Minimum Requirments + Skin Sizes
 

Minimum Requirments + Skin Sizes
:eek:
I am going to grumble, but on a good side of things. The specs for winamp 3 say that it needs a PII to run with 128MB RAM recommended. Now this is a shame, because one of the best things about Winamp 2.xx was that you could run it on anything old or new, as no one else has a decent media player with support for 486s. So thats the first off-putting thing about WA3.
Next is skins. Whilst they do look amazing it has had a trade off with the sizes. WA2 skins can be found at under 50k where as the smallest WA3 skin is 200k+. This is wrong as you can no longer leisurly d/l a skin in a short time and especially on a 36k modem a 1MB+ skin is not something that you really want to d/l is it.

Are these issues going to be addressed
Does anyone agree with me
or do you all think i am just a moaning old fart?

Please Expand

DJ D aka Digital FX

First of all, if you have a 486, you should really uthrow that trash out and get a new PC. Second of all, file size is the trade off for a great freeform skin. Those extra minutes spent downloading the skin is worth it.

I don't think that the size of the skins is a major problem, especially since you are the only one that I have seen complain about it. Also, you are not going to find much new software out there today that runs well on a 486. I know what runs well on a 486 though. DOS and Window 3.1 .

Player System Requirements: These will lessen as winamp gets out of beta, but will never be as low as 2.xx. But, Winamp3 is much more modular, and can be customized much more. I'm sure it would be possible to make it as slim as 2.xx if you only had the main window and playlist (the only components installed)... that might be *close*.

Skins: since 3.xx skins require scripting, and allow for many more features (transparency, and animation), I doubt many skins will be as small as 2.x skins, as artists will want to take advantage of the new features.

winamp 2 is all good you know but its old. think back to 1996 when the best computer was a 200mhz Intel Job with 32mb of ram and a tiny hard drive. that was FIVE YEARS AGO. winamp 2 works for FIVE YEARS AGO but like with new cars we have new needs. Different fluids higher octaine maybe even an electrical outlet but people with high speed internet high speed computers want winamp 3. you want winamp 2 thats what you get. because we get winamp 3 dont bitch about making it less amazing.

i think winamp 3 prefectly complements winamp 2. on my old laptop that i take to school because if its stolen i dont care winamp 2 runs on a 1.3gb hard drive, a couple songs, mp3's on cd sometimes, and very low system requirements. whats funny is winamp 2 runs kinda slow even on that.

winamp 3 is good because it works on higher machines, try investing in higher compents like a new CPU or higher internet if its avaliable in your area.

i think you are a moaning old fart :) get a better puter or build one that is a modular as winamp 3

:eek:

I seem to have caused quite an uproar (lol) and i'm sorry for asking. However what most people didn't understand is i don't have a 486, but i do know people who do, who don't have alternatives to them. I recommended winamp to these people to use for playing mp3s and cds. They couldn't use winamp if they got version 3 and i think a "lite" version should be made with out all this "modular" stuff in it, making it possible to JUST play music. No other plugins, or customisations. JUST music. get it.
ONLY A PLAY AND STOP
(well bit more than that but you get the idea)

I believe that i 2 would also use it, because to b honest who acutally uses all the plugins to their full potential, when just playing background music to work with

I hope thats more to think about

DJ D :D

djd, one of the cool things about winamp3 is, that if you don't want a feature to be in, just delete the corrensponding .wac-file. for example, if you dont want winamp to load your music database at startup, just delete the file "library.wac" in your winamp3\wacs folder. you can delete almost every file you don't need in there (well, noone should delete core.wac :) ). and then make an ugly little 2 color skin only with play, pause, next, prev and stop and that's it. wa3 is no bloatware if you don't want it to be bloatware.

-hoirkman

you can do that now... you just need to delete all the WACs that aren't neccessary.

but, honestly, with how low computer prices are going right now, you have no excuse to keep 486's.

You can build a 1.4gHz barebones computer for under $200... add in a hard drive and cd burner, and you're still under $600.

Even upgrading your processor isn't all that bad of an idea... I'm upgrading an older computer of mine to a 600mHz Pentium III for only $90.

If you still don't like WinAMP3, WinAMP2 is still there, it's still available for those who can't run WA3.

but ive heard there is a linux version in alpha, why don't you try to use linux instead, reconfigure the entire kernel to suit your needs. if you can find the source, get it, and optimise it to your systems needs.

i believe the winamp 2.xx line is being kept on for this reason.

ice is right however, with prices the way they are it's not expensive to build a machine capable of running winamp 3. i'm running it on a pentium 3 500 with intel 810 onboard video here.

810 onboard video? -urk-

You're the one with no excuse not to upgrade :D

tee hee

Number 1 you can't put a 600MHz processor into a motherboard that will only support upto 300 and get it to work well. Then you need PC100 RAM as PC66 won't go into your new motherbord. Then there is the fact that I am british so I work in £s and that you guys get things a lot cheaper.

hehe your british. everything you buy costs about 20%-50% more just because it can :D Im proud to be an American cuz we get things hella cheap. How are your taxes? My uncle in London is gonna move cuz they are so much.

does your keyboard have a £ symbol on it or do you have to do a special alt+#### code? if it is on your keyboard what key is it? is it 4?

hhmmm i had an 486 and i know winamp 2 never worked well on it so i upgraded i think winamp 3 need alot of work that all

jim ;)

yeah well, i would but it's my work machine and we ain't exactly got much money right now.

it runs winamp 3 ok though :)

yep, that's why we ain't got much money :(

the pound sign (£) is on the 3 key on british keyboards. 4 has a $ sign on it.

yea, but the american economy is held together by excesive hotdog and burger purchasing! :)

yeah but they pay me hella cheap to make it :(

Well I'm in New Zealand and it's still expensive to replace your computer - I'm looking at around $2500 to upgrade from this (a K6-2/300) to an Athlon 1800XP.

I'm all for having the lite version of Winamp3 superlight for 486s and the like - I still use 486s and Pentiums, and need Winamp for the reason stated earlier that it runs real good on them compared to Media Player and the like.

And if yer all gonna start slagging off about how crappy 486s are and how little software is available now, my server (a DX2/66) outperforms my friend's Pentium 150! Nyah nyah! :)

But when the price difference between the Duron 950/1GHz and the Athlon 1800XP is only like $300, why settle for the lesser? AND I wanna be able to play the cool new games while using Winamp3 at the same time... something I can't pull off on the K6-2 with Winamp3 at the moment.

well hehehe i have a P3 1OOO MHZ
and it never cost me over a $1000
NAH NAH NAH

AND IM IN AUSTRALIA just a swim away

jim

:eek:

for cheap computers find a parts supplier which sells to small computer shops for example, get all their accounts setting up forms, and fudge it. put yourself down as a sole trader or somethind, and then order all the parts for a new computer and build it yourself! thats what i did. in august i got a AMD athlon t'bird 1.33GHz with 256MB 266Mhz DDR RAM, a geforce MX200 IBM deskstar 40GB 16/10/40 CDRW for £550 in the UK!

if i am going to be running winamp 3 changing skins all on top of windows i will need at least a 1.4 Thz processor with 3 terabytes of Hard drive and 50 gigs of ram :D

i stripped all of the components in winamp 3 down to the play list the shout cast list the http reader and the various audio underlinings. starts up only slightly faster not much more preformance boost but it does what i like.

Hmm, don't use the fact you're British as an excuse. I'm an 18 year old British STUDENT... and even on my meagre non-subsidised income I have afforded a nice Athlon 1333, 512MB DDR RAM system. It's not expensive at all to upgrade your PC in Britain, especially thanks to dabs.com and Crucial UK.

Well if that's all they want, why do they need to upgrade to Winamp 3 in the first place? And, um, all the "modular stuff" makes Winamp 3 a hell of a lot better for the end user. If you don't want the modules, don't install them.

Also, WA3 will probably support WA2 skins, so you needn't moan about skin sizes either. You really haven't done much research have you?

Final thing. You want Winamp to stay as it is in Winamp 2 - nice and simple, quick and easy, just because you have a low-end system. Well why should the majority of us, who do have the potential to run something a bit more intensive, suffer because a small minority have archaic systems. If one is unlucky enough to own an archaic system without the option to upgrade, then Winamp 2 should be more than sufficient for ones needs.

Well yeah...

The fact WA2 is gonna remain available is good - the differences between stock WA3 and WA2 are pretty minimal really, and therefore just a basic no-mod copy of WA2 would be acceptable for the crusty PCers like myself.

WA3 is really good but when you run it on the likes of a Pentium III 600 (my other system) and it take a minute to start up, you start to question why you'd want to upgrade.

Especially when Winamp 2.73 only takes five seconds. ;)

ok yeah. take everything Garry has said and i pulled this outta his ass. (no offense garry)

If you Winamp3 users want Winamp3 to be so much like Winamp2 why not just keep Winamp3? All that extra crap is for people with Pc's that have at leats a PII or Celeron. That is a lot of people. All that modular stuff being taken out. Thas just a bunch a shista cuz than you would have a peice of software that was built to do something but added code was put in to prevent it from doing so.

Minimum requirements will go down but you don't have to adhere to them. I play games and don't meet the minimum requirements. Just a lil creative adjustments fixes that. You can buy windows XP and install it on a PC with less than Minimum requirements (333mhz CPU for example). All XP does is ask you *You sure you wanna do that?* and you say yes and bam you have XP.

Most minimum requirements are just guestamations. The real minimum requirements would be: a Hard Drive, a Sound Card, a Screen, and a Mp3.

And a processor, and motherboard, and probably a CD-Drive too. Have you tried that by the way? I know Windows98 won't install on a system below the minimum requirements - 120MHz, 32MB RAM.

So I assume you were agreeing with me?

hey gary thats strange i myself have installed windows 98 on a 486
with 16 mb of ram
only windows ME and above have that requirement

jim

Sorry yeah, I meant WindowsME.

Cool, I'm a senior member :D

This comes to why they made quake 3 as it wont work on my 386
as wolfenstein did, heck my 386 wont even support pci cards so i dont think they should make games that dont work on 386es..
thats just a cryingout loud shame...
none the less it wont accept agp gards either..
and my ide controller wont support bigger hds then 520 megs so
why do they make bigger hds? makes no sence to me..
ill just stick here on my 386 and play with wolfenstein and protest against all the new things that comes time from time.. in the end all of us will be using 386es when all comes around....

.. things evolve... things change... winamp 3 is more modular skinwise then winamp2 thats way cool really nice to make a fullscreen version for instance....

one thing i miss with mp3 players .. is one that is full featured mp3 player meaning everything included from album list (no the media library in wa3 isnt good... album list rock! but would also need some enchantments).. what i want to se is a winamp 3 that has plugins for mp3 ripping, support for for instance matrix orbital grafichal 240x64 lcd displays heck would be awesome with winamp skins for that one... all controllable from a tiny for instance 8-12 key keypad or something... not needing an vga monitor to controll it all.. ok there is lcd plugin support... etc but would be nice to smooth the edges and make it all work smooooth.... i need a complete mp3 box with a full featured suite.... winamp has the best potential... would be nice to make some great plugin programmers work hand in hand to make the darn best mp3 player out there, i dont need a lame dvd player with mp3cd support.. i want a tiny computer running winamp with a 120-160 gig hd and all the joy winamp has to give either on a small lcd display or the maintance vga monitor :)

/Daemon

And the award for most sarcastic post ever, goes to.......psychodaemon! :)

This is exactly what i was tryin to get at when i started this thread. People still use 486s. So you should supply the demand.

P.S. I would buy my own computer in England but I'm 15 and fon't just have £600+ lying around

people as in??? say... 2% of the population?

some one make a poll with all of the processors listed in it. and post the poll results here. i want to see who exactly uses a 486 and who does not

in my experience, 486's hardly run windows 95, so audio shouldn't be your first priority.

Exactly. A 486 won't run Windows 98, so it can't run IE6. If Microsoft can drop support for Windows 95 then surely companies like Nullsoft can afford to do the same. Or is comparing Nullsoft to Microsoft a bad idea? Mind you, they're owned by AOL! Comparing them to MS is doing them a favour ;)

they run linux and winamp is gonna be winamp