Visual studio 2012 c++ and wasapi minimalist player

[jesuscheung]

there were 4 settings different between 2.24 and 2.27, agree 2.27 is hard sounding, so it's a matter of finding the offending setting.

 

agree. basically my feelings are:

2.10- best vocal.

2.23- a bit bright. 4 4 is good. 8 4 is too bright.

2.24 4 8- very smooth/soft/airy/easy going for my ears.

2.27- best clarity, detail.

[sbgk]

agree. basically my feelings are:

2.10- best vocal.

2.23- a bit bright. 4 4 is good. 8 4 is too bright.

2.24 4 8- very smooth/soft/airy/easy going for my ears.

2.27- best clarity, detail.

am trying 2.10 in 2.27, 2.10 used different instructions, maybe it was a mistake to use different ones.

[jesuscheung]

cpu 931 and ram 532, 7 7 7 20 that is out of the box as can't tune. the cpu frequency is set by setting the % min/max frequency in high performance power plan to 0. Surprised you say win 7 sounds ok, I always thought it didn't sound good

 

thx.

 

win7 will sound good if properly tuned. XA claims 7home is 100% better in SQ than 7ultimate and rapes win8/2012. but you have to bother to tune the 7 exactly as stated on XA's blog, nothing less or more (even the aero coloring, coz that affects offloading graphic processing from CPU to GPU), you can be surprised how good 7 is.

[jesuscheung]

7-7-7-20 is a good timing for SQ. i am using the same timing abstraction as yours, i am glad i am listening to what you are listening in this sense.

[jesuscheung]

forget the mention how great 2.10 is with piano music. it rules. i can tell if a finger is dropping/pressing/forcing onto a key. 2.10 is real piano sound/emotion. i know coz i play the instrument. other players makes a 50grands piano sounds like a electronic keyboard.

[jesuscheung]

only just realize that prior to 2.10 those older versions have better piano sound reproduction. this is so weird.

[sbgk]

only just realize that prior to 2.10 those older versions have better piano sound reproduction. this is so weird.

gone back to 2.10 techniques and sound has sweetened somewhat. also revalidated the settings and removed some which were affecting the sound. mqnplay.exe 2.28 sse4 intel uploaded.

[sbgk]

gone back to 2.10 techniques and sound has sweetened somewhat. also revalidated the settings and removed some which were affecting the sound. mqnplay.exe 2.28 sse4 intel uploaded.

find 2.28 sse4 intel to be lacking an edge, have uploaded another 3 versions which improve on that v2, v3 and v4 - one of them is the final version, which one will it be ?

[sbgk]

find 2.28 sse4 intel to be lacking an edge, have uploaded another 3 versions which improve on that v2, v3 and v4 - one of them is the final version, which one will it be ?

 

v2 is technically more correct and has better definition, so that's my final version, maybe.

 

have deleted v3 and v4 as they were derived from 2.27

[jesuscheung]

thx for the great 2.28v2. loving it. huge step up richness/smoothness.

 

i almost stupidly misjudged it as bright and blurry. and then i asked myself, why everytime sbgk preferred a 'brighter'(meaning richer) Mqn version, and then i preferred a 'thinner' version. i found out the reason is that "Enhanced intel SpeedStep technology" was enabled! everyone, if possible, please disable this thing in the bios, and manually set the CPU ratio in the bios. DO NOT give the OS any chance to manage the CPU speed, even though you might think setting CPU speed in "Power Option" as 100%min 100%max or 0%min&max is fine, it is actually very bad in my case. disable it SQ will increase all the way.

[sbgk]

thx for the great 2.28v2. loving it. huge step up richness/smoothness.

 

i almost stupidly misjudged it as bright and blurry. and then i asked myself, why everytime sbgk preferred a 'brighter'(meaning richer) Mqn version, and then i preferred a 'thinner' version. i found out the reason is that "Enhanced intel SpeedStep technology" was enabled! everyone, if possible, please disable this thing in the bios, and manually set the CPU ratio in the bios. DO NOT give the OS any chance to manage the CPU speed, even though you might think setting CPU speed in "Power Option" as 100%min 100%max or 0%min&max is fine, it is actually very bad in my case. disable it SQ will increase all the way.

 

don't try and alter your findings by trying to second guess what I may be thinking - your findings have all been valid and helpful, what I have been trying to get is a balance between detail and musicality and with the instructions I was using that was never going to happen, also I tend to just upload the latest version without enough testing. So thanks for pointing out that 2.10 sounded better, by going back to those instructions and applying all the optimisations I have discovered we have ended up with 2.28 v2. Shall see if it stands the test of time. Have made progress with the large memory pages, so hopefully get that out as well. I really struggled with the SQ of ws2012 until I disabled the "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" power setting that's on the usb devices - see device manager, also you need to use the high performance power plan as it automatically disables core parking.

[sbgk]

don't try and alter your findings by trying to second guess what I may be thinking - your findings have all been valid and helpful, what I have been trying to get is a balance between detail and musicality and with the instructions I was using that was never going to happen, also I tend to just upload the latest version without enough testing. So thanks for pointing out that 2.10 sounded better, by going back to those instructions and applying all the optimisations I have discovered we have ended up with 2.28 v2. Shall see if it stands the test of time. Have made progress with the large memory pages, so hopefully get that out as well. I really struggled with the SQ of ws2012 until I disabled the "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" power setting that's on the usb devices - see device manager, also you need to use the high performance power plan as it automatically disables core parking.

 

uploaded 2.28 v5, found 1 instruction that could be improved and seems to have removed the little bit of edge v2 had

[jesuscheung]

don't try and alter your findings by trying to second guess what I may be thinking - your findings have all been valid and helpful...you need to use the high performance power plan as it automatically disables core parking.

 

you are too kind. did all that those tweaks you said. disable EIST does help SQ a lot. i only just noticed this tweak on the XA's blog, so it must be right! not joking, serious.

 

it's fun you let people test your experiments.

[jesuscheung]

uploaded 2.28 v5, found 1 instruction that could be improved and seems to have removed the little bit of edge v2 had

 

as far as piano sound is concerned, i love this mqn.exe (184 KB (188,416 bytes)), not sure what version it is. basically, for example i listen to "Clair De Lune" of 100 Best Piano Classics, even the lightest tough on the piano by the pianist, i can hear the fingers drop deep into the keys. comparatively with the new versions, it can sound like the key has ended before it is over. this is a common jitter across every player on earth. this mqn.exe actually reproduces the piano sound pretty well. does it better than 2.10 and 2.28.

[jesuscheung]

mqn.exe, 2.10, 2.27, 2.28 all have their own strength, i don't know how you can put them together as one best mqn lol. i am starting to have a habit of playing music according to the version.

[sbgk]

you are too kind. did all that those tweaks you said. disable EIST does help SQ a lot. i only just noticed this tweak on the XA's blog, so it must be right! not joking, serious.

 

it's fun you let people test your experiments.

they are all experiments

[sbgk]

as far as piano sound is concerned, i love this mqn.exe (184 KB (188,416 bytes)), not sure what version it is. basically, for example i listen to "Clair De Lune" of 100 Best Piano Classics, even the lightest tough on the piano by the pianist, i can hear the fingers drop deep into the keys. comparatively with the new versions, it can sound like the key has ended before it is over. this is a common jitter across every player on earth. this mqn.exe actually reproduces the piano sound pretty well. does it better than 2.10 and 2.28.

 

when did you download it ? I never delete the mqnplay.exe with the version in the name, just copy it and rename that to mqn.exe, then you can delete that later without losing the original

[sbgk]

uploaded 2.28 v5, found 1 instruction that could be improved and seems to have removed the little bit of edge v2 had

 

that instruction seems to have had an effect disproportionate to it's importance, it's just assigning a value to a counter, suppose the counter is being used 128 times each time gkmemcpy is called so maybe that's why. Anyway v5 took away a lot of the detail, so went the other way and instead of putting 64 into a byte ptr in a 64 bit register I am putting it into a qword ptr in a 64 bit register. v2 didn't declare what sort of data type it was, so it used some sort of default. Have uploaded v6 which uses the qword ptr, think it sorts out the slightly messy sound of v2 and has even more detail, while remaining musical.

[sbgk]

mqn.exe, 2.10, 2.27, 2.28 all have their own strength, i don't know how you can put them together as one best mqn lol. i am starting to have a habit of playing music according to the version.

2.28 could be a late night jazz/blues version

[sbgk]

as far as piano sound is concerned, i love this mqn.exe (184 KB (188,416 bytes)), not sure what version it is. basically, for example i listen to "Clair De Lune" of 100 Best Piano Classics, even the lightest tough on the piano by the pianist, i can hear the fingers drop deep into the keys. comparatively with the new versions, it can sound like the key has ended before it is over. this is a common jitter across every player on earth. this mqn.exe actually reproduces the piano sound pretty well. does it better than 2.10 and 2.28.

 

well, if you can identify the version I'll have a look, that was a pre control/play split version and I think it would have sounded a bit digital compared to the current versions, but it may have some settings which are relevant and could be used. My test for piano is Vladimir Horowitz Encores, talk about hitting the keys, if it sounds like a gorilla is playing then I know it's good.

[jesuscheung]

test Vladimir Horowitz plays Encores in Leningrad. his fingers are lightly dropping deep onto the keys. a good version of mqn will reproduce this very well.

[sbgk]

test Vladimir Horowitz plays Encores in Leningrad. his fingers are lightly dropping deep onto the keys. a good version of mqn will reproduce this very well.

can only find that as a youtube clip. have Alfred Brendel Mozart the great piano concertos, Art Tatum the genius of keyboard, Benjamin Grosvenor Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Gottlieb Wallisch Mozart in Vienna, some ashkenazy, perahia, Andras Schiff The Well Tempered Clavier etc, do you have any of these ? think there must be some piano test tracks that can be downloaded for comparison purposes

[sbgk]

they are all experiments

 

unfortunately experiments go wrong, found a mistake in the 2.28 code caused by copy and paste. have uploaded 2.29 which sounds a bit more coherent, at least I bottomed out the counter setting in 2.28.

[sbgk]

unfortunately experiments go wrong, found a mistake in the 2.28 code caused by copy and paste. have uploaded 2.29 which sounds a bit more coherent, at least I bottomed out the counter setting in 2.28.

what I am getting with 2.29 is great tonality, whether piano, violin or double bass, very encouraging as it has moved beyond just getting maximum detail. It's better than any vinyl setup I've ever heard, just the sheer driving energy and speed you get when playing rock music or any dynamic music is why I sometimes use the word outrageous when describing the sound of MQn at it's best. eg one of my test tracks is fireball by Deep Purple, quite complex with a lot going on and hard to get the timing right.

[jrling]

2.28 could be a late night jazz/blues version

I can't keep up! Just tried 2.28 on my low powered Atom D510 with SSE2 and it is a triumph. Never heard better on my system. So warm,relaxed but lovely detail. As I have said several times, I cannot believe how good 16/44.1 WAV files sound [with MQn].

 

Congratulations SBGK. We are indeed fortunate to benefit freely from your hard work and skill and determination.

 

Jonathan