what spec for playing mp3's

davelerave · 08-07-2003 10:12am #1

what minimum spec board etc. do i need for mp3 playback,i've got a soundblaster live value which is fine for sound ,i'll probably go with athlon for cpu,is 128 mb sdram enough thanks

Trebor · 08-07-2003 1:49pm

i'm guessing your new to the whole mp3 thing.

mp3 is a compression format for sound so any system that can play sound's will be able to play mp3. all mp3 does is convert music from cd quality to mp3 quality. you don't notice the difference unless your a trained mussican who can tell the difference in notes just by listening

Rolo Tomasi · 08-07-2003 3:52pm

Yeah that is very true as long as the mp3 in question is encoded at least 192kb. I've have ripped a cd at 128kb and 192kb and on a pair of quality headphones you can hear slight differences. Cymbals can sound a little flat at 128kb.

davelerave · 08-07-2003 3:56pm

i can tell the difference between 128 and 256,whats minimum cpu and ram for win 98,the system is gonna be for mp3 playback only through my hi-fi

Emboss · 08-07-2003 3:59pm

i can play them on a 133 with 32mb ram win 98, barley

SouperComputer · 09-07-2003 1:20pm

there is a DOS player that will run on a 486, not sure what bitrate its limited to though

basically, your system is well up to spec

po0k · 09-07-2003 2:11pm

Get a linux box, make yourself a serial-IR mod for the remote control and a decent 16-bit sound card (SB16 would do fine).
~P133-166 with 32 megs of ram and a DMA hard drive should be fine. If the drive controller on the motherboard doesn't support DMA drives you can get an add-in PCI one that does. Or just get a cheap Pentium2 base system for cheap somewhere.

Zaltais · 09-07-2003 2:50pm

Or you could just buy a Hi-Fi and PC in one!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/module.asp?CartID=030709154218522&moduleno=35916&modulecode=

po0k · 09-07-2003 3:09pm

Not nearly as much fun or as "hardcore"

/me grips his dremel and gives a manly grunt

tman · 09-07-2003 5:15pm

Originally posted by Emboss
i can play them on a 133 with 32mb ram win 98, barley

i've had absolutely no trouble using winamp 2.8x on a p133 with 40mb ram:)
a new version of windows media player is a different kettle of fish tho, youd want a p500 with 128mb ram at least for running that...

davelerave · 12-07-2003 10:58am

thanks for al the advice,i'll see if i can pick up an old system cheap

po0k · 13-07-2003 5:46pm

Originally posted by tman
i've had absolutely no trouble using winamp 2.8x on a p133 with 40mb ram:)
a new version of windows media player is a different kettle of fish tho, youd want a p500 with 128mb ram at least for running that...

and that's just for the visualizations.

ozmo · 13-07-2003 11:50pm

Originally posted by SouperComputer
there is a DOS player that will run on a 486, not sure what bitrate its limited to though

I compiled some code I got from http://www.mpeg.org
and managed to get it to play in DOS on a 486 dx 66mhz
with 2mb ram

This appears to be the mininum spec - any slower than that and the sound just broke up.

I was trying to make an mp3 player for the car using junk I had around... I needed the lowest speed to minimise drain on the car battery - (a few years ago).

ozmo.

Pigman II · 13-07-2003 11:54pm

I think I read in PC Format that you'd need a minimum of around 300Mhz if you want to assure playback 192kbps stuff without staggering.

ozmo · 14-07-2003 12:31pm

Originally posted by Pigman II
I think I read in PC Format that you'd need a minimum of around 300Mhz if you want to assure playback 192kbps stuff without staggering.

It also plays fine on a 166mhz WinCE Pocket PC.

po0k · 14-07-2003 1:13pm

Originally posted by Pigman II
I think I read in PC Format that you'd need a minimum of around 300Mhz if you want to assure playback 192kbps stuff without staggering.

That is because windows is taking up 233 of that 300Mhz

logic1 · 14-07-2003 3:02pm

Originally posted by SyxPak
Get a linux box, make yourself a serial-IR mod for the remote control and a decent 16-bit sound card (SB16 would do fine).
~P133-166 with 32 megs of ram and a DMA hard drive should be fine. If the drive controller on the motherboard doesn't support DMA drives you can get an add-in PCI one that does. Or just get a cheap Pentium2 base system for cheap somewhere.

What the **** are you talking about? He wants to play MP3s not wire himself into the Matrix.

:rolleyes:

.logic.

po0k · 14-07-2003 5:05pm

:rolleyes:

L1011 · 14-07-2003 11:18pm

If its JUST MP3 playing, a 64MB 133Mhz P1 with BeOS R4.5 or R5 (the free one) is your best bet...

although I'd say 166Mhz, 64MB for best results

Linux - ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gerry · 15-07-2003 3:36am

Linux didn't work for you then? Thanks for the info.

po0k · 15-07-2003 1:32pm

*cough* assembly tbh *cough*

Gerry · 15-07-2003 5:16pm

Originally posted by MYOB
If its JUST MP3 playing, a 64MB 133Mhz P1 with BeOS R4.5 or R5 (the free one) is your best bet...

although I'd say 166Mhz, 64MB for best results

Linux - ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, why do you need 64mb of ram to play a file where you are going to need perhaps 2 megs of ram if you include a 10 second buffer? Will the player and BEOS take up 62 mb of ram?

L1011 · 16-07-2003 12:27am

Originally posted by Gerry
Also, why do you need 64mb of ram to play a file where you are going to need perhaps 2 megs of ram if you include a 10 second buffer? Will the player and BEOS take up 62 mb of ram?

Well BeOS needs 16MB to run, but will use up to 90 to get optimal speed, e.g. loading the entire OS into RAM. And MediaPlayer will need 2MB to play an MP3

But I was sort-of assuming he wants to use a media player with playlists, etc, and might like a larger buffer

But P133/32MB would be fine in reality

L1011 · 16-07-2003 12:33am

Originally posted by Gerry
Linux didn't work for you then? Thanks for the info.

Linux does work for me, its the idea of using a UNIX OS with MASSIVE overheads if you use it graphically to play music disturbs me..

Don't get me wrong, I have Linux and use Linux for anything too intensive for BeOS's networking stack to handle, e.g. serving. But its sucks at media, sucks at being graphical..

And it feels like rolling in mud on my old machine (850Mhz), whereas BeOS and even Windows XP FLY on that system.

But its great at what its good at. Just thats not media

ozt9vdujny3srf · 16-07-2003 3:37am

heh, in the napster days i was using a 133 mhz p1 processor, 16 mb of ram and bult in sound blaster 16 sound

.

god i wish i had kept that pc, for nostalgias sake

.

If you are going for an athlon i heartily endorse the 2500 +, 512 mb of ram and a nice nforce 2 motherboard with onboard gfx.

Now there is one sexy budget(ish) machine

po0k · 16-07-2003 1:52pm

Originally posted by MYOB
Linux does work for me, its the idea of using a UNIX OS with MASSIVE overheads if you use it graphically to play music disturbs me..

Don't get me wrong, I have Linux and use Linux for anything too intensive for BeOS's networking stack to handle, e.g. serving. But its sucks at media, sucks at being graphical..

And it feels like rolling in mud on my old machine (850Mhz), whereas BeOS and even Windows XP FLY on that system.

But its great at what its good at. Just thats not media

Who the christ ever mentioned graphics?

2-4 megs of ram, floppy drive+disk for the loader, libs, kernal and player, hard disk/CDROM/block storage device and you're all set.
Christ you could make a serial IR reciever to control it remotely if you wanted.

*ahem*

L1011 · 16-07-2003 3:15pm

Originally posted by SyxPak
Who the christ ever mentioned graphics?

2-4 megs of ram, floppy drive+disk for the loader, libs, kernal and player, hard disk/CDROM/block storage device and you're all set.
Christ you could make a serial IR reciever to control it remotely if you wanted.

*ahem*

umm... I sort of assumed the person who wanted to MP3 wasn't someone into sado-masochism, which is exactly what you need to be into to want to use a CLI version of Linux to play music...

never heard of graphical playlist controllers, etc?

Gerry · 17-07-2003 4:27pm

Could very easily run a minimal X desktop on the machine, with a minimalist window manager like fluxbox. I think you have a slightly skewed view of linux MYOB. It shouldn't be sluggish at all on an 850mhz machine, unless its setup badly. My laptop ( 450 w/320mb ) runs kde3 happily, its currently my main desktop machine. Its true that multimedia is still not linux' strong point. However the only real problem is dvd's. Everything else, including divx, and windows format movies plays perfectly with mplayer. You can optimize it for your particular hardware, so it manages to play divx on my laptop at under 40% cpu. Still have to get bloody dvd working.. Is there any dvd support on beos?

po0k · 18-07-2003 4:25pm

Originally posted by MYOB
umm... I sort of assumed the person who wanted to MP3 wasn't someone into sado-masochism, which is exactly what you need to be into to want to use a CLI version of Linux to play music...

never heard of graphical playlist controllers, etc?

Graphical playlist controllers which eat into cpu power and are not neccessary, just have pre-loaded playlists, and rig your self a serial controller.
If you need to update/dowhatever, just ssh into your machine or start an X windows session and mess about.
There's no real need to touch the setup once it's ready.
Do hi-fi decks have graphical OSes for people to pick out individual tracks? no, because the user is supposed to load them with tracks/CDs they will be listening to and put it on straight through or shuffle
And besides, in a car, what use is a graphical UI if the box is not meant to be seen? You will after all probably be driving while listenikng to the music. Are you supposed to pull the car over to fiddle about with the playlist - or just hit ">>" on your serial remote mounted discretely on/in the dash?
Christ, if you did want some sort of graphical display, get a VFD/LCD screen over the serial port. There are plenty of solutions around.

L1011 · 19-07-2003 12:02am

Could very easily run a minimal X desktop on the machine, with a minimalist window manager like fluxbox. I think you have a slightly skewed view of linux MYOB.

We're getting into geek territory here, as well as Sykpaks constant serial IR stuff... if you want an OS to just shove on an old system with no hassles and play music, Linux is NOT the OS to choose.... Windows would do a better job...

It shouldn't be sluggish at all on an 850mhz machine, unless its setup badly.

Its SuSE 8.1 straight from the CDs, as I am not used to the arcanities of Linux configuration... I'm used to everything being configured from a minimalistic GUI, with a standalone panel per section. Which is why I never touch YaST. In fact, I'll be going back to Lycoris fairly soon if I cannot borrow a linux geek to set SuSE up right for me. Its at an OK speed now I have a 1.7 instead

I use Linux for the 1% of stuff BeOS cannot provide me with - newer games. BeOS's Windows emulation support is embryonic to say the least, and although its open source the code is commented in Japanese, so it's hard to figure out exactly how it works...

Is there any dvd support on beos?

Yes. Perfect DVD-ROM support out of the box and with the 2.5MB, no configuration BeOS port of VideoLAN Client it will play all DVD's happily

Oxidise · 19-07-2003 9:06am

You can play them on pretty much anything as long as the machine can play sounds and run an mp3 player, somthing like winamp 2.9 then you are grand.

ozt9vdujny3srf · 19-07-2003 10:56am

RaR aye, winamp 2.* and win95 will run on a 75hz machine without problems

what spec for playing mp3's

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