MM4 1455 - Some Initial Issues [#8649,8662, 7843]

[Nebbin]

I've decided to test MM4 now that RC3 has been released, and I've come across a few issues:

SETUP (yes, an old system, but all I have):
- WinXP
- Echo AudioFire 4 external firewire audio card
- M-Audio Delta66 external PCI audio card
- 3 GB ram, P4 2.8 ghz cpu

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1. I can't get Monkey's Audio tracks (APE) to play when using ASIO output.

I can play these tracks just fine in MM3, using the ASIO output plugin v0.67.

I tried copying the old "in_APE.dll" file from mm3 to the mm4 plugins directory, to no avail. I also tried installing the newest APE codec from http://www.monkeysaudio.com (v4.1) (using the winamp exe to produce the dll file), which also had no effect. All that happens, is that when I press play, the file track sits at position 0 and doesn't move (ie. doesn't actually play), but it does not grey out the track.

Changing back to the MM DirectSound or the wavOut output plugins makes these tracks all playable again.

PS: I've just discovered that this also seems to happen for me with other codecs:
- .wav
- .mpc (Musepack)
- .aac
- .ogg

FLAC, m4a, mp3, mp4 and wma encoded files work just fine.

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2. Track scrolling in the main window with lots of tracks can be very slow

I'm only using details view, and with just one tab. Whereas MM3 would scroll freely and quickly (even with 90k tracks listed), MM4 is at times visibly slow at redrawing each individual page as you scroll down. Smaller lists will sometimes scroll better more regularly, but sometimes even they have issues. This could be memory issues, and I'll have to do more testing to determine the triggers for it, but it seems strange that I've never seen such a problem with MM3.

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3. Max MM4 window height reduced by taskbar size

When using two monitors, the maximum height of the MM window (either by "maximise" button, or by simply expanding with mouse) seems to stop at where the taskbar is, even though MM is on the other monitor. Using "over-ride Skin theme with Windows System Theme" will solve this issue, but that means I can't use any custom skins.

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Has anyone else seen similar issues?

Other than these problems, I quite like the new version. I'm still discovering new features, and changes to old ones (a post somewhere upon final release with the difference between MM3 and MM4 would be useful).

[tommycrock]

2. Only if something else (mainly the file monitor) is running
3. No, I don't get this problem (Win7x64).

[Nebbin]

Thanks for replying, tommycrock. Unfortunately, no other task is happening at the time I'm testing the scroll performance. With MM3, even with file monitoring going on, most of the time it's a lot smoother / faster to scroll than MM4.

Also, it's quite possible the issues are highlighed due to my PC's age, and so maybe points 2 and 3 would disappear on a hardware & OS upgrade. The only reason I posted about it was the significant difference I'm seeing between MM3 and MM4 on this system as it is now.

[rovingcowboy]

go in to your task manager when you have mm4 running. look on the process's tab, scroll to find mediamonkey.exe
right click on that name and adjust the priority to high priority. not realtime.

close taskmanager check the speed of your scrolling then. if it works faster then go to majorgeeks.com and find

"Bill2s process manager" install it and start adjusting the programs for the priority you want them to run in. don't mess
with windows system programs they don't like it and might stop or crash the system on you.

[Nebbin]

Thanks rovingcowboy, I'll give that a try.

Anyone know any tips for resolving points 1 and 3 then? Or are they bugs in this version of MM4?


PS: for point 3, I'm not running any multi-monitor program (such as Ultra mon) or anything. Also, I'll actually get a few pixels more height by manually expanding instead of "maximising", but only a few - there's still a very big gap left.

[rusty]

Nebbin,

I've been able to replicate item 2. We're looking into it at:
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=7843

We'll have a look at item 1, but you can probably use the wasapi plugin instead to achieve similar results.

Re. item 3, can you share a screencapture of the problem? I don't quite understand the issue (the vertical screen real estate of MM4 on XP should be the same as with MM3).

Thanks.

-Rusty

[Nebbin]

Hi Rusty

Thanks for looking into the issues. I read the mantis notes for the issue you posted that the main concern is waiting for the system to stop reading in the tracks. While this is also an issue, I found that even once they were read in, it would often be very slow to scroll (eg with 80k tracks in view). It does seem to be related to the number of tracks, as my classical music node usually scrolls quite well (only 15k tracks). MM3 doesn't suffer this performance issue.

Unfortunately, for point 1, I can't use WASAPI since I have WinXP. I'll certainly be using this when I eventually change to Win7.

As to point 3, I'm at work at the moment and we're blocked from uploading files. I'll attach an image when I get home. Basically, I have two monitors set up. One has the taskbar across the bottom, and the other doesn't. When I open MM4 on the secondary monitor, and maximise the window, it will only fill the screen as if the taskbar WAS there on that screen, and thus you can see the windows wallpaper through the space left at the bottom of the screen under MM4's window. At work though, I am using a multi-monitor tool ("Actual Multiple Monitors"), but MM3 doesn't behave in this manner. If I change the position of the Taskbar to the side of the screen (instead of the bottom), then MM4's maximised window will now reduce in size horizontally by the pixel width of the taskbar. Obviously this is the correct behaviour if MM is open on the primary screen.

[Peke]

Re ASIO:
Have you tried All of these plugins?
http://www.happymonkeying.com/plugin.php?q=300021
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/Wasiona.aspx Compiled version (http://www.happymonkeying.com/forum/out_wasiona.zip)
http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/programs/winamp/

[Nebbin]

This is a screenshot of the issue as described in point 3 of my initial post:


This shows both monitors as one continuous desktop image. The screen on the left is primary, with the taskbar at the bottom. MM4 is on the secondary monitor, and is maximised, yet doesn't use the screen space at the bottom.


EDIT: I've also added these screenshots for comparison:

This one shows how the maximised screen of MM4 is reduced horizontally when the Taskbar is moved to the side on the primary monitor.


This image shows how MM3 will use all of the desktop's real estate, without taking the taskbar into account.


Thanks Peke for the links. I'll try them now and report back.

[Nebbin]

Re ASIO:
Have you tried All of these plugins?
http://www.happymonkeying.com/plugin.php?q=300021
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cpp/Wasiona.aspx Compiled version (http://www.happymonkeying.com/forum/out_wasiona.zip)
http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/programs/winamp/

1. The first one is the plugin I was already using. It plays great, with the exception of those certain codecs.
2. The second causes access violations every time I attempt to play tracks, and crashes MM everytime I try to configure the settings. This also happens when used in MM3.
3. the last one constantly stutters, plus additional noise artefacts, regardless of what buffer size I use (even max). The same sound issues appear in MM3 with this plugin.

[rusty]

Re. 1) I can't replicate that--once the tracks have been read, there don't seem to be any performance issues. Let us know if 1456 makes a difference (once posted).

Re. 3) Do you mean that you want to move the toolbar onto the same row as the menu bar? Unfortunately, that's no longer possible

-Rusty

[Peke]

@Nebbin
2) Do this. Open MM -> Right click on Player -> Setup Player -> Output Plugins -> Check WASIONA -> Configure -> It should be empty -> Close On X -> Configure Again -> It should Fill now -> Remove all using "<" -> Add One -> OK -> Close MM -> Open MM -> Right click on Player -> Setup Player -> Output Plugins -> Check WASIONA -> Configure -> It should be empty -> Close On X -> Configure Again -> It should Fill now -> Remove all using "<" -> Add One -> OK -> Play Tracks in MM.

EDIT: Even Better wait for 1456 as We think we catch it http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=8649

[Nebbin]

Re. 1) I can't replicate that--once the tracks have been read, there don't seem to be any performance issues. Let us know if 1456 makes a difference (once posted).

Re. 3) Do you mean that you want to move the toolbar onto the same row as the menu bar? Unfortunately, that's no longer possible

-Rusty

1. I'll check again with 1456 to see is the scrolling issues are fixed.

3. No, I mean that the size of the mm4 window is smaller than the size of the mm3 window. MM4 seems to be reducing it's maximum size depending on the Windows Taskbar (or Windows Start Bar if you will) - even though MM4 is on a monitor which doesn't have the windows task bar on it. Check the difference in the fist and third screenshots above, and you'll see that while MM3 uses the entire windows space that's available, MM4 does not, and there's a gap at the bottom where you can see the red windows desktop wallpaper of my system.

@Peke
2. I can't configure WASIONA. As soon as I press the configure button, I get an error message: "Access violation at address 06014056 in module 'out_wasiona.dll'. Read of address 00000000". The first address given changes each time I try it, but the error happens every time. I even disconnected my sound cards, but it made no difference.
Also, once that error is closed, I get another saying "Privileged instruction". I might try downloading the debug version and send in a log file.

I guess I will have to use DirectSound until I upgrade to Win7


EDIT: installed MM4 debug version, and when I selected "configure" after choosing WASIONA output, MM came up with 4 error screens - and so 4 error reports have been sent in.

[Nebbin]

I've installed MM4 version 1456:

1. Using ASIO In the new version:
- .wav = plays fine now, and seeks well
- .mpc = plays fine now, and seeks well
- .aac = doesn't play (may be a bad file, as I only have one to try)
- .ogg = plays 3 out of 5 times, and can stop playing completely when seeking

FLAC, m4a, mp3, mp4 and wma encoded files still work just fine.

2. Scrolling does seem better - maybe there was something else happening when I was first trying it.

3. No change with the window size issue. I've created another screenshot to highlight what's wrong.


Note: The image might look like one screen, but that's because it's two monitors, with one desktop extended onto the second, and so imagine the image is split into two...

I expanded the windows taskbar to a silly height, to show that when MM4 maximises it's window size, it always includes the Taskbar height in it's calculations, even when there is no taskbar on it's own monitor. MM3 does not make this same miscalculation.

[Peke]

Can you test Windows resizing on (NON-Skinned) MM Version?