Download is is at the bottom.
Edit May 31 2013 : A patch is available named 0.9z-9b at the very bottom.
Activate with your existing 0.9z-7 (and up) Activation Code.
Do NOT throw out your existing 0.9z-7 (and up) version. DO install any new version in its own folder (your Activation could be violated otherwise).
For those already using Activated 0.9z-6 and older, please look here :
How to Activate 0.9z-7 and up.
Notice : In this version small vinyl like ticks in between tracks may appear (only for tracks with gaps in between them).
Release Notes to native 0.9z-9 (see more below for the Release Notes to the 0.9z-9b patch) :
- The former working of Q5 (see under the [ Q ] button at the bottom of the main screen) has been changed in a more explicit SQ control parameter;
It engages at values other than 0 (though 1 should be avoided) and it will imply a very subtle but therewith important SQ parameter. It does not work on its own. For that and more extensive outlay, see the ToolTip on it.
- When the text [ FLAC ] (or the other formats) is obtained in the Album Title, this implied errors of various kinds. This has been solved.
- The background of some trackbars (like that of the Volume Slider) could be wrong after the load of a new album (that implying another background - depicted by the Coverart of the album, like the slider in the left edge of the screen can imply this).
This is now solved.
- An important issue was found in the mixed playback of various formats; tracks could play partly only, or parts could repeat. This issue - as it appeared - has always been there.
Solved now.
- When no Coverart is available for an album, hence nothing of that showed in the left pane, it was not possible to access the Embedded Explorer by means of rightclick.
Now it can.
- The famous distortion beyond the audio band (but which could be perceived anyway) which could be eliminated by means of engaging Peak Extension, now has finally been solved.
And definitely.
- There could be a tick at the first next partial track load (per definition of the Split File Size (SFS) boundary).
If all is right this has been solved.
- At creating Galleries, something like .iso files (from SACD) -which could be in the Original Location's folder- were copied to the Gallery just the same. This was unintentional and it would fill up the (SSD's) disk space unnecessary.
Now this won't happen anymore.
- Similarly such an .iso file present within the album's music folder (where the music files are held) could create an error while loading the album in the Playlist Area. Also solved.
- The Phase Intensity Parameter (for Phase Alignment) now is allowed to be -1 and -2 as well. Notice that 0 does not mean "nothing" as it just implies the default strength;
While previously the Intensity could be higher with 1, 2 and 3, now it can also be lower with -1 and -2.
- It was found that exFAT formatted drives containing Original music data (not Galleries) disallowed showing the main Cover(art) as Wallpaper. This can not be solved since exFAT does not allow for the here necessary Short Dos 8.3 Names.
A message now will tell you about this (Playback will just commence) as you may not be aware of this (formatting) - and the reason for Coverart not showing as Wallpaper.
- In similar fahsion it can happen that Short Dos 8.3 Names have been shut off in the Operating System (probably by you yourself) which implies the same for the Coverart not showing.
Here too a message will notify you.
Notice that this message - and also the one from the previous item - can be shut off, of which the how-to is told by the message itself.
- Windows 8 can now use the "Shut off ALL Services" setting.
- For Windows 8 a message could appear about the set Clock Resolution which could not me met (unjustified). This is now solved.
- The report about the processor's frequency and "heat" warnings have been removed, because it appeared that the control regarding this (engaging in Minimized OS Mode and with "Ultimate XTweaks" set) is not a processor heating-up "tweak" at all.
- Official support for W2012 ( Server version for Windows 8 ) has been added.
This may be important to those testing with W2012 before, because especially at Unattended Playback and in Minimized OS Mode this implied a fallback to W7 features (read : all of W8 was not utilized).
Since this is a theoretical change - hence it could not be tested, please do so when using W2012. Check the Time Stability "Change" button in Settings, and see whether it is available / respected for your 20120 install. Please report when this is not the case.
- It appeared that formal official support for W2008 R1 (which is the Server version of Vista) never really worked out because of a bug. At the time this was not of great importance, but today it would imply errors because of the differences in "tweaking possibilities" between Vista and W7 (and XP). W2008 R1 is now recognized as Vista (features).
- It is not so that the official support for XP has been stopped, but in the main area of "XTweaks" now a message has been built in actually telling you so. This, because it seems quite impossible to apply any of the XTweaks functionality in XP but which is related to Minimized OS Mode as well. Hard to explain, but XP must be regarded "too obsolete" by now, because too many later tweaks can not apply there. Notice that this should apply to Minimized OS Mode only; otherwise XP will still work (be supported) OK.
- Some defaults for new installations (first time XXHighEnd users) have been changed :
- Don't do anything with Coverart has been changed to "not active". Some time back it was thought that it would be better to not have Coverart active by default because it could imply "folder structure problems". It still can (important for first time users !), but the fact that Coverart does not show by default doesn't seem a good thing.
New users : Please notice that problems with loading music tracks in the Playlist Area (which can be done through various means) should always be related to structural problems in your music folders versus Coverart. The setup of this is by itself the most "logical" as can be, but maybe this is not so in your case. Activate the "Don't do anything with Coverar" in Settings when you expect problems may originate from your folder structure (or do so anyway when experiencing problems). Later you can switch it back Off of course (respect Coverart throughout).
- Actually by mistake the default for the Device Buffer Size has been 4096 for a long time; not all DACs can operate with this (larger) buffer size. Now it defaults to 1024 (at a Q1 of 14 and xQ1 of 1).
- In the later versions Peak Extension (PE) defaulted to On because of the "distortion" problem mentioned earlier in these Release Notes. Since this problem has been solved, the default now is set to Off again.
- Keep PAN Services is defaulted to Off now. Same for Use Remote Desktop.
This should intuitively better resemble the final best SQ settings to achieve.
New users NOTICE though : The defaults for Stop Desktop Services and Stop Remaining Services are Off just the same. This does NOT resemble final best SQ settings. However, setting (or defaulting) these to On may imply more "first problems" for you than perceiving better SQ is "useful". IOW - and this all counts for Unattended Playback only - these defaults should be more convenient for you. However, do remember these SQ related settings please.
- Watch out : The default for "DAC Is" has been changed to 24 bits / 96 KHz (it was 16/44.1) which comes together with the Upsampling rate of 2x (little horizontal slider in the left pane). This anticipates people having 24/96 DACs at least, these days.
This should resemble more the inherent SQ coming from the Arc Prediction filtering, which now is active in effect by default for new users. Similarly HDCD decoding can be (and is) active by default now.
But of course, when your DAC can do 16/44.1 (or 16/48) only, this will just imply error messages. So please keep this in mind !
And one more "Watch out" : Any DAC with a higher input bit depth than 16 should be set for its transfer bit rate (the "DAC Needs" in XXHighEnd Settings). This defaults to 32 bits which sure does not count for all DACs out there (so watch out for error messages because of this).
- A new shortcut command Alt-m shuts off the Monitor during Unattended Playback (no User Interface present). This comes handy when for whatever reason you activated the Monitor (inspecting something, moved the mouse by accident, etc.).
Notice that this works regardless of XXHighEnd Settings (which may tell the Monitor is not to shut off automatically at Unattended Playback).
- Lastly a warning : A very large part of the sound engines has been rewritten. This should be for the better (SQ). However, some of the combinations of settings - thinking about file formats regarding bit depth and sampling rate versus the upsampling rate - could not be tested. These are mainly the 16 bit native formats not subject to upsampling, but actually so many combinations exist that it can be anywhere that something is now not supported (unintentionally) and some message shows up instead of music coming throug the speakers.
Not-so-good behavior of your developer ? true. But how to test all when it anticipates certain DAC technical behavior which needs those DACs first. So please be so kind to report anything not working anymore which worked previously. Solving it will be easy enough (through in-forum patches) - when it is only known what needs to be solved. Thanks !
Release Notes to 0.9z-9b :Watch out : This patch is available by means of the second download at the very bottom. Only install this over your folder where the native 0.9z-9 is installed in (which latter is the first download near the bottom).
- First the foremost import item, which is foremost important to begin with, but which was also forgotten in the Release Notes to the native 0.9z-9 above :
With the solution to the "Peask Extension problem" (see Release Notes above) - and which was about distortion beyond the audio band - an important SQ improvement has been achieved dfor Hires material. At least this is very well measurable. And of course, good hires should contain information beyond the audio band ... (say under 30KHz).
- Also important : The original Release Notes make mention of the Tooltip help to the by itself important new Q5 appliance. This, while maybe for a first time the functionality was not explained in here but layed out per that ToolTip only.
Sadly that ToolTip did not work because of a bug ... Now it does.
Do notice that knowledge of the working of Q5 is crucial !
- It was only found now that actually none of the ToolTips worked on the new "sliders" per the latest layout of the GUI (so, since 0.9z-7). Now they all do.
- A nasty sort of compiler bug caused a crash of XXEngine3.exe after a few seconds, when the Decimal Separator was set to "," (comma - for most countries it is a "." - dot). This is an Operating System setting. Strangely enough this is related to the OS Language as well, so not for everybody this was a problem.
This is solved now, and everybody can set the Separator back to his liking and/or set back the Operating System Language back to what he/she was used to.
- The booting into Minimized OS Mode (and back to Normal) is subject to the speed of the PC in a separate process. Something had changed in 0.9z-9 which made this apparent and it prevented booting into Minimized OS for PCs which are on the slow side.
This is now solved.
- Native 16/44.1 files (and 16/48 for that matter) - so, not upsampled - did not play in 0.9z-9. Now they do again.
- It was found that an error message abusively appeared when 24/48 files were played onto a 16/48 capable DAC. Most probably this has been the situation always.
Solved now.
A remark :
People often have problems changing the Digital Volume through XXHighEnd. Generally spoken, this is PC "headroom" related;
The new Q5 appliance worstens this behavior. However, a theoretical means has been applied to eliminate this worstening, which is indeed theoretical only. IOW, it should net work out the same as you ever experienced this, but when not (it is more hard now to change the Volume), please report.
Issue for Windows 8:
It can be so (though it can be PC specific) that after a reboot at least one time Playback stops right in the middle somewhere. Usually this is within a few minutes. When this happens, a movement of the mouse may recommence playback. This should be an OS issue.
Now, be careful a bit, because when Phase Alignment is engaged, this will imply the famous tick/plop and it will happen again when playback commences. Not too bad for most, but can be nasty for many.
Here it was never seen that this "stalling" happened more than once per boot session.
Another Windows 8 issue :
It has been observed that Windows 8 contains a "memory leak". Per 24 hours of "boot session" this shows something like 300MB of free memory disappearing. This looks to be influencing SQ as well (higher pitched nastyness), so it is advised to reboot each day before your playback session.
And an already known issue for Windows 8 (unsolvable as it seems) : No Coverart Wallpaper can be shown during Unattended Playback.
Reminder for Windows 8 users : Don't forget to install the Windows 7 Shell provided with XXHighEnd (this is NOT my work). See the Windows7)Shell folder in your XX folder and don't forget to read the readme's in there !
Be so kind to report different issues on the Forum in their own topic.
Switch Off UAC (User Account Control) before any first attempt of starting XXHighEnd.exe !
However, if all is right this will be arranged for automatically.
At a fresh install it may happen that after the first start of XXHighEnd.exe a message appears that XXEngine3.exe "has stopped working". Just click away that message; it is harmless.
Download the XXHighEndEngine3-09-z9b-x.rar file and unzip over your current 0.9z-9 folder
and only that. The .rar contains a new XXHighEnd.exe and XXEngine3.exe version and it is the most strongly advised to download/install these over the first download (XXHighEnd-09-z9.rar). Make sure the both files overwrite the old ones. Watch the dates from the new ones which are from May 31 2013. Don't apply the installs the other way around !
