[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Here is the partially completed mdct file
(...)
It's partial because I have a feeling that if I lossy optimize more, that it's going to sound bad and I want your opinion about the sound quality first.

What I've done is (besides the two optims I've showed you earlier) lossy optimze the bunch of blocks between:
(...)
and
(...)
and I've replaced the first of the incredible code blocks. I had to figure out what the zmac macro did. Am I correct when I say that it just does this:
(...)
or did I get it wrong? It seems to work just fine. I had to know, because those mc lines are the easiest reference.

Beware : those mc lines are wrong now because I changed the register usage afterwards !

As for the macro, you're right. But it was more complex than that, as some muls were done with shifts (I checked if the value was a known one, and then used the relevant code).

My opinion about quality is... errh... not that bad after all. The difference is slight, but hearable : it seems to perturbate frequency responses, as if some sort of weird multi-band filter was added.

I made a few tests and found a stream where the difference can be heard quite clearly. Apparently "pure" (few different freqs) sounds suffer the more.
Speedwise, it did 2:57 vs 3:04 on this 2:56 stereo stream (256kbps, low qual). I'll let you judge if it is worth or not.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Anyway, I checked your mp3s, and one of them does sound bloody awful in low quality, so I just did the tests in high quality. There seemed to be little difference between your original version, and my lossy version, but a second ear is always useful. As for the music styles, I just have to say that I've heard far worse, they're not half bad

I have another which sounds that awful in low quality. Still hearable in medium. As far as I advance in that project, I see the results depend more and more on the contents, rather than anything else. So I don't like lossy opts because they look like time bombs to me.

Originally Posted by Thorham

This is certainly something that may be a problem, because stereo music sounds better in stereo, it sound clearer. The channels are different, and adding them up can mask sounds.

They're not added up. You just have the left one. You can be but you apparently did not guess this by hearing

Originally Posted by Thorham

Got them, thanks. As said, the music isn't bad, but it's not my style, I mostly listen to different varieties of house music, so don't worry, I'll delete them when I don't need them anymore.

I don't like house music, so we probably have very different tastes

Originally Posted by Thorham

You can say that again. No matter how good the hours are, a person needs a break sometimes

Yeah, sure.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Don't know yet, haven't looked into it (yet).

You can also try to find a use for 020's callm/rtm. Good luck

Originally Posted by Thorham

Okay, but why not add an in-source option to toggle between aligning and debug compatibility? I'd test proper alignment if I were you, if it works (it should, shouldn't it?), then that's up to eight extra instructions that will fit in the cache. Perhaps 16 byte aligning will work as well, wastes less space.

I have tested code alignment long ago. And discovered that it was totally useless on a 030.

I've dropped the idea, so if you think you have time to waste with that, feel free to make your own tests ;-)

Originally Posted by Thorham

You're right, of course. They're probably not that common, though, and that will drive the price up, because I'm not the only one who wants one. Anyway, it's just a luxury, a network card is more useful right now.

What sort of network card ? Must be 16-bit pcmcia, or you cannot plug it in your A1200.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yes, it is, but only because I want a new peecee to play games on

And back in the 80's IBM said the PC was "a serious machine", not designed at all for gaming

Originally Posted by Thorham

... and at a certain point they're going to understand that they're not getting what they could be getting.

But what can people get nowadays, apart the usual rubbish ?

Originally Posted by Thorham

So do I, but it will probably happen.

Maybe we'll all have long white beards when the day finally comes

Originally Posted by Thorham

That bad, eh? I know it's a load/store kind of system, that's it. Reminds me of the old 8bit cpus... 68k just rules

At least old 8bit cpus were good for learning asm...

Originally Posted by Thorham

True, and I almost understand them. If only my vocabulary was large enough...

If one particular comment poses problem to you, don't hesitate to ask.

Originally Posted by Thorham

Originally Posted by Thorham

I already had Delitracker installed, so I guess it used the old settings The problem was solved, because I made a fresh system installation. After having some problems with idefix (powercomputing registration code, go figure ), and seeing how messy my system actually was (lot's of stuff I had copied to it without needing it), I thought, what the heck, why not make a very clean Workbench. Problem solved.

Silly handling of the frequency divider on Delitrackers part. Could've been done much better, because allowing the user to enter a frequency implies that this will be the output frequency.

How could it have been done much better ?

If you think things should have been done otherwise, nothing prevents you from rewriting dt's mpeg audio player anyway. Could even gain more speed because it is quite messy.

Originally Posted by Thorham

But I don't have DT in ram, it's on my hd, so I just have the script copy the assembled library to HD0:libs, works perfectly.

Haven't done it yet, because I'm still using HIP, and my script works perfectly.

Well, I prefer using ram: whenever I can. After all, only Amiga makes it possible ;-)

Originally Posted by Thorham

Could be so, but if it needs that awful filter, then it ain' good, man I just hate that filter

Filter helps a lot with low replay frequencies, but if you just hate it then it's ok for me

Originally Posted by Thorham

Can't it? Isn't it open source these days? But I understand it would still suck, because of the player group file. Bad design choice.

Open source ? Maybe. But custom players is just one thing among many.
DT supports custom converters and decrunchers. Hip doesn't. DT has NotePlayer interface (just fill in a struct to play things, will use common mixing code when needed). Hip hasn't. Should I list more ?

Originally Posted by Thorham

I might just order a card from Amigakit. You'll get software, and support a great Amiga shop As for access, how much is broadband in France? You won't need the fastest package.

It't not very much but still more than what I pay now ;-)
As for Amigakit, my actual keyboard comes from them.

Originally Posted by Thorham

It probably is, but the gui just blows chunks. Grr

What's wrong with the gui ? I find it clear enough...