Very Computer

Hi,

I've tried running the maplay and MMaudio mpeg layer 2 audio players on
my linux system, and found them to be very unstable.  They use about 50%
of the cpu and doing just about anything on the system while the programs
run (including running ls) causes the audio to skip horribly.  I'm running
a Pentium 90 with 16 megs, and Linux 1.3.74 ELF.

Recently, while playing around with Wine, however, I made a shocking
discovery.  If I run Xing's mpeg layer 2 audio player (xing_ply.exe)
under the windows emulator, I get exceptional performance.  Cpu usage
is under 10%, and I haven't heard a hiccup yet.  I can be compiling
a new kernel, and using Netscape, while the music continues to play
flawlessly.  I must admit I'm completely stunned.  Can anyone offer
any reasonable explanations for this?

Chris

(...)
: mpeg 2... maplay plays back all the information and does stereo hence
: using up much much more cpu time... (at least this is what I remember
: from when I looked into the same thing...)

'til some months ago I had an old 486. I had tried maplay - if
you decoded just one channel, you could almost identify, what
song was playing ;-) I had thought, my computer was just too slow
for that kind of stuff. Meanwhile I have a 586-133 machine, but
maplay is still completely unusable...

Regards,
              Peter

  | http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~gator   _|||||_      691 46 35 |  

  |---------------------------------- ooO-(_)-Ooo--------------|

: (...)
: : mpeg 2... maplay plays back all the information and does stereo hence
: : using up much much more cpu time... (at least this is what I remember
: : from when I looked into the same thing...)

: 'til some months ago I had an old 486. I had tried maplay - if
: you decoded just one channel, you could almost identify, what
: song was playing ;-) I had thought, my computer was just too slow
: for that kind of stuff. Meanwhile I have a 586-133 machine, but
: maplay is still completely unusable...

I have an amd 486dx4-100, it can play back 1 channel just fine with maplay...
Takes almost 50% cpu to do it though... And it can almost handle 2
channels... :) I would have thought a 586-133 would be able to handle 2
channels ok....

later,
Andrew

: 'til some months ago I had an old 486. I had tried maplay - if
: you decoded just one channel, you could almost identify, what
: song was playing ;-) I had thought, my computer was just too slow
: for that kind of stuff. Meanwhile I have a 586-133 machine, but
: maplay is still completely unusable...

Hm? I have a P5-90 and maplay is very useable, if far from ideal.
I just renice a shell to -99 and it plays in stereo and hardly
ever skips (ie. don't try running X).

: Regards,
:               Peter
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-----
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