Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Minimalist wasapi memory player

HI,

Please check for the latest version in the latest post of this blog. Thanks!

45 comments:

  1. Hmm, archived at AA.

    Does this only work on Vista? It seems to want AVRT.DLL which as near as I can tell is only applicable to Vista and I'm using XP.

    Thanks for doing this, I bet it would work well if only it would work at all...

    Regards, Rick

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  2. Hi Rick,

    Only Vista/WASAPI/Exclusive.
    No plans for XP.

    Thanks
    Andy

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  3. Fantastic SQ from this Andy, 0.0.3 even better. Big thanks :)

    DRRD

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  4. Glad you liked it. Thanks for your interest

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  5. Thanks, thanks, lot of thanks !
    WASAPI give me a really better sound than ASIO with my config: Vista -> USB -> Creative Live 24 external -> Toslink -> Lampucera -> Bottlehead Foreplay -> NAD 218 -> JBL 4312. Better than my Philips 723 CDP connected to the Foreplay. And I haven't be able to obtain correct result (without 'tic tic tic' sometime) from the excellent FooBar or XMPlay. I think that your player is the best for now ! Thanks again.
    Nicolas.

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  6. Hello,

    Came acroos this via google and must say it really does sound better.

    Am using vista 64 with an auzentech card into a brysyon amp and acoustic energy speakers.

    Have a - b ed it with foobar and the wasapi plug in.

    yours is better and it isnt a subtle difference.

    please can i have a 24bit 96000hz flac compatible version please:)

    Great work - i did not know that my pc copuld sound better than my arcam cd player!

    Anthony

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  7. Recently found a player named "Lilith sound player" and i THOUGHT it was the state of art until i found this. Andy, your player is clearly better!

    Thanks Andy!

    On a side note, i've noticed a great increased of users from several forums, one to note is the head-fi forum!

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  8. Dear Andy, I can't say how much I appreciate your effort on this. The sound is much better than Foobar with WASAPI on my system. The stage/image/tone are all much more revealing. Compared with XXHighend, yours is much easier to use.

    The only question I have is when after executing the .bat file and be able to right click on a folder to 'playwasapi', it doesn't seem to work all the time. However, right click on a file (APE/Flac/Mp3) works always.

    Again, really appreciate this piece of software.

    Best,

    PH

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  9. Hi,

    Thank you all for your positive feedback.

    Quote:
    The only question I have is when after executing the .bat file and be able to right click on a folder to 'playwasapi', it doesn't seem to work all the time. However, right click on a file (APE/Flac/Mp3) works always.
    /Quote

    Can you please provide the full path to the directory that causes troubles and also the list of file names in it.
    I will see if I can fix it.

    Thanks
    Andy

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  10. Hi Andy

    Thank you every much for this excellence player. I hear the difference between Andy player and foobar from the start.
    - Andy player does not give me cracking sound when I use usb-audio and setting it to highest speed.
    - The volume seem to be lower than foobar
    - Sound a bit much more dissipating and dispersing.
    I just don’t know what these mean but I just got to listen to Andy player more. Thank again for this free excellent player. 


    I have some question. I don’t get the following line in PlayWasapi.ini. Should I add it? And How much value should I set? Thank you. 

    [AudioClient]
    BufferSizeInMilliseconds = 30

    My config: Oppo 983h, Citypulse DA2.03e Mod stepII, Shanling PH300, DIY Amp, Discovery SC2.5, Acer aspire 5920.

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  11. Best sound asio flac player up to date!! :)

    Thank you Andy for your generosity.

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  12. Hi pisuty2k,

    [AudioClient]
    BufferSizeInMilliseconds = 30

    This only applies to WASAPI mode, no effect in ASIO mode.

    Please see explanation of this setting in the description of PlayWasapi.ini of the "Minimalist wasapi memory player" post above.

    Thanks
    Andy

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  13. Any plans to .cue sheet support?

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  14. I will add cue sheet support someday :)
    Just not now.

    Cheers

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  15. Hi Andy,

    Your player is excellent, i have build a dedicated Audio computer with linear PSU and i'm currently comparing your player with cPlay/cMP, yours seems even better...

    I would love that you integrate the cue support and i would love to remote my audio computer from another computer running Songbird, so i'm hoping you can do something in these two directions.

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  16. Hi Jean,

    Haven't been looking into my player for a while now, since I switched to Macbook/Itunes/Lossless, a huge step up from anything I tried on windows.

    I will keep the cue support in mind.

    As to Remotely: You can use windows remote desktop functionality.

    BR
    Andy

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  17. Hi Andy,

    Thank you again for your player, i'm curious to know what kind of audio equipment you have ?
    The reason behind this question is that i wonder if you realise how much good your player is.
    I have compared it to my CEC TL0x and it's a killer...
    My dedicated audio computer runs with only 8 Process / 20Mo and one more process when i load music through the player. For the most part of it it is inspired by Cis cPlay/cMp as already mentioned. I use a Marian Trace4 AES sound card that is synchronised to the TL0x clock.
    Should you be interrested i could PM you with all the necessary piece of information to build the same.

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  18. Andy,

    I must start by saying that your player kicks some serious ass. Bravo.

    Is there any way to play ALAC with it? Right after I picked my jaw up off of the ground, I started scrambling to hear the rest of my library with your player--alas, much of it is in Apple Lossless.

    I'd rather not have to convert everything, but if there isn't a way to make it work with ALAC it'll be worth the effort.

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  19. ALAC support looks to be easy to implement. Will do it soon.

    As for my music setup when I left windows audio realm it was. Juli@ SPDIF-> ebay VaLab TDA1543 nonOS DAC->low budget hifi stereo.
    Now when I have Macbook I do my listening with iTunes. I tried it with the above setup. First impressions were very positive. It just gave the sound what I was missing. But as always it needs more time to make final conclusion.

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  20. Just tried your wonderful player on Windows 7 and works perfectly and sound is much beautiful than foobar+ASIO. Thank you very much for this wonderful tiny player!!!
    Cue support is very welcome.
    I had a small problem I could play Flac and Ape files but not mp3. I followed your instrctions correctly. Can you suggest any thing I am missing to have mp3 playback...

    Thanking you

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  21. "Haven't been looking into my player for a while now, since I switched to Macbook/Itunes/Lossless, a huge step up from anything I tried on windows."

    I just read your comment. I am already impressed by your minimalist player, does the Mac setup you are trying sounds even better than this?
    Can you please share your experiences?
    Thanking you

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  22. Now the MP3 playback works!!!
    Thank you very much for this wonderful player
    Teerth

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  23. Wonderful Sound on Windows 7 . Thank you very much again!!!

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  24. Hi Teerth,

    Did you try to compare ASIO vs WASAPI on Win7. Are there any obvious differences sound wise?

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  25. Andy,

    Your player is, once again, excellent !
    Do you think it could be integrated to the SqueezeServer as a sofsqueeze (see SqueezeSlave) ?
    It would be a very efficient way to drive your player.

    I'm ready to try to make it working.
    You can e-mail me at jean.beauve@gmail.com

    best regards,
    Jean

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  26. Hi Jean,

    I took a look at SqueezSlave src. By adding slim protocol support to my player I will have to add another several threads. Which might badly influence SQ. I will give it more thought later.

    I see that http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ latest version has ASIO and headless features. Looks like it's worth a try.

    Isn't it better to add WASAPI support to Softsqueeze/SqueezeSlave.

    Andy

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  27. Hi Andy,

    First of all many thanks for your answer.
    From my side i'm using your player as well as SoftSqueeze and cPlay/cMP in ASIO only.

    I really don't know weither Wasapi is better than ASIO, i use XP, and i even don't know weither pro sound card would support wasapi ?

    What i firmly beleive is that the player computer should be as light as possible and so the UI should be handled from another computer.

    The advantage of using squeezecenter is that it has a lot of fan that are adding plugins and are making it a very nice ui system to play with. Along to that it brings the ability to synchronise the main HiFi system to other squeesebox systems.

    When i use your player i only need 8 process (9 with RPC, which is more convenient)and 20 M0, when i use Softsqueeze ASIO i only need 9 process (10 with RPC) and 26 M0. I have the feeling that if your player could be adressed (like softsqueese) with an ip from another computer it could replace softsqueeze.

    The dream would be to put the file squeecenter is ready to play in the ip adressed computer's memory, lock its memory, play the music, than we would have best of both world, nice ui and nice music quality.

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  28. You could use a separate app (possibly a modified version of softsqueeze) that would save the stream audio to wav files to a temp folder and then start my player to playback the saved wav files.

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  29. Hi Andy,

    Thank you for your answer.
    Sounds like it might be possible to stream the music from squeezecenter to a temp folder.

    So before to try to do that, one should first validate the idea of automatically start playing your player from that temp folder (always the same)as soon as it is created or possibly fully written.

    Any idea ?

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  30. Hi Andy,

    I have another question...

    I have modified your PlayWasapi_Start Batch in order to reduce windows ffotprint when playing a file. It's working and the sound quality is even better.
    I would like to know weither there would be a way to know from the same batch when the file has been played (maybe check file size and run a counter with 1 sec equal x Ko). This would allow me to restore windows at the end of the track.

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  31. Jean,

    I did not quite understand "...to reduce windows footprint when playing a file...".

    As to waiting till PlayWASAPI finishes (exits), I believe "start" command has a cmd line switch for that.
    Also try googling for Windows Batch file commands/language.
    Or try start /? in cmd.exe

    Andy

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  32. Andy,

    I have modified your PlayWasapi_Start.bat in order it to include Explorer Process Kill, mod process priorities and affinity (I've puted Player in realtime CPU 0 other process in low Priority and CPU 1). By killing explorer, the os footprint is squeezed down. But of course at the end of the tracks, i have no other option now than to reboot...

    So that's the reason of my question.
    As i don't fully understand what is exactly done in your PlayWasapi_Start batch. I will continue to try...

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  33. Instead of rebooting you could
    1. press strl-alt-del
    2. start task manager
    3. Run a new task
    4. type in "explorer.exe" and hit enter.

    Or add a "/WAIT" to the "start" command in PlayWasapi_start.bat
    and add another "start" command for "explorer.exe"

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  34. Hi Andy,

    "Ctrl-alt-del" doesn't work probably because too much things are killed.
    The only thing that is working is leaving task manager on all the time and then manually start explorer. It takes about 45 sec to fully recover, don't know why.

    Trying to add at the end of your subroutine sarting with "echo starting %fff%" :

    "start /b /wait
    start /b c:\explorer.exe"

    didn't make it to work

    Best regards

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  35. Hi again,

    OK, i found a way but still not optimal
    I've added "pause" at the end of the playing process followed by the restoration of explorer.

    then as soons as i hit a key it start restoring explorer

    anyway there should be a way to add in the play wasapi exe a call to a restoration batch so that when the player as played the track it auto stops

    so for that you should provide me with a dedicated exe

    would you be kind enough to do it ?

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  36. You should put title in quotes right after "start" word

    start "tilte" /wait playwasapi.exe

    Also try omitting /b switch. It probably does not wait for process when it starts in background

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  37. BTW have you seen my latest post

    http://andy-audioplayer.blogspot.com/2009/11/stealthaudioplayer-with-cue-sheet.html

    I supports cue files now

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  38. Hi Andy
    Just tried to compare the New StealthAudioPlayer and the PlayWasapi v 00.4 ( which I love ) and the PlayWaspi sounds much much better on Windows 7.
    Is it possible to add the cue file support to this Playwasapi player?. I feel the Wasapi in windows 7 has evolved in to great sound. So I prefer Wasapi over ASIO. Please try this player and Windows 7 combination.
    Thanks for developing such a wonderful player
    Teerth

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  39. Hi Teerth,

    Can you please compare versions 005 and 006 as well.
    And tell me what you think.

    in the mean time I will see what can be done for 004 and cue support.

    Thanks
    Andy

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  40. I think I'm onto what's broken the SQ in 007.
    Try the new 010 and see if the SQ is back.

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  41. Hi Andy,

    I have found THE UI that perfectly complement your player, CoverJuke that you can download at : http://sourceforge.net/projects/coverjuke/

    My whish now is to run Coverjuke from a touch screen eeetop that is hosting the music files and remote your (in my case ASIO) player in my dedicated audio computer.

    So for this to work i will use sox to send the file to the remote Audio Computer.

    Sox can send the Music file (dsp modified or not) to another computer.
    Might be even possible to send the file directly in the RAM of the dedicated Audio Computer. (idea weither it is possible ?)

    My Questions are :
    1/ what is the best startegy sending music file to the Audio Computer Ram or sending it to a temp file ?

    2/ According to 1
    a) auto start of Minimalist Audio Player when ram is remotely loaded (use of the lock in memory flag)
    b) auto start of Minimalist Audio Player when temp file is created (how ???)

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  42. I don't have plans to support what you are requesting in my player exe.
    You can try to do it using batch files.
    I took a look at cover juke and don't see how you would send files to other computer. And customize it to use player other than predefined plugins.

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  43. Hi Again Andi,

    I'm abble to send wav file from the Remote Computer to the Audio Computer

    i'm abble to play (through your Minimalist Player)from one directory to another inside my Remote Computer

    but when i ask (from the Remote Computer) the Audio Computer to play the file that it has just received, the file is played but on the Remote Computer ???

    Any idea ???

    Best regards,
    Jean

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  44. Frankly, no idea....

    I don't know what's your 2 PCs connection configuration.
    I don't know how you start my player...
    How can I answer your questions?

    One assumption is that you use RDP, then there should be a setting in the connection properties to play sound on a remote or local PC.

    Anyway try to google first...

    Andy

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  45. Great little gizmo. Much more musical info using this. Thanks a bunch for sharing it with us all. Very much look forward to how things progress with this player.

    You got it right whatever you are doing.

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