Bullshit factor 800?

[Da Fox]

I came to winamp.com to post a suggestion on resource hungryness of the player, when this caught my eye: http://www.winamp.com/about/article.php?aid=10566
it's an article to promote winamp as being extremely resourcefriendly. It sports this picture:

Which, obviously, is complete bullshit. Perhaps when running unskinned, with no playlists loaded, no Visualizer and not playing (and I say: perhaps!).
With all this enabled and playing songs, it is more likely to show something like this:

(This was taken on a p4 1.8Ghz, 256Mb RAM))

So, what the fuck is this? I can understand you want to promote winamp, but I hardly think this is the way to do it...
(please note: I'm not talking about the article, I mean the picture!)


Anyways, here is my suggestion:
How about having winamp only render the visualizer when it's actually visible? There's no need to render that when winamp is just sitting in the tray (which it was, when I took that little snapshot up there (82% CPU?!)
I mean:
if(!Winamp_Minimized)
{
Render_Visualizer(selected_plugin);
}

How hard can it be? plz?

[gas-attack]

I can't recreate this (P4 2,41 GHz 512 MB RAM). Did you use any 3rd-party-plugins to play the file you were listening to? Here's a screenshot of mine: 5000ms buffer length, playing a VBR mp3 and modern skin (with visualizer):

[MasterViVi]

About 7 meg around here (fully loaded playlist, winshade, notifications on, opacity, auto-hide). Maybe a bad plugin or so?

Btw, dat script zal niét werken

[Da Fox]

I can't imagine it a bad plug-in, it's all wa-standard
(The visualizer is running UnConeD - Zero G Maze III)

I've tried this:
close winamp (exit)
restart it, so it's not running any mp3 deconding
Now it's still at around 70-80% CPU usage
When I 'closed' (minimized) the visualizer (video/vis button) it dropped to around 10, which is still way more then you have...

btw, that 'script' was just a bit of pseudo code , I don't really expect it to be that simple

[Rellik]

Two things for sure is Winamp will use less memory when using CLASSIC skins and when Winamp is MINIMIZED

If all you want to do is play MP3's and little else, then having minimal plugins is highly suggested

I was able to nearly recreate that screenshot by eliminating most of the plugins exept for the following:

in_cdda.cdb
in_cdda.dll
in_midi.dll
in_mod.dll
in_mp3.dll
in_mp4.dll
in_wave.dll
out_disk.dll
out_ds.dll
out_wave.dll
plugin.ini
(keep in mind that Winamp was playing an MP3 and minimized too)

Oh, and startup time?
SPLIT-SECOND!

[Da Fox]

I'm not that big a WA guru
Could you please explain howto configure winamp on a per-plugin base?

It isn't really a prob though, it's just weird. I don't use winamp when I need CPU-power (when gaming for example)
but when text-editting or browsing the internet I usually have it on. So I don't really notice that it's using that much CPU power.
I do like the new-style skins, so I'd hate to lose that

As for your comment on using less memory when minimized: Yes, memory load is reduced by half, but I can't tell any difference in CPU usage...


--edit
just found out:
Even though it *seems* that wa uses less memory while minimized, it really doesn't!
What I mean is this: when you minimize it, you can see the memory drop from say 12meg to 6meg. But as soon as the current song ends, and wa starts playing the next song, *kablam*, you're once again stuck with 12meg

[inthegray]

i made the screenshot.

windows xp pro, 512mb ram, 1.8 mhz.
winampm 5.03a, no vis, classic skin, minimized, a lot of other stuff turned off, with very other few programs running. i readily admit, that screenshot was taken under VERY optimal conditions.

though the image IS doctored (i didn't touch the winamp mem usage), it was mainly done for humorous exaggeration, as evidenced by some of the other processes in the screenshot. it was meant to show the vast expanse between memory used in Winamp, and memory used in other media players.

my apologies if you felt that i was claiming that winamp ran like that with average use.

[wakingrufus]

Originally posted by Rellik
Two things for sure is Winamp will use less memory when using CLASSIC skins and when Winamp is MINIMIZED

If all you want to do is play MP3's and little else, then having minimal plugins is highly suggested

I was able to nearly recreate that screenshot by eliminating most of the plugins exept for the following:

in_cdda.cdb
in_cdda.dll
in_midi.dll
in_mod.dll
in_mp3.dll
in_mp4.dll
in_wave.dll
out_disk.dll
out_ds.dll
out_wave.dll
plugin.ini
(keep in mind that Winamp was playing an MP3 and minimized too)

Oh, and startup time?
SPLIT-SECOND!

whoa how do you have task maager show virtual memory usage?

btw my winamp usually takes up 14M ram and 5-15% CPU on a PIII 733

[Rellik]

Originally posted by wakingrufus
whoa how do you have task maager show virtual memory usage?

View menu > Select Columns

[Da Fox]

Originally posted by inthegray
i made the screenshot.

windows xp pro, 512mb ram, 1.8 mhz.
winampm 5.03a, no vis, classic skin, minimized, a lot of other stuff turned off, with very other few programs running. i readily admit, that screenshot was taken under VERY optimal conditions.

though the image IS doctored (i didn't touch the winamp mem usage), it was mainly done for humorous exaggeration, as evidenced by some of the other processes in the screenshot. it was meant to show the vast expanse between memory used in Winamp, and memory used in other media players.

my apologies if you felt that i was claiming that winamp ran like that with average use.

no prob, I understand now
Still, it seems my WA is using more resources than it should. Btw, I may have found a bug (not sure)
I already edited my post up there, but I'l say it again here, in a bit more understandable fashion.

Here's the deal:
I didn't know WA uses less memory when minimized (it doesn't, but I'll get to that in a minute), until Rellik posted his message. I immediately checked, and as it turns out, if you minimize wa, the memoryload is cut in half. I then continued work as usual, but after a while I was clicking away windows, and stumbled across the taskmanager. Surprise Surprise, who's number one (on CPU usage)? offcourse: winamp
But while almost clicking away the window, I suddenly saw that memory usage was up at about 12megs, but I knew that wa was minimized. So I checked:
It seems that when minimizing was does do something do reduce the ammount of memory it needs, but when it starts playing the next song, it reclaims all the memory it was using while maximized.

so in short:
Winamp only uses less memory when minimized for one song, after that, it uses just as much memory as it would when it was maximized.

any thoughts?

[BadBackBarry]

How about having winamp only render the visualizer when it's actually visible?

why don't u turn off the visualizer before u minimize it, or for sum reason ur not going to watch it.

its as simple as that

[sanosuke]

Are you using any third party skins? Or the default mordern skin?

[Da Fox]

Originally posted by BadBackBarry
why don't u turn off the visualizer before u minimize it, or for sum reason ur not going to watch it.

its as simple as that

I can't check it right now (no wa here ), but I think, that even if it makes a difference, it's to much of a hassle for me (I'm lazy )

Originally posted by sanosuke
Are you using any third party skins? Or the default mordern skin?

I'm using the default, modern skin, as far as I know.
I haven't installed any third-party wa-booster packs, plugins or whatever, it's still 'pure'. I have wa3 visualizer plugins, though I don't use them (anymore). could this be the problem?

[gaekwad2]

AVS relies purely on the CPU.
It can cause CPU usage reach almost 100%.
To reduce it open the AVS Editor, go to Settings/Display and pull the Slider under Windowed Performance to the right.

[Da Fox]

ok, sorry for not posting yesterday, I was rather busy
I've tried it today, and it seems to work.
While open, both the main window and visualizer, it runs about 80% CPU
With only the window open, and visualizer closed, it runs about 20% CPU
With visualizer closed, and main window minimized, it turns to normal (1-5%)
thnx alot! Now I know where the problem originates, I can safely ignore it

[bgesley]

Winamp wins, yet again.

[Kickboy12]

Even with AVS enabled, I have been unable to re-create the high CPU usage so many people have complained about.

I run 1.8GHZ P4 XP Home Edtion. MMD3 Skin, lots of plugins (All are very small and make no difference in CPU). Even with a video playing in Winamp, and it being maximized, the CPU peak is 15-20%. I have dozens of programs running at all times aswell.

The point is, I have no clue how people get Winamp to use 80% CPU. It's magic almost.

[bgesley]

They are probably taking the screenshot while moving the winamp window around.

[Kickboy12]

Originally posted by bgesley
They are probably taking the screenshot while moving the winamp window around.

I just tried that. Moved the ML Window around rapidly.

CPU Peak: 30%

And this is while Winamp is scanning my folders and adding files to the ML.

I can't figure it out. It could be due to my good RAM (768MB RDRAM), but I'm not too sure about that.

[Urtho]

I guess that docking Main, Playlist and ML takes a lot of virtual mem... I am running at 42 megs virtual and 20 megs system, 0cpu. I dont know if that is normal behavior or not but it does seem rather large on the virtual.