Winamp 2 Kernel Streaming Output Plugin, Wanna try out my KS output plugin for WA Options

[Chun-Yu]

I just wrote a simple Kernel Streaming output plugin for WA2 - check it out at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~cshei/out_ks.dll. It's very experimental right now - it just uses the first output device it finds, and it's currently hard-coded to use 10 output buffers (so it might skip if you have all those WinXP visual effects enabled). Source code is at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~cshei/out_ks.zip (a VC++ .NET project - sorry VC++ 6 users). I just wrote it this afternoon, because Microsoft released a Kernel Streaming demo today . I'll be adding tons of stuff soon, including SSRC resampling (for those who are blessed with fixed sampling rate DACs ) and selection of output device and # of buffers.

Annuka: using Kernel Streaming should prevent ALL other programs from using the sound device, which should solve the "Silence Flash" problem.

Edit: By the way, if you do give it a try, give me some comments/suggestions

This post has been edited by Chun-Yu: Nov 29 2002, 01:54

[Gabes Dad]

Steve,

I don't know if you have used ASIO4all or not but it has buffering built in and I believe the buffer size is changeable. I haven't used it in a while and I believe a newer version has been released since then. To use it with winamp, you also need the asio output plugin.

Anyway, I don't believe the source code is available, but I believe the author would be willing to give you any advice needed.

One other small thing, which really isn't an issue for me, but if you try playing something from the "winamp music" (not shoutcast radio or aol xm radio) of the online media section in the media library, it will play but choppy and at the incorrect speed. This plays fine with DirectSound and it the winamp modern skin is showing a 44.1k sampling rate and 65 kbps bitrate, although the audio sounds like a lower sampling rate - I though it may just be a sampling rate my sound card couldn't handle. Anyway just wanted throw this out there for troubleshooting.

By the way streaming (with and without extensions) works great on my setup. Thanks for all the hard work.

[Steve Monks]

I don't know if you have used ASIO4all or not but it has buffering built in and I believe the buffer size is changeable.  I haven't used it in a while and I believe a newer version has been released since then.  To use it with winamp, you also need the asio output plugin.

Anyway, I don't believe the source code is available, but I believe the author would be willing to give you any advice needed.

Hi, nope, I haven't had a play around with ASIO drivers as I'd pretty much got the Kernel Streaming plugin doing what I needed. Might take a peek though.

One other small thing, which really isn't an issue for me, but if you try playing something from the "winamp music" (not shoutcast radio or aol xm radio) of the online media section in the media library, it will play but choppy and at the incorrect speed.  This plays fine with DirectSound and it the winamp modern skin is showing a 44.1k sampling rate and 65 kbps bitrate, although the audio sounds like a lower sampling rate - I though it may just be a sampling rate my sound card couldn't handle.  Anyway just wanted throw this out there for troubleshooting.

Yep, it does the same for me (I'd never even noticed the "Winamp Music" option!). I reckon it's either the latency value I pass back to Winamp on initialisation or the GetOuptutTime/GetWrittenTime functions which (as far as I can see) don't return "proper" values. Another one for the bug list.

By the way streaming (with and without extensions) works great on my setup.  Thanks for all the hard work.

Great, glad to hear it. Once again, thanks for the feedback.

Regards,
Steve

[Steve Monks]

There's an alpha version of the new plugin available here (V3.0 alpha). This is an incomplete work in progress version which lacks the following features (for now);

pause
volume control
24 bit support
oversampling

It's essentially a rewrite and uses my new buffering technique which I hope will solve the crackling under load problem. It also now seems to work better with "Winamp Music" with just a little breakup at the start.

It seems to behave okay here but I'd like to know if it makes matters any better (or worse) for those of you who were getting the breakup under load problems (e.g. punkrockdude and callmeace), I'd appreciate it if you guys could give it a try and let me know how it goes.

This plugin is V3.0 alpha, so you'll have to select it as the output plugin instead of the existing one. All config settings other than Output Device are ignored for the minute and you may need to re select your output device if you are not already using the default.

This is test code and although it works fine for me it may crash your systems, so I'd recommend saving any important data before you try it. As usual, you try it at your own risk (although it shouldn't do anything catastrophic).

Cheers,
Steve

This post has been edited by Steve Monks: Mar 19 2006, 21:59