XXHighEnd

Engine#4 (Kernel Streaming) only :

The good news and the bad news in one line : All devices should work now, except for the "24 bit only" devices (in general these are the CEntrance based USB devices).

In order to let the below all work as intended there is one important "rule" for now : Set the "Split file at size" setting (Settings Area) to 30.
Just during the writing of these release notes it was found that when not done so (or at least with a 120 setting), playback will stop after one track at Unattended Playback.
In combination with this setting, changing the digital volume should not be used or all will me a mess (no danger for static or anything).
This will be solved in the next version.


Warning : Q1 is active again as well, BUT when under a certain limit (louder !) noise will be heard. This is no "static" though.
Generally, a setting under +3 will not work, but please let know in in your system it does. 3 just may work, but it is very critical. If it seems to work in your situation, always be careful at track boundaries, because there it may stop, and the louder noise may be your share.
To remember : If you found your lowest possible setting, lowering Q2/3/4/5 to 0 may give you just that next lower step for Q1.

An attempt has been made to let Q1 operate similarly to how it is used for Engine#3. Whether "it" or "something" works indeed is up to you for now. Again, the lower the setting the more accurate the sound should be perceived. Just stupid theory, and whether so indeed is for all of us to find out.

As with Engine#3, for USB the Q1 bandwidth is more limited than for other devices. In the case of Engine#4 any value above 10 will work the same as for 10. Notice this is legacy USB, and does not count for any commercial version, or Asynchronous USB (which is used by those 24 bit only devices).

For those used to the sound of Engine#4 already, please note that the engine has been rewritten from the ground, and most probably will not sound the same as before. However, if anything would sound similar it would be the highest Q1 setting (30). The other way around : chances are fair that changes in SQ will be perceived at the lowest possible Q1 setting (3, but better use 4 perhaps). Also, the lower Q1 settings may sound more towards Engine#3 (theory again).

For those interested : Q1 for Engine#4 is "manipulating with buffers", by itself similar to what may happen in other players, but still different because of the additional options because of playing from memory. The cpu graph (TaskManager) may show you things.
On this matter, the achieved latency (by itself not important) is *lower* than can be achieved with Engine#3 (which is WASAPI). So, it is generally known that Kernel Streaming can't go beyond 20ms, while here it is 32 samples at 32/176.4 (which is around 0.1ms). The 32 samples is to be expected a physical limit, because (as it seems) no less than 32 samples will transport (amongst the internal buffers) at one time.


Notice that no other bugs have been solved yet (sorry), apart from those which incurred for hiss, static, clicks (at track boundaries), L/R switching and the like;
For Engine#3 the annoying (and useless) message related to this has been removed).
Anomalies with the OSD Running Time should be from the past, although so many internal combinations are possible that this can't be guaranteed at this moment. Take note though that when OSD Time anomalies are seen, it can be expected that other things go wrong along with it, soon. An example of it would be a repeating part of a track and / or (followed by) silence. If you see this, please let it know, because here it seems from the past. Notice that the start of a track slightly shifting further and further from 00:01 as the first second (like 00:07 becoming the first) is known, but harmless.
The OSD Time just stopping somewhere in the middle is a Windows7 anomaly (rare) and hopefully will be solved in a future version.

Contrary to before, the X3PB log file will *not* show any important information at this moment. It now only contains data about the sound device used, so if something is - or seems wrong with that, you may post this log file.

A tip : When you can't get gapless at Attended Playback, think about your disks most probably sleeping at the time a next track is needed (hence higher the energy setting concerned). This seems to be a Windows7 "anomaly" which just listenes better you these settings. The spinup time is not taken into account (never was). A next version may explicitly spinup the disk concerned, in time.

Hoping for the best ...


Important : The zip below contains XXHighend.exe and XXEngine3.exe only; paste those over the original 09y-5-00 install, and that one only.