XXHighEnd Model 0.9z-5 (Presets, Drive Substitution, New Initial Startup)

[PeterSt]

Download is at the very bottom.

Notice : In this version the small vinyl like ticks in between tracks (only for tracks with gaps in between them) are back; those in between track parts have been eliminated again.

The Release Notes to this 0.9z-5 version are right below here, while the Release Notes to the first 0.9z-4 will be below that, but they will be added later.

Expected SQ changes compared to 0.9z-4-1 : None.

• The standard "Windows" means of saving settings has been replaced with a proprietary means;
  
  Generally this implies that these saved settings are not subject to Windows bugs anymore, hence they can't lead to hangs during startup because something got out of order or otherwise (and had to be repaired). Of course this doesn't mean that now no bugs will be in this area ever anymore ...
  
  
• Referring to the above, part of it now contains some added complexity, because the "initial" situation has become more of the same as "each situation", and for example there will be no questions anymore about whether you want to use the previous settings. It will just always automatically, but, you determine what exactly the old settings are. This may come across as somewhat vague at first. But see below.
  
  
• There's a new "rule" about where the "Data Folder" is allowed to be;
  
  Before this defaulted to the folder where XXHighEnd is stored, and it kind of encouraged to have it under that XX folder (as a sub folder). This is not allowed anymore now. This by itself should mean that you *will* create that data folder outside the scope of XXHighEnd versions, and from this should follow that the data can be preserved over XXHighEnd versions. They now can all use the same data ... even over different OSes ...
  
  Important : This data folder now defaults to litterally \XXData\ which means that no drive letter (or share name) is there;
  It may need some thinking over, but exactly this means that you can have different "data" as such, depending on which drive XXHighend is installed on. Only when the drive letter would be there (which is allowed just as well !) you'd be telling that the data to use is the same always !
  But think about what different dual boots may imply for, and which disk/partition has what drive letter in which OS ...
  
  For existing XXHighEnd users, after denoting the possibly new (forced) Data Folder, of course copy the contents of your before Data Folder to the new one. If you never filled in a Data Folder before, it means that your "data" as such is in the middle of other temporary or more fixed data in the "old" folder where XXHighEnd was installed, and there's nothing much else to do than starting all over with this "data" (which is not a big deal anyway, plus you will be used to this (somehow), *or* you always installed a next XXHighEnd version over an older one which is a BAD idea.
  
  
• While the above is about "data" in general, one of the major pieces of data will be just those saved settings. Let's call it a Setting Preset from now on;
  
  A "Settings Preset" can exist in two extensions :
  .XXSI (there is one of these, called PresetLoader.XXSI, and it is always saved in your XX folder);
  .XXSS (this can have any name to your liking, and it is always saved in your denoted Data Folder (default \XXData).
  
  - XXHighEnd always comes with one PresetLoader.XXSI file (remember, it sits in your XX folder).
  - When you start XXHighEnd, the settings are always loaded from PresetLoader.XXSI.
  - When you Quit XXHighEnd, the settings are always saved to PresetLoader.XXSI.
  - You can save your Settings at any time to a dedicated .XXSS file, denoted by the name you give to it.
  - You can load your Settings back from any previously saved .XXSS file.
  
  Keep in mind that this is about all the Settings there ever are, and currently no differentiation is made between e.g. GUI Settings and Sound Settings. Remember though that the GUI settings can be saved separately by means of the little buttons at the left side of the GUI. This theoretically means that after loading a Preset from an earlier saved .XXSS file, you should also load back the GUI settings by means of such a little button. Well, if necessary at all of course.
  
  Good to know : As an effect over the "over OSes" working settings, you most probably will notice that the general Wallpaper you set for the particular OS, will inherit to the other ...
  
  
• Drive Substitutes are now supported;
  
  By means of a new field in the Settings Area, you can denote something like
  h:=q:
  meaning that what ever before has been drive h:, now is called drive q:. Not that you can change Drive Letters by this, but this is to be looked at the other way around : within some OS you called a drive h:, and within another OS (think Dual Boot) that same partition (or disk) is now called q:.
  The importance - or conveniency will jump at you when you use Galleries, which actualy consist of references which are a kind of "hard" registered in the music folders.
  
  You can mention as many of these "substitutes" as you like, and also you are allowed to re-substitute the above example like this :
  q:=j:
  So, first your h: became a q:, and lateron this q: became a j:. Notice that this comes handy when you used q: as your new Drive Letter for some longer time, created new Galleries during that period (all referring to q:) while again later your partion/disk has become j: for whatever reason. So now *and* h: *and* q: have turned into j:.
  When you never used q: at making Galleries, you can obviously just replace h: with j: at once (h:=j:).
  
  
• In the Settings Area there's a new button "LAN On";
  
  This turns on the LAN services again, after they were shut down earlier.
  Please notice that this is not related to WiFi by any means; it will shut down when the "Shut Down Remaining Services" is activated, since this is not taken into account anywhere. Similarly WiFi won't be turned on by this new button.
  But notice you shouldn't use WiFi at all within yout Audio PC (nor IR, nor BlueTooth).
  
  
• Support for 24 Processor Cores;
  
  Firstly, it should be noted that the ever support for 8 Cores contained bugs (as was found out recently). Most probably nobody noticed, because it was more or less "advised" (forum) not to turn on HyperThreading for Intel processors, thinking it would work out for the worse. This is not the case (anymore), but it really needs this version (0.9z-5) or higher, to have the proper benefit of it. Notice though that at this moment it sticks to only this proper support, while a next version will explicitly utilize the available Cores to improve on Sound Quality.
  On the other hand though, already now 24 Cores will be supported explicitly for anything other than Sound Quality, like the pre-conversions;
  New leds at the top of the screen will show 12 leds for 12 Cores, assuming that nobody has a dual socket motherboard for 2 Intel 6 Core Hyperthreading Processors, but they do exist (Xeon). So, 12 leds only, but 24 Cores really *are* supported. This means that a 24 track album will (e.g.) convert from FLAC within a second ...
  
  
• A general problem with Converting MP3 has been solved. This merely comes down to : The slower the PC was and the larger the MP3 file was, the more chance existed that the MP3 file would not play. This is solved now.
  
  
• Album Names shorther than 2 positions excluding year annotations, would produce an error during the Wallpaper setting/presentation. Solved.
  
  
• The "Per Track" Volume Normalize button has been moved to the main screen, next to the normal NormalizeVolume button.
  
  
• From off 0.9z-4-0 a Format Change during Playback wasn't respected properly, and some Memory Allocation error would emerge. Solved.
  
  
• When XXHighEnd was shown right after an upgrade (or, a new version in general) all the buttons which could show Active/InActive (Red/Blue) would show a kind of double. Solved.
  
  
• If all is right, it can't happen anymore that XXHighEnd would show up in the Taskbar, but didn't show its GUI anyway. Please report when this still happens to you (but which was rare anyway).
  
  
• Setting a Reference Album for the Volume Normalization could never happen for a FLAC (MP3 ?) file. Instead, nothing happend and the lot hung. Solved.
  
  
• There's a new button in the Settings Area "Don't do anything with Coverart";
  This is supposed to solve problems with people not having a proper structure for it, which could cause anomalies at random places.
  Important : This button is Active by default, and existing users will not be used to this (there's never showing any Coverart anywhere now).
  Watch out : When in this situation anything is done around the creation of Galleries (or e.g. explicitly converting from/to FLAC or copying albums by means of XXHighEnd), almost 100% sure these functions may fail, while nothing prohibits using them. Also, if they fail, they will fail unnoticed (like not copying the Coverart).
  
  
• Since a few versions back, the Scrollbar to the Settings Area did not work for Vista. This is now solved by using an "unrendered" Scrollbar, looking normally Windows.
  Although not sure, most probably this will workout like this (unrendered) for Windows 2008 R2 (which really is W7) as well.
  
  
• For your convenience, the Scrollbar Position from the Settings Area is now saved too. So actually the Setting you are currently working with, will be presented back to you at a next startup.
  
  
• Before, when the ToolTips were set to be Inactive (bottom of the Settings Area) the "help text" always showed up in the Help Area ("?" button at the top). This latter has been removed as a feature, because it merely could caused the selected field to get inactive at moving away the mouse pointer, accidentally "selecting" another field. This was the most inconvenient.
  So, once you have read through the ToolTips a bit, it really is better to Inactivate it, and things will work more conveniently.
  
  
• Quite some errors messages could be presented when no Sound Device was available at all. Even real errors because of unexpected combinations could emerge;
  This has now been covered for as good as possible.
  
  
• When at switching from one OS to the other - or for other reasons at a next startup the Sound Device is found to be a different one from the last one used, a message will now say so and warn you about the (possibly unexpected) change. For example, removing the USB Sound Device in between Playback Sessions will incur for such a message.
  
  
• When now something changes in the settings that will theoretically influence the Q1 effective value (not meaning the value itself, but the implied consistent effect), a message will tell to Check the Q1 setting. Not that you really must, but it is a reminder, and not always the most obvious thing to check, with the examples of changing KS Mode from Adaptive to Special, or change the Sound Engine as a whole.
  
  
• A "normal" sequence has been applied to the sequence of running through the controls (like buttons, text fields, etc.), so tabbing through them goes from the one to the other in a more or less expected sequence. However, for the square Active/Inactive buttons at this moment it can't be seen that they are the selected ones, so there it's guessing where you are. This will be solved in a later version.
  
  
• When XXHighEnd is started, there's a check now whether it is already running. If so, you will be provided a choice to kill the other instance (which maybe invisible).
  
  
• When The Sound Device, Engine Mode or Device Buffer Size is changed, Q1 is now set to an appropriate default and a message is given about that.
  Remark and a bit of a warning : For Engine#4 (Kernel Streaming), Special Mode and a Device Buffer Size of 3072, the default for Q1 should be 3072, while it will be 768. Actually, for this 3072 Device Buffer Size, the maximum Q1 (samples) will always be 768. This is a bug.
  
  

Last minute issues :

In one occasion (and couldn't copy that anymore) we saw a Windows error message during the initial startup and playing a first track about some "call back" error. An attempt has been performed to prevent this. But since this behaviour couldn't be copied anyway, please report ...

Similarly an error was thrown about PresetLoader.XXSS being in use at changing the digital volume during Unattended. Another couple or errors followed, but in the end nothing was wrong much, and playback continued. This too could be incurred for only once, and in the mean time XXHighEnd stayed active in the background and had to be killed by means of TaskManager (Alt-Esc).

Edit : There seems to be something wrong with "Setting" the Reference Album for Volume Normalization. It is not clear at this moment how or what, but be anticipated upon errors popping up throughout the process of Setting, and maybe even during playback after that. It should be so that if you denote a before Set Reference Album and click "Set", it looks like not working, but in the end it does (during Playback).


Release Notes to 0.9z-4 to be added here.


The usual repeat from earlier Release Notes :

Very important : Only when AutoHotkey has been installed, and is at least working to the extend XXHighEnd can be startup with a hotkey (default is Alt-X), it is allowed to tick the checkbox "Stop Services" in the Settings Area, and use Unattended Playback mode (checkbox at the bottom of the main screen). For AutoHotkey See AutoHotkey Install. When this is not done, hence XXHighEnd can not be brought up with a hotkey, at Unattended Payback - no desktop icons will be visible, no Taskbar will be there, no Startbutton will be around ... nothing. You might, however, may be able to use the "Windows" key which will bring up the Start Menu and find something in there to find your ways again. So, be careful, or maybe you will not be able to do anything, except for listening out the playlist concerned, and wait until that finishes and XXHighEnd will popup automatically, which by itself will bring back everything.
A reboot is a solution as well.

This all sounds more dangerously than it really is, and with the hotkeys available there is really nothing to fear.
And remember the objective : better Sound Quality.

Switch Off UAC (User Account Control) before any first attempt of starting XXHighEnd.exe ! For W7 this means : set the slider in there to the lowest position. And don't forget to reboot after setting it Off.