Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: BoingBoss on July 05, 2004, 07:47:01 PM
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Hi everybody,
I would like to install an MP3 player on my Amiga 2500 computer. What do you guys recommend? I have a 68040 board, will this be enough to play MP3s?
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I really wouldnt try playing no MP3s on an Amiga. Pretty much would eat the entire CPU to play an MP3 at a not so high quality. I have done it with a 68030/50mhz, but only program even worth it is Prayer2.... Which I found to play anything decent using the Amiga 1200...
**And no crap about this A2500 being high quality and it can do faster. I even had 32mb ram on the Accelerator which for sure was 32bit and timed fast.**
So download PRAYER2 form aminet and give it a try.
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BoingBoss wrote:
Hi everybody,
I would like to install an MP3 player on my Amiga 2500 computer. What do you guys recommend? I have a 68040 board, will this be enough to play MP3s?
68040 is just enough to play MP3 - you won't be able to do smth else when listening to full-quality MP3.
As for player itself - most of them use mpega.library for decoding MP3's, so choose the cutest one :-)
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Never tried Prayer....
@BoingBoss,
You have AmigaAmp on your OS3.9 CD. This plays MP3 files with or without support for third party sound cards. Paula can just about handle a medium quality MP3, with help from a decently poky '040 but you won't be able to do much else.
Either check out Eyetech for a hadrware MP3 player that connects to the parallel port, or seek out a Zorro card that supports MP3...
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Hi lordv,
Should I get a Blizzard 060 board? :-?
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BoingBoss wrote:
Hi lordv,
Should I get a Blizzard 060 board? :-?
You should get it anyway :-D
On my a1200 equipped with blizzard060/50 playing of full-quality MP3's through PAULA (44/48kHz) eats about 50-60% of overall processing power. 040/40 should eat almost every processor cycle, while 040/25 won't play full-quality at all, I think.
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Yes. :-)
EDIT: darn, too slow again.
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@BoingBoss,
I'd go for the '060. You'll at least get better playback quality etc and it'll help with playin MPEG files too.
If you can get your hands on an A3K, A4K or A1200 then I might even go so far as to suggest geting hold of a PPC accelerator.
A PPC version of AHI is available, which will speedup MP3 playback via AmigaAmp. You'll get better quality too if you have a soundcard installed.
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AmiNetRadio is the best mp3 player on the Amiga by far, but you probably wouldn't have much fun on an 040. But then, you won't on any player, so...
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Hi PMC,
If you can get your hands on an A3K, A4K or A1200 then I might even go so far as to suggest geting hold of a PPC accelerator.
At present time I am looking for an Amiga 3000 Tower in like new condition with original box. The Amiga 3000 is built like the Amiga 4000 which is a poor design, so I do not want either of those. The Amiga 3000 Towers motherboard is designed just like the Amiga 2000 motherboard, so it is a much better design. Also, the Amiga 3000 Tower has the coolest looking case of all the Amiga models. In fact, the vintage PC case that I choose to put my Amiga 500 into looks a lot like an Amiga 3000 Tower case.
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You can get a MAS Player which plugs into the parallel port that decodes MP3 in hardware (it has a DSP) I believe there are similar devices around other than the MAS though, I think it works on A2000, not 100% sure though
Robert
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Hi PMC
AHI PPC for Classic Amiga? where?
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Robert17 wrote:
You can get a MAS Player which plugs into the parallel port that decodes MP3 in hardware (it has a DSP) I believe there are similar devices around other than the MAS though, I think it works on A2000, not 100% sure though
Robert
MAS works on all Amigas, have heard of 68000 2Mb machines doing MP3 with MAS no problem. People have used MAS for car based Amiga MP3 systems, it is a cool pice of kit!
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You don't need MP3's on Amiga...just get mp3to8svx from Aminet or something similar.........and convert it to IFF (8svx) at 19886khz.............it sounds pretty darn good! and takes about the same space as MP3's
I have tons of high quality music in my A600 2 gig PCMCIA card. Trust me.it sounds really good..........and if you didnt tell anyone that they were not MP3...they wouldnt know.:-)
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I have an AD516 sound card in my Amiga 2500. Will this help?
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BoingBoss wrote:
I have an AD516 sound card in my Amiga 2500. Will this help?
If you can find an AHI driver for it, it`ll help a bit.
But you`ll still need a beefy CPU to decode the MP3.
I`ll second the recommendation of a MAS Player, especially if you want to carry on using the Amiga for other things whilst playing MP3s.
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@PMC
OS3.9 comes with Amplifier as standard, not AmigaAmp. Amplifier is less cpu intensive, so will be more use to you on your 040. I've no problems playing full quality using an 060/66 and a PCI soundcard, and the machine isn't completely useless for other tasks too. However, even though a lot of the players use mpega.library, not all of them have the same CPU usage. For example, I've found SongPlayer to be by far the best on the CPU (Yes, much, much better than AmiNetRadio), though only in older versions. Newer versions chug and skip and aren't up to it really. It may not be the prettiest, but I use 1.53, and it's the only player I know that is 100% responsive on all controls. And I've tried nearly them all...
I do think the MAS would be a much better option though, Amplifier and AmigaAmp support it, and it'll always give excellent quality for a tiny number of CPU cycles.
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You have the hardware, as long as you run AMPlifier and not AmigaAMP.
Amplifier is much more efficient for your mid-end hardware like the 68040 card you have on board your Amiga 2500 machine.
Amplifier is also quite a bit more stable in my experience, mostly due to the lower system requirements.
I am not s ure if Amplifier is free for download, but it not then you can find it on the OS 3.9 CD. If you dont have this, then lend a copy from a friend or if you are generous then buy a copy of 3.9 and support your dealer anyway.
It's quite cheap these days (I think in some places you can pick it up for approximately £15 UKP).
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Try SongPlayer v1.62 off Aminet:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/mus/play/SongPlayer.lha
That's an excellent MP3/CDDA player and seems to be low on graphics,
high on functionality.
It has a equalizers and all that sort of thing.
Also, try to avoid FPU versions of mpega.library. The FPU is supposed
to speed up and assist the processor not slow it down! The FPU
versions will eat every last bit of juice you have!
:-D
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Why do I sense a bit of humor behind this and the MPEG
threads?
C Snyder
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AHI PPC for Classic Amiga? where?
I`m not sure if it is on OS3.9 CD or if I got it from Aminet. Aniway, the version I tried was terribly buggy and the contextswitches slowed it down so much that it wasn`t any faster then 68k. Just a few days after installing it, I switched back to AHI V4. Belive me AHI PPC on classic is just not worth the try.
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BoingBoss wrote:
At present time I am looking for an Amiga 3000 Tower in like new condition with original box. The Amiga 3000 is built like the Amiga 4000 which is a poor design, so I do not want either of those. The Amiga 3000 Towers motherboard is designed just like the Amiga 2000 motherboard, so it is a much better design. Also, the Amiga 3000 Tower has the coolest looking case of all the Amiga models. In fact, the vintage PC case that I choose to put my Amiga 500 into looks a lot like an Amiga 3000 Tower case.
Well, it's completely up to you. Obv you're going to have to go down the Zorro III / PCI route if you want to maximise your system's potential.
Put it this way, for the same money I could have either a VW Golf GTI or an Alfa Romeo 156. One's better built and the other is nicer to use. Guess which I plumped for?
If you are totally sure you want an A3K (which is a very nice system to have, so I'm informed) then there's the possibility of fitting it into an Elbox tower and adding a Mediator for PCI. This allows you to fit a Voodoo 3, Soundblaster, 10/100 ethernet, USB etc which will make your system much nicer to use.
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I tried to get hold of mp3to8svx on Aminet but it cant be found, where di you get yours from?
MIke....
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Save some money and buy a Delfina sound card. It has a DSP chip on it. When you play MP3 files, it will take less CPU power.
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I think it was Dave Haynie who also said that the 4000T's were also a better design. Or I might not remember well, check his interview sometime ago here at A.Org, there's a mention about that...
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Hi PMC,
Put it this way, for the same money I could have either a VW Golf GTI or an Alfa Romeo 156. One's better built and the other is nicer to use. Guess which I plumped for?
That is not a very good comparison. Here is a better one: "Put it this way, for the same money I could have either a like new 1964 Pontiac GTO with low miles or a modern-day new piece of crap car or truck. The first is better built, gets the job done, and will last for decades. The second is a low quality, over-priced piece of crap that the average person is stupid enough to buy. Sure, it drives nice but for how long, and will it get the chics or outrun your average cop car? Guess which one I plumped for"? :-D
Believe me when I tell you this: Long after you guys computers are dead, my Commodore 64 / 128D, Atari ST, and Amiga computers will continue to kick some PC but! :lol:
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Yep they'll s till be around kicking the butts of 14Mhz 386's... thats about it.
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BoingBoss wrote:
Believe me when I tell you this: Long after you guys computers are dead, my Commodore 64 / 128D, Atari ST, and Amiga computers will continue to kick some PC but! :lol:
AHhahahahaa!........... I think your Amiga 2000 cant even push the work of a 100mhz intel Pentium... least the PC can do true color and be upgraded for cheap.
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My Amiga DOES True Color !!!!
Yea, but is the PC as FUN to use as the Amiga?
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Hi lorddef,
Yep they'll s till be around kicking the butts of 14Mhz 386's... thats about it.
Yea, but at least those 386 butts will be kicked real good ! :-D
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BoingBoss wrote:
Put it this way, for the same money I could have either a like new 1964 Pontiac GTO with low miles or a modern-day new piece of crap car or truck. The first is better built, gets the job done, and will last for decades. The second is a low quality, over-priced piece of crap that the average person is stupid enough to buy. Sure, it drives nice but for how long, and will it get the chics or outrun your average cop car? Guess which one I plumped for"? :-D
Uh oh, BoingBoss here is out cruising the streets for chicks and burning off cop cars in a '64 GTO... Don't suppose you've painted a rebel flag on the roof have you?
Oh, and aren't all Amiga's prior to the AGA series all built without utilising surface mount technology? Excuse my ignorance here, but I thought that surface mounting components made for lower production costs AND greater reliability?
I should probably know better than to argue but it's a point I'm unclear on.
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PMC wrote:
Uh oh, BoingBoss here is out cruising the streets for chicks and burning off cop cars in a '64 GTO... Don't suppose you've painted a rebel flag on the roof have you?
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Hahahaha :-)
Oh, and aren't all Amiga's prior to the AGA series all built without utilising surface mount technology? Excuse my ignorance here, but I thought that surface mounting components made for lower production costs AND greater reliability?
Commodore used crappy cheap sockets on the older Amigas too, surfacemount is better, but you need to have the gear to replace them if something does go wrong or an upgrade is needed eg. Buster upgrades.
I should probably know better than to argue but it's a point I'm unclear on.
:-o
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I found the best sounding and least cpu-intensive (taking about 22% of cpu time) way to play mp3 on my 68060 through Paula was to use MPEGA 3.5 with the integer mpega library in LIBS: with AHI installed and choosing a non-video screen mode i can playback in 14 bit in real time and it sounds great.
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You asked if the sound card you had would help (AD516). I have one of those, whilst it will help with audio quality, it does not help with CPU load like the Delfina would. And yes, there is a AHI driver for it on AmiNet.
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Believe me when I tell you this: Long after you guys computers are dead, my Commodore 64 / 128D, Atari ST, and Amiga computers will continue to kick some PC but!
Yeah, it's true, you know... My Amiga really gives my 486DX2-100 a run for its money :-P :lol: