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Topic: Trying to play MP3... (Read 11196 times) previous topic - next topic
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Trying to play MP3...

Reply #25 –
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Try SkyOS  B)

???

http://skyos.org/about.php

Quote
The minimum system requirements to install and use a SkyOS system are as follows:

-Pentium
-32MB Ram
-VESA compatible video card
-Bootable device (floppy, hard disk,CD-ROM or USB device)

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #26 –
The PSX mp3 player was an external one.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #27 –
FYI: My sister can run Windows 95B w/ CoolPlayer on her Pentium 60 w/ 64 megs of RAM, without a problem. It plays both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis smoothly.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #28 –
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Ahh, the good ol' days when 640k really was just about enough for anyone... 

Later, when Msoft was pushing OS/2, gates was quoted as saying that if you want multitasking, you need 4 meg of RAM, like it was a basic law of nature.  At the time I was running a Sun with less than that which certainly had multitasking.

On my first job we had a computer with 1/2 meg serving 10 users at a time (but 10 meg hard drive for swap space)

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #29 –
A -real- Pentium 60 is enough to playback MP3 (perhaps the overdrive things were much slower) - I had one of the first real Pentium 60s and it played MP3 (well... 128kbit/s  ) without any problems at full quality. I used the Winamp versions that were available at that time (perhaps they used the Nitrane decoder, I'm not sure about that). I remember that playing MP3s caused about 60% load (in average)... I was very pleased to see my next PC only had 15% load while playing MP3s.

Regards, fileman.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #30 –
Oh, I forgot something: there are player modules for the parallel port available. So the PC (can be a 286, I guess) is just to be used to get the data from HD or disc and send it to the parallel port.

Ah... I found a link:
http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/projekte/mp3pla...1/default.shtml
(german)

Regards, fileman.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #31 –
I started out with a 486/66. Using a variety of players I could never get it to play mp3's without skipping.

I had to decode to wav if I wanted full quality.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #32 –
First, thanks everybody.
This is a little "experiment" with an old PC for a friend of mine. Hehe, when I opened the box... there were ten years of history and dust! 
About the decoders: The quality is not my first goal, obviously. I've tried a few of them, but the processor hasn't power enough for real time decoding. I keep searching a Windows player, but it appears that a few MHz more are needed... even WinPlay 16 bits doesn't work without integrated co-processor.
My next movement will be a mini-dedicated OS in a floppy disk. More fun.
And if nothing work, I always have the solution of decode to WAV. 

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #34 –
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MAD! What was I thinking?  
OK, thanks Roberto. 

- MAD uses 32 bit x 32 bit => 64 bit multiplications.
- These need around 40 clocks on a Intel 486 (actually 3 clocks more than on a Intel 386).
- On a 25 MHz CPU these are 625000 multiplications per second.
- per Sample and Channel these are 625000 / 44100 / 2 = 7 multiplications

Not the smallest possibility of a chance ...
It looks like also a quarter sampling rate synthesis is not possible.
Diocletian

Time Travel Agency
Book a journey to the Diocletian Palace. Not today!

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #35 –
Not knowing anything about this whatsoever then, what sort of speed are the processors in items like iRivers, Car Stereo's that accept MP3 data discs etc,...?

I know they dont have to maintain an OS at the same time, but I am curious 

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #36 –
70MHz ARM for entry-level models, 90MHz ARM for higher models

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #37 –
Well, it's a fact: A 486SX @ 25MHz can't decode MP3 in real time.
This test was made by professionals. Don't try to do this in your house! 

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #38 –
Here's what I just went through/found out through personal experience:

I had a 486 DX2/66 I wanted to use for playing mp3s.  I installed DOS and tried every DOS based mp3 player I could find.  I finally found that mpxplay came *the closest* to being able to play most mp3s.  However, depending on the bitrate there was always some skipping with mpxplay (I lightened the load on the CPU by disabling all display-type features of mpxplay as much as I could)

I had to overclock the cpu to 80 MHz and then I could safely play any mp3 I tried.  And again, this is all in DOS only mode - no windows overhead.

So in the end I'm pretty sure you need at least a DX/2 80 MHz 486 for mp3s (unless you find some quality decreasing mode that I couldn't)...by the way mpxplay can also play mpcs (for sure) and oggs (I think).

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #39 –
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A -real- Pentium 60 is enough to playback MP3 (perhaps the overdrive things were much slower) - I had one of the first real Pentium 60s and it played MP3 (well... 128kbit/s  ) without any problems at full quality.

I have an old PS/Valuepoint here (used to be a 486SX/25) with a 60 Mhz Pentium Overdrive processor. A year or so back I tried to get it to play mp3s. I finally managed, using mpg123 under FreeBSD - it made some strange warbling noises while filling the buffer (the first few seconds of the first song in the playlist), but otherwise it played flawlessly.

The same player under Linux didn't cut it though - probably some differences in the sound drivers or something.  Neither did any DOS or Win3.1 based player I could find. So it's definitely a close race for those beasts

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #40 –
Now i will share my experience with yours. I was there at the time playing with those things, and i still have old CPUs and motherboards in working conditions (but i stripped those stupid Ni-CD batteries before they melted the circuits with acid leaks).

From my experience, the fastest player i found some years ago was mpg123 which i tried it with some linux distro using 2.2 .x kernels. I could make a Cyrix 486DX4-100 chip decode in realtime 128kbps stereo files at full 44.1khz. But i couldn't do that with stock binary mpg123, i had to compile from sources, and use 486 optimization. Yes, i tried both i386 and i586 optimizations, and it actually was worse. It had to be i486. I recall realtime decoding will use about 80% cpu usage, i guess a 486DX4-75 or even DX2-66 could do, its a matter of trying.

That very same CPU, using win95 and winplay3 (thats the FHG player, first it was a playing time limited demo program with 80$ cost, then they later released post 2.0x version uncripled and free) was not be able to achieve the same, it had to use "half" quality (22khz) or "mono". I also tried winamp of then, and i was much, much worse, and it also wanted lots of memory... Cubic Player using MS-DOS (a tracker player) added mp2/mp3 capabilities, but it was also similar to winamp in perfomance. Only mpg123 made a significant difference. Oh speaking of mp2, i used a "Phillips" windows player and mp2 files were much much easier to reproduce with full quality and any bitrate. (Consider toolame!

About urban myths... The 386sx is a 32bit CPU with a 16bit bus. This cpu has no cache and could use 16bit 286 style memory. It doesn't have a FP unit either, but you could buy a separate math coprocessor (387) for real FP operations in the same way you could with 286, and 8086. Typically those with CAD programs would.

The 386dx is a 32bit CPU with a 32bit bus. I has no cache either and same story about not having an FP, but math coprocessor available. Due to the low memory speeds, external cache (known nowdays as L2) improved perfomance dramatically. It was common to see motherboards with 64kb to 256kb sram cache.

The 486dx is a 32bit CPU with a 32bit bus. So far bus speed was tied to the CPU speed (well actually 386 needed twice). a 486dx2 cpu is a CPU with half bus speed (ie. dx2-66 used 33mhz). The 486 had 8k write thru cache (L1), motherboards would typically come with 256kb sram cache or more, like they did with 386. The 486DX had the "math-coprocessor" builit in, in other words, has its own FP unit so didn't need an external one.

The 486sx is EXACTLY the same as the 486dx, only without the FP unit (or it was disabled/damaged, etc. In fact you can run a 486dx like an sx...) just like earlier x86 CPUs without FP, you could simply add an external math-coprocessor and will behave identically to the 486DX (minus L1 cache perfomance?)

The 486dx4 is like 486dx2, only this time it runs the bus speed at a THIRD (hehehe, dx3 was trademarked or something silly).

Cyric 486slc is simply like a 386sx with 1k L1 writeback cache, and 486dlc is the same but like a 386dx, They could be used as a chip upgrade (socket compatible).

There was an Intel 486dx-50 and an later a 486dx2-50, the former obviously faster, but a lot hotter and mobo manufacturers of then had more trouble working with speeds beyond 33Mhz.

It would be fun to use a "DSP in a PCI/ISA" slot as a "sound coprocesor", then you could use really old machines

Oh yes, most of these chips were fanless, fan coolers started showing with dx4 and pentium line. I wonder if the V-Dragon chip is fanless too? Cheap PCs are coming
She is waiting in the air

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #41 –
i recall that most 486 proc's had fans...i had around 4 or 5 486dx2 66's and they all had fans. i was only able to overclock one of them to 80mhz tho.
i hate cats

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #42 –
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i recall that most 486 proc's had fans

Well, but this one doesn't have fan... it doesn't have heatsink... it doesn't have socket... it doesn't have...

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #43 –
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Well, but this one doesn't have fan... it doesn't have heatsink... it doesn't have socket... it doesn't have...

Are you sure it is a CPU? Maybe you are loking at a chipset?

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #44 –
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Are you sure it is a CPU? Maybe you are loking at a chipset? 

Yes my friend, the processor is directly welded with the motherboard, just like the chipset. I said that this is a true historic piece. 

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #45 –
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Yes my friend, the processor is directly welded with the motherboard, just like the chipset. I said that this is a true historic piece. 

Funny my first computer was EXACTLY like that.  486SX, soldered to the mainboard, no heatsink, no fan.
gentoo ~amd64 + layman | ncmpcpp/mpd | wavpack + vorbis + lame

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #46 –
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Yes my friend, the processor is directly welded with the motherboard, just like the chipset. I said that this is a true historic piece. 

Funny, that's pretty much what it looks like in my four year old iMac  Anyway, have you considered AAC? They seem to be easier to decode than MP3, and do it faster on my computer.

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #47 –
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Funny, that's pretty much what it looks like in my four year old iMac  Anyway, have you considered AAC? They seem to be easier to decode than MP3, and do it faster on my computer.

On theory at least, AAC demands more processing power than MP3 for decoding.

That's why it needs a 25mHz DSP for real-time decoding, while MP3 demands a 20mHz one.

More info:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/techinf/a..._dsp/index.html

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #48 –
Well, MP3 must be the only compressed audio format that my friend knows... (and maybe WMA)
But since I'll have this powerful machine a few days, I'll try MPC, FLAC and other formats, just for curiosity.
At least it can play WAV and CD Audio. 

Trying to play MP3...

Reply #49 –
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[
30mHz DSPs. Keep in mind these are processors specialized in signal processing, not general purpose processors like CPUs.

A 486 probably had just 1 integer multiplier, which is only active when it gets to a multiply instruction.  THe last DSP chip I designed (about the time those 25 mhz 486's came out) had over a dozen multipliers which all ran pretty much every clock cycle.