HQ Player

[wwaldmanfan]

I have HQPlayer installed on two Macs. I use it on one or the other, not at the same time. It works fine on one, the HD got corrupted on the other one, and now it only runs in demo mode, as the key code was lost. Copying all the files from the other computer does not work.

I PM'ed Miska, but his public response was not forthcoming. Any ideas, other than buying another license?

[freesteve]

I would suggest in the future always save your key code, for everyone...  I know, "Water under the bridge."

[shadowlight]

20 hours ago, Miska said:

People, the web shop provider is selling additional two year backup service as part of the their service offering.

 

License key occupies few hundred bytes of space. Google Drive offers plenty of free space for backing up things. USB memory sticks are inexpensive and can easily hold several thousand license keys for different software. You can even print out the license key on paper. If you do all these to back up the key, it is unlikely it would get lost.

 

I try to help, but retrieving old lost license keys is time consuming and certainly not highest priority and I try to do that in batches when I have idle time which is not frequently. So you can expect about a week to a month delay at least.

 

For comparison, if you lose your Windows activation code, Microsoft is likely not going to help at all.

 

P.S. Providing the web shop order ID helps finding the information. And you need to send your request email from the same address you used for the order.

@wwaldmanfan, response from Miska, posted on the previous page.

[wwaldmanfan]

11 minutes ago, shadowlight said:

@wwaldmanfan, response from Miska, posted on the previous page.

 

Thanks--very helpful. Hopefully, he'll get back to me in the next month.

[kumakuma]

39 minutes ago, freesteve said:

I would suggest in the future always save your key code, for everyone...  I know, "Water under the bridge."

 

Evernote is a great way to save key bits of information like this.

[shadowlight]

39 minutes ago, wwaldmanfan said:

 

Thanks--very helpful. Hopefully, he'll get back to me in the next month.

Other place to check is your email inbox/folders to see if the old email is still hanging around.

[Miska]

5 hours ago, wwaldmanfan said:

I have HQPlayer installed on two Macs. I use it on one or the other, not at the same time. It works fine on one, the HD got corrupted on the other one, and now it only runs in demo mode, as the key code was lost. Copying all the files from the other computer does not work.

 

If you have it installed on the other one, you can copy the license file over. Under folder "~/.hqplayer" there's a file called desktop3-key.xml which is the key file. Said folder doesn't appear by default on Finder, but you get there by using Finder's "Go to..." menu option.

 

If you are a Mac user, I certainly recommend using Time Machine. It can potentially save a lot of time and effort when a HDD dies.

 

I PM'ed Miska, but his public response was not forthcoming

 

I rarely respond to PMs on forums. Using email is better.

[rickca]

This is really interesting news.  Intel is planning to develop discrete high-end GPUs ... both the graphics and the compute markets.  Raja Koduri is joining Intel from AMD.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12017/intel-to-develop-discrete-gpus-hires-raja-koduri-as-chief-architect

[Quadman]

On 11/1/2017 at 7:23 PM, Quadman said:

I am so excited, I just built a new dedicated music PC for someone and it can play the Poly-sinc-XTR filers with no stuttering.  I used a Ryzen 1700x CPU with a ASrock x370gaming ITX/ac motherboard overclocking slightly to 3750 Ghz, ave CPU usage was 41%.  No PC I had built before (all intel 4 core CPU's) could do this.  The 7700K played but was a stuttering mess.  I guess the higher number of cores is key to getting the intensive filters to play.  My apologies if this has been talked about before.  I haven't followed this thread in a while.  Whoo Hoo.

 

 

I just wanted to update my comment above, after further review the non-2s XTR filter does stutter a bit and it does not play back flawlessly so for anyone who thought this was the answer I wanted to qualify.  It is close and I am pretty sure if you had a nvidia GPU 1060 or above you could pull it off with no stuttering.  I generally see CPU ave usage around 40%, the filter builds very quickly but some cores go to 96% usage which of course causes the slight stutter.  I do not have a Cuda capable card in this computer so it is speculation only.

[tboooe]

17 minutes ago, Quadman said:

 

 

I just wanted to update my comment above, after further review the non-2s XTR filter does stutter a bit and it does not play back flawlessly so for anyone who thought this was the answer I wanted to qualify.  It is close and I am pretty sure if you had a nvidia GPU 1060 or above you could pull it off with no stuttering.  I generally see CPU ave usage around 40%, the filter builds very quickly but some cores go to 96% usage which of course causes the slight stutter.  I do not have a Cuda capable card in this computer so it is speculation only.

Have you been able to compare the non-2s filters to the -2s filters?  Can you hear a difference?  When I was planning my build I considered getting a GPU but ultimately felt that the I could probably not hear the difference anyway and the added complexity, cost, noise, etc was not worth it.  

[Miska]

7 hours ago, Quadman said:

I just wanted to update my comment above, after further review the non-2s XTR filter does stutter a bit and it does not play back flawlessly so for anyone who thought this was the answer I wanted to qualify.  It is close and I am pretty sure if you had a nvidia GPU 1060 or above you could pull it off with no stuttering.  I generally see CPU ave usage around 40%, the filter builds very quickly but some cores go to 96% usage which of course causes the slight stutter.  I do not have a Cuda capable card in this computer so it is speculation only.

 

At least GTX 1080 cannot do it (non-2s xtr to DSD512). Someone told me GTX 1080 Ti would, but I don't have such, so I cannot verify... I'm waiting for the Volta-based GeForces instead of buying GTX 1080 Ti now...

 

[Miska]

19 hours ago, rickca said:

This is really interesting news.  Intel is planning to develop discrete high-end GPUs ... both the graphics and the compute markets.  Raja Koduri is joining Intel from AMD.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12017/intel-to-develop-discrete-gpus-hires-raja-koduri-as-chief-architect

 

Now I'm curious to see what kind of programming interfaces will be supported. OpenCL is no-go for HQPlayer.

[seatrope]

Just wanted to add that I’ve been discussing processors with regards to hqplayer dsd512 xtr playback on headfi with a guy who’s been testing different CPUs for this purpose. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-holo-audio-cyan-dac-amp-pcm-or-dsd-module.861507/page-4

 

He has found that a Threadripper 1950X can play dsd 512 non-2s without any stuttering, even when doing other things, browsing web etc. no special optimizations necessary, no disabling c states, no high performance setting nor throttlestop necessary.

 

he has also done dsd512 xtr upsampling across rate families without stuttering, which is a lot more cpu intensive. 

 

He he tested a 7900X which could not do any of the above possibly due to the lower L3 cache size.

[louisxiawei]

7 hours ago, seatrope said:

Just wanted to add that I’ve been discussing processors with regards to hqplayer dsd512 xtr playback on headfi with a guy who’s been testing different CPUs for this purpose. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-holo-audio-cyan-dac-amp-pcm-or-dsd-module.861507/page-4

Thanks for the information. I think the Energy in the post still hasn't done the most intensive upsampling, which is 44.1 → 48K *512 (24.576). I might ask him for a test. 

 

This is just my own opinion: I really think anything upsampling to 48K based will yield the best listening result no matter from 44.1K base or 48K. No idea why he upsampled a 48k based music file to 44.1 based DSD512.

 

44.1 redbook file will require the most intensive computing power while DXD file will potentially have the best result and much less computing power since the file itself contains much more information and still can take advantage of the SDM oversampling filter.

 

[shinyc]

Hi Miska,

 

This is a feature request (if it hasn't already come up). In you next version, can you allow users to chose which IP (interface) HQPlayer (or NAA) binds to? I thought about using ForceIPBind program but am worried that it might present performance issue. I know I can play with metric value but set up I am using (directly connected dual PC setup) requires finer control of interface binding. And I believe this is more explicit UI (vs implicit via metric value setting).

[Miska]

56 minutes ago, shinyc said:

This is a feature request (if it hasn't already come up). In you next version, can you allow users to chose which IP (interface) HQPlayer (or NAA) binds to? I thought about using ForceIPBind program but am worried that it might present performance issue. I know I can play with metric value but set up I am using (directly connected dual PC setup) requires finer control of interface binding. And I believe this is more explicit UI (vs implicit via metric value setting).

 

But why!? Now it binds to "any"...

 

For multi-homed setups the correct way in any case to deal with this using the OS routing table. But I really don't see a reason to use multi-homed setup in first place.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, louisxiawei said:

No idea why he upsampled a 48k based music file to 44.1 based DSD512.

 

I believe because on Windows, some ASIO drivers (Thesycon as an example) don't include 48k-base DSD rates, even though the DAC supports such. This can be solved using Linux or alternatively a Linux-based NAA for the Windows machine.

[shinyc]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

But why!? Now it binds to "any"...

 

For multi-homed setups the correct way in any case to deal with this using the OS routing table. But I really don't see a reason to use multi-homed setup in first place.

 

 

Here is my situation:

 

Computer 1 (Eth1: Subnet 1)

HQPlayer

 

Computer 2 (Eth1: Subnet 1, Eth2: Subnet 2 w/ Eth2 having lower metric value)

NAA -> Dirac(WASAPI) -> JPLAYAsio(JPLAYStreamer)

 

Computer 3 (Eth1: Subnet 2)

JPLAY -> DAC driver

 

Computer 2's JPLAY and 3's JPLAY are directly connected (without going through a switch) on the Subnet 2. Can you instruct me as to how the HQPlayer on Computer 1 be able to discover the NAA on Computer 2?

 

 

 

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, shinyc said:

 

Here is my situation:

 

Computer 1 (Eth1: Subnet 1)

HQPlayer

 

Computer 2 (Eth1: Subnet 1, Eth2: Subnet 2 w/ Eth2 having lower metric value)

NAA -> Dirac(WASAPI) -> JPLAYAsio(JPLAYStreamer)

 

Computer 3 (Eth1: Subnet 2)

JPLAY -> DAC driver

 

Computer 2's JPLAY and 3's JPLAY are directly connected (without going through a switch) on the Subnet 2. Can you instruct me as to how the HQPlayer on Computer 1 be able to discover the NAA on Computer 2?

 

 

 

 

 

I have to admit I don't understand why such complicated setup instead of using a switch and everything on single network...

 

This scenario should overall work if both interfaces have the same metric. There shouldn't be a reason to adjust metric in this setup.

 

Typical setup would be to have a switch and all the computers connected to that switch and using same subnet. The switch could be one built into your internet router, or you could have separate one. I have now five switches around the house and everything runs on the same subnet. I can access any NAA/DAC anywhere in the house from any computer running HQPlayer.

 

[shinyc]

It is not entirely their fault but Dirac is to be blamed. If the Dirac sits on the Computer 1, it sounds so so. It seems JPLAY (or maybe others out there that I do not know) seems to be the only solution to stream Dirac output to the Computer 1 over the network. Dirac does not seem to work well with Roonbridge so I resorted to HQPlayer. Then, I thought NAA to keep the Computer 2 less cluttered. Hence, such a complicated system.

 

Now for the via switch  vs direct connection. It was on JPLAY's (and on AO's) recommendation. They could be wrong. I will put everything on one subnet / one switch and see if it make my life easier. Thank you for your kind words and support.

[Quadman]

23 hours ago, tboooe said:

Have you been able to compare the non-2s filters to the -2s filters?  Can you hear a difference?  When I was planning my build I considered getting a GPU but ultimately felt that the I could probably not hear the difference anyway and the added complexity, cost, noise, etc was not worth it.  

well with XTR that really is not possible as the stutter starts at about 30 seconds in, on the others I have listened a bit but not enough to say there is a big difference in general They are very close, tho I do think there is a bit more air/ambience with the non 2s filters.

 

16 hours ago, Miska said:

At least GTX 1080 cannot do it (non-2s xtr to DSD512)

Miska is that with the 1700X cpu.

 

As a general comment on sound my personal PC is a 6700K based PC, 16GB ram, titanium PSU the AMD one I just built has the same specs, basically the same components with the exception of the motherboard, CPU and brand of Ram.  I have now built about 8 dedicated PC music servers.  The sound difference between these 2 are the biggest I have had between 2 high end PC's.  The AMD just has blacker backgrounds, sharper leading edges and more dynamic punch.  The vocalists just have more presence.  I really like the AMD sound over the intel.  Both machines played back music via HQP 16.4, poly since xtr mp 2s, DSD5v2, 48x512 auto rate on.

[Johnseye]

On 11/4/2017 at 8:50 PM, Argopo said:

 

Spent some time this week listening, using ASDM7 only and various filters. With "auto rate family" checked and unchecked:

 

Slight static noise overlay with playback of 24 bit rate (48kHz family), 96kHz and 192kHz.

No static noise overlay with playback of 16/24 bit rate (44.1kHz family), 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz.

 

And by slight static noise I mean an infrequent barely audible pop that appears throughout a recording.

Playing back the same file with PCM up-sampling to 384kHz results in no noise.

 

My next test will be installing HQP on my workstation with AMD 1800x, 32GB, 1070 and 1080 TI for the CUDA cores and using that machine as my control pc to see if I can replicate the noise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've had the same issue when not using auto rate family upsampling 44.1 to 192.  Some filters have bad static and pops, some don't.  I'm guessing those filters can't handle integer multiple mismatches.  It's odd you've experienced that with integers that match.

[rickca]

5 hours ago, Quadman said:

The AMD just has blacker backgrounds, sharper leading edges and more dynamic punch.

I'd be interested in a list of your components.  If you have already posted your build, please give me a link.  Thanks.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Johnseye said:

I've had the same issue when not using auto rate family upsampling 44.1 to 192.  Some filters have bad static and pops, some don't.  I'm guessing those filters can't handle integer multiple mismatches.  It's odd you've experienced that with integers that match.

 

Those filter's don't allow you to do such ratios in first place. If you experience problems from 44.1k to 192k then there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Because that doesn't consume any notable amount of CPU time either.

 

What OS and backend are you using?

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Quadman said:

Miska is that with the 1700X cpu.

 

My GTX 1080 is on the i7-6950X machine. Without CUDA it can do 512x with xtr filter.

 

Bottleneck is the GTX 1080... But it is understandable, the entire card is about half price compared to plain 6950X CPU...