how to get the best performance and audio quality

[KingKong]

Hey,
I'm using MM3 B1 right now. If I try to play a hd video it's not fluently running until I exit MM, I don't play stuff with MM during that.
What can I do to optimize the performance from MM to get a good performance?and good audio quality?

I'm using the MAD plugin for playing mp3s, is it neccessary to remove the default mp3 plugin from the folder in order to use MAD? And is the sound quality really better than the MM mp3 plugin? I didn't really check that by now.

I noticed that if I use the wav output plugin, MM is eating less cpu performance than with the directsound output, so is the quality worse?

Would be nice if somebody coul help me find better settings

[Lowlander]

There are a few topics on the forum discussing this type of issue.

As for a beta and Windows Vista. A beta might contain issues including performance issues. Report any issues in the beta forum, preferably with a debug log. As for Vista it seems to have certain issues as well. Search the internet to see if there are any known issues with audio/video performance.

Do you have dedicated audio and video card or do you have an integrated solution.

[Steegy]

I don't play stuff with MM during that

Then how much %cpu does MediaMonkey use, and how much bytes data does it read/write? (see Task Manager)
%cpu should be about 0, and also the bytes (or times) data read/written shouldn't change much when MediaMonkey is idle.

A common reason for MM activity when it is 'idle' is due to the File Monitor (if it is enabled) keeping track of changes on your hard drive. But that probably doesn't apply here (because you aren't changing much files on your hd).

[KingKong]

Lowlander: Yeah I know that the performance from the final version will be better. I use an integrated sound card, Realtek AC'97, and a Radeon 9800 Pro. Look at my signature there's a link to my machine.

Steegy: MM uses 0% cpu, if I switch from the game to the taskmanager. The file monitor is enabled, but since my music is on a different hdd than my OS and my games, it shouldn't be a problem.

[KingKong]

I'm quite unhappy with the fact that MediaMonkey Beta 2 uses so much cpu power.
MM needs 10-20% cpu during normal playback and ~40 MB ram.
XMPlay 3.4.2.1 needs 00-05 % cpu, normally it stays with 00% and goes for 2 seconds up to 02%; and ~4 MB ram.
AIMP2.03 needs 00-03% cpu and 12 MB ram.

The only reason I still use MM is because I like the media library, the library from the other players are different.
It's just, my system is not that powerful and I need an audio player which will let me use other stuff.

Can this be fixed?
I would love to stay with MM.
Regards KingKong

[Guest]

I'm using the MAD plugin for playing mp3s [...] And is the sound quality really better than the MM mp3 plugin?
[...]
I noticed that if I use the wav output plugin, MM is eating less cpu performance than with the directsound output, so is the quality worse?

I'm also interested in which is better in terms of quality: MAD or standard mp3, wave-out or direct sound... Any documentation and tests (or experiences) on that?

thank you

[crayak]

As am I. I downloaded the latest version but, was unable to get it to work with MM3 beta 3. Has anyone had any luck getting this to work> I configured MAD to install to the Program Files/MediaMonkey3, and /MediaMonkey3/plug ins. Any suggestions?

[rusty]

As steegy mentioned, MM is still being optimized--we expect some improvement before the final release, but I'm pretty certain that you should be able to improve CPU utilization by:
a) disabling the file monitor (also keep in mind that CPU cycles are high at startup due to playlist processing)
b) switching to MAD or in_mpg123 (since they bypass the windows codec). Note: make sure to delete the in_wmp3 plugin (or any other plugins that are remnants of MM 2.x).
c) delete other plugins that you'll never use

On my machine, which until recently was an Athlon 64 3200, MM was usually at around 0-3% during playback. Not sure what you're using, but I suspect that either it's a very low-horsepower machine or there's some cruft in the MM directory that's slowing things down.

-Rusty