not take the journey because its too difficult. And that would be a shame. This stuff blows everything away that I have heard as a front end. Not arguing just expressing a different perspective.

Have you slimmed down your registry? With my recent slimming including this am my windows folder is now down to 32 mb.

 

RE: Don't doubt what you are saying, I'm just saying..., posted on January 6, 2012 at 07:53:58
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
I worked on registry slimming in my xp pro cMP but didn't get too too far before giving up going further due to too many bsods. Might you have a list of items that can be deleted, or can you send a copy of your software and system hives for me to explore and work from? My setup is clearly different enough that I could never use them directly but only as a guide.

Also, do you or Mihaylov know for a fact that the differences between home and pro are trimmable, that is, that they are only re additional items in pro and not ever difference in the items themselves like different versions of essential dlls, drivers, etc, or contents of untrimmable registry keys?

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 08:47:54
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000

Cant do the registry (its proprietary) but the system32 files are what others have reported (Steppe, Rick, Mihaylov theob).

Prprietary means given to me by another unidentified inmate who wishes anonymity.

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 08:52:16
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
you said


'I worked on registry slimming in my xp pro cMP but didn't get too too far before giving up going further due to too many bsods. Might you have a list of items that can be deleted, or can you send a copy of your software and system hives for me to explore and work from? My setup is clearly different enough that I could never use them directly but only as a guide.

Also, do you or Mihaylov know for a fact that the differences between home and pro are trimmable, that is, that they are only re additional items in pro and not ever difference in the items themselves like different versions of essential dlls, drivers, etc, or contents of untrimmable registry '


Maybe you are already there. Remember as of a week ago I did no registry trimming...just the tweaks. If you used n-lite or some registry defragger or cleaner you may already be there.

 

RE: Doubts about trimming xp home: anyone get real improvement doing it?, posted on January 6, 2012 at 14:22:46
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
I can supply the files to anybody that wants them. And all should know (I can now say) that it was Rickminnis that came up with this. It is brilliant.

 

Ted, you forgot to give credit to Mihaylov, posted on January 6, 2012 at 15:07:34
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
Mihaylov's inspirational registry screenshot gave me what I needed to know where to begin this project. That is when the project began

Few, if any, will be able to use them as is. I offered them to Ted and others on Jack Wong's XP Home reg list as an example of what a minimal registry would look like after seeing how huge the XP Home registry was and as a guide to what can be deleted and the machine still work and to my ears work quite well.

One can start with either the Pro or the Home registry and end up in the same place. My suspicion is that the HOME version sounded better just because it was simpler. Not as simple as my minimal nLite registry but vastly less complicated than a standard XP Pro install. I never inserted the HOME registry into my machine.

There is lots of audio stuff left in even after STEPPE's deletions. Vast amounts of video stuff and what I call multiple entries - you will see the same thing listed numerous times which would make sense for a computer used for multiple tasks but with our (assumed) single purpose machines these do nothing but add confusion to the sound.

I started deleting these items towards the end of my trials and errors and it was if the best was saved for last.

USB has been completely eliminated since the PS/2 input is less intrusive (thanks again to Grant for making the case for this). ControlSet2 is as small as I(or you)are allowed to make it. There is a bare minimum that WINDOWS will not let go. There is a way to get rid of it all but at this point there is no installing SW required to do this into my machine. Something to try with my next install.

I can tell you Serge/Steppe has not stopped his explorations and there is much excitement coming from him in the next few weeks.

Just when you think it is DONE ...

 

RE: Don't doubt what you are saying, I'm just saying..., posted on January 6, 2012 at 15:14:11
Mihaylov
Audiophile

Posts: 355
Location: Moscow
Joined: March 11, 2010
I have not xp home so I can not to say anything for a fact. But I know for a fact that versions of some .dll and .sys are the same in xp pro and xp embedded ;).

Serge.
http://cmp2-mihaylov.narod.ru/

My cMP2: Windows XP SP2 Ru, GA-H55M-UD2H, i3-530, Corsair CM3X160C9DHX 1GB, system drive - Transcend IDE FLASH MODULE TS2GDOM40V-S FAT32, ESI Juli@, full linear PSU, NAS - WD My Book Live

 

Yes I forgot to give credit to Mihaylov, posted on January 6, 2012 at 17:03:31
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
thank you for reminding me. Of course Mihaylov is a pioneer on registry stuff.

 

Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 7, 2012 at 11:29:37
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
This ia a very simple batch file to change cPlay audio resolution from within cMP.

Place the bat file in cPlay directory, probably C:\Program Files\cics Play.
Associate cPlayCHG.bat to a cMP button and use it as you like it!
When batch file is used, it creates a tmp file in working directory.

In this way you will be able to change cPlay starting audio resolution without enter/exit/enter cPlay.
This is particularly useful, for example, for users who normally keep cPlay at red book resolution and want to change it from time to time.

 

RE: Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 7, 2012 at 15:37:48
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
Could you add to the batch file that it display the samplerate for the files referred to in the highlighted cuesheet in cMP (knowing this only helps with cuesheets and not playlists of differing rates)? Who can remember with hundreds or thousands of cuesheets/albums? That way one could choose an even multiple.

 

RE: Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 7, 2012 at 22:59:23
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
I'm not able to do that in a batch file.

That's why in my cue file I keep information on resolution in album title: "my album title (24/xxx)".

 

RE: Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 8, 2012 at 09:34:31
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
Thanks for the batch file.

It may be the basis for the most viable workaround, which is for a batch file similar to yours, to read the sample rate from the header of the audio file.

Less elegant, would be to require the user to put something in the cue file, or file name/path.

riboge - check your email for email from AA from me on Vista, thanks.

 

RE: Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 8, 2012 at 10:09:14
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
Ken, I replied on friday to your email and did so again just now.

 

Here is a working download link, posted on January 9, 2012 at 11:18:10
Ken Stuart
Audiophile

Posts: 134
Location: California
Joined: December 27, 2011
as it has been pulled from the official site (although a new version is promised for 2012 - if that is not free, that would explain why the free one has been pulled :) ):

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?plugin=Omnisone&id=519

 

RE: For The cPlay Headphone Listener..., posted on January 9, 2012 at 12:04:34
riboge
Audiophile

Posts: 675
Joined: June 25, 2008
Another excellent but pricey one I use is Redline monitor that simulates listening with near-field monitor speakers. http://112db.com/redline/monitor/

 

Serge - but WHY BreakPointDelay = 8640 (hex) seconds ?, posted on January 10, 2012 at 00:40:09
gjwAudio
Audiophile

Posts: 160
Location: Toronto
Joined: March 11, 2006
2010-01-12: subject line should read...

Serge - but WHY set BreakPointDelay = 95.46 hours ?

Hi Serge

I've been slow to implement all recent tweaks, and last night the Watchdog was in my sights. The msdn page you reference specifies:

Set the value of BreakPointDelay to the watchdog time threshold, in 10-second units. For example, a value of 200 specifies a threshold of 2,000 seconds.

In the case of 0x00008640 (a number expressed in hexidecimal notation), the conversion and math works out to 34,368 x 10-second units, setting the BreakPointDelay to 95.46 hours.

Is there something special about choosing this length of time that I'm missing ?

Perhaps you mean to set the value to 0x000021C0, which works out to 24 hours ?

In any event, thank you again for blazing the trail of new (...and obscure) adjustments for making cMP sound better and better... and better...

Cheers,
Grant

That's not a Toy... IT'S A TOOL !!

 

RE: Batch file for cPlay resolution change, posted on January 10, 2012 at 10:20:08
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
I would like to point out that, in case you use Jolida's nLite intallation,
you must delete "Command-line tools" from his LAST SESSION.INI in order for cPlayCHG.bat to work.

 

Nice Registry tweak for cmp, posted on January 13, 2012 at 09:20:16
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
With all the deletions of files in system32 and keys in the registry this apparently results in a very fragmented registry. Before I started reducing my registry its size was 16 mb. After some manual deletions (shown the way by Rickmcinnis) I was able to reduce it to 6 mb. And it was a significant sq pop. But I could not get it reduced further. I found a wonderful registry compacter Ntregopt (thanks to help from Ryelands) and it works like a charm. What you need to do is:

..Download Ntregopt (google it...its freeware)
..Open regedit on your desktop
..Load your CMP os disk into your desktop (via a docking station or through a usb/sata converter)
..Load all your cmp hives into regedit (Sam, Security, Default, Software, System). Load them one at a time.
..Run Ntregopt...it will ask if its ok to start, say yes and its off to the races defragging or compacting your desktop registry as well as all the hives you have loaded. Its important and time efficient to do them all at once. When I tried to do them one by one I got to System and tried to boot it in cmp ... it would not work. After Ntregopt is finished it will ask to reboot ... say yes.
..After reboot go into your cmp registry and delete all bak files and all logs.

..Put cmp os disk back into your cmp pc/reboot. When I did this I ended up with a < 1 mb registry size.

This process was heavily contributed by Rick, Dave as well as Steppe/Mihaylov for pioneering registry slimming.

As you may go further in reducing cmp registry manually... defrag it again.

Forgot to say this is a significant sq pop... dynamics, timbre, mid and upper mid purity.

This tweak is especially good for those of us who did not want to reload Windows with a light footprint, do all the CMP / Cics tweaks again, redo all the Steppe/Mihaylov tweaks ... to end up with a tight registry.

 

This is a great find - right up there with RESOURCE HACKER, posted on January 13, 2012 at 09:52:17
Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003



My config folder is approx 852 kB

 

RE: This is a great find - right up there with RESOURCE HACKER, posted on January 13, 2012 at 10:03:02
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
Could not have done this without you...a big thanks again.

 

SQ Mini-XP really stunning ! (Mini-XP is a ‘N-lited’ XP already done for you by ‘eXPerience’), posted on January 13, 2012 at 10:24:52
Hi All,

Slimming an XP installation disk with help of N-lite is still not so easy for most of us. And also it is A LOT of work and also i'm not sure what too keep and what not too keep.
So I started looking around for XP ‘distro’s’ who already have been slimmed by others.
A very popular slimmed down XP-‘distro’ seems to be ‘Mini-XP’ slimmed by ‘eXPerience’

I’m not advocating software piracy, so be sure too also have a legal XP license for your cMP machine. Microsoft will not like the fact when you are running XP on a computer which you did not pay them for. So with this cleared, now let’s see what this N-lited XP version by eXPerience brings for SQ.

Here is the information text that is included with ‘eXPerience’ N-lited XP-distro.

eXPerience Proudly Presents...

"Mini-XP"

Windows XP Pro SP2 Unattended

Thank you for your interest in this stripped out 125Mb Edition of XP. I clocked mine in Task Manager using only 49Mb of RAM. Windows XP usually uses 300Mb of RAM at the best of times. This "Mini-XP" takes up only 500Mb total space on your system's hard drive.

By using only 50Mb of RAM, this allows your PC to run fast, I mean VERY fast!

All important hardware drivers and other essentials have been kept in this release - no more problems with those stupid Alcatel stingray modems. You have joystick support, printer support, ISDN, and other bare essentials. This Windows XP Edition CAN have MS Office installed, it is also supported! You still have your calculator, Wordpad and of course, MS Paint.

GONE is that nasty Internet Explorer! It does not exist in this Edition. You will have to install Firefox or Opera or any other browser to access the internet. ALSO GONE is Windows Media Player. You will have to grab some kind of player from somewhere if you want to play stuff. GONE also are all Windows noises like startup and shutdown noises, but audio does work. However, there is no support for scanners in this Edition.

This XP Pro SP2 Unattended is tiny @ just 125Mb!


Windows XP Pro Custom Added Features...

Custom eXPerience© Wallpaper
NT Registry Tweaks for Performance, Gaming, Internet and much more

Integrated XP "Post SP2" Windows Updates (Hotfixes) 23rd June 2005...

Enjoy Mini-XP by eXPerience

Build Date: 14.11.2005

Release Date : Winter 2005

I decided too install this XP-‘distro’ too see what it would do for SQ of my cMP setup.
Installation of XP-mini is no different from any other regular XP installation.
You have too point too what partition XP should be installed.
After this is done, the installation process can be continued unattended.
You can sit back, relax and watch it happen.
When the Mini_XP installation was done, I only had to ad the LAN-network-drivers ( I store my music files on a NAS) and the ESI-juli@ drivers.

* Sound Quality in one word: EXELENT!!
This slimmed down MINI XP by eXPerience sounds really stunning.
No hyperbole. The basic install right-out-off-the-box sounds very much (!) better than a standard cMP!

It turned out that most cMP XP optimazations where already done:
But these still remain too be done:

Chapter 7.1 - Optimising Windows using Control Panel
* step 3: I did not install any video drivers but video traffic still has too be minimized
* step 3.3: Disable Visual Effects
* step 3.5 Set the video mode
* Step 5 tune performance (some tweaks still need to be done here)
* Step 6 disable or suspend services (half of the services is already disabled. But still 15 are running)

Chapter 7.3 - Optimising Windows using Registry Editor (regedit)
* Step 2 - disable windows prefetcher
* Step 4 - NTFS disable last acccess update
* Step 5 - change sheduler time slice
* Step 7 - Reduce USB Polling (when using USB)

- Disable Watchdog
- Disable Performance Counters
When I checked with the exctrlst.exe tool, only 3 counters where still present.
So eXPerience already had some serious slimming down done
- install slimmed down shell32 (stop Windows File Protection first)
(I don’t use minlogon)

Chapter 9 - Optimising the Windows kernel

After having done these final cMP based tweaks, the sound quality improved somewhat.
But, a basic standard MINI XP installment (XP version slimmed by eXPerience) already sounds really, very good! Much better than a standard tweaker cMP XP-setup.

So if some doesn’t like too go through the hassle of slimming down there own XP installation disk with N-lite. Than I can recommend an already ‘N-lited’ XP version done by eXPerience (better know as Mini-XP)

Very much recommended !!

Mark

 

RE: SQ Mini-XP really stunning ! (Mini-XP is a ‘N-lited’ XP already done for you by ‘eXPerience’), posted on January 13, 2012 at 10:54:38
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
Did you also try Jollida's nLite version?

Jolida's is 98MB and uses only 32Mb of RAM in Windows XP.

Firewire and USB Audio are included in the following Multiprocessor Last Session.ini.

In case you intend using "cplaychg.bat" I recently published for cPlay resolution change in cMP, you can delete "Command-line tools" from Multiprocessor Last Session.ini.

 

Page: [ 1 ] . . . [ 48 ] [ 49 ] [ 50 ] [ 51 ] [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ] . . . [ 60 ]

Page processed in 0.450 seconds.