March 01, 2003

WinAmp3 Seems to Suck

So I built a powerful computer that should be able to handle, ably, the the huge Mp3 library I amassed while wasting time. When I downloaded WinAmp, I got their new version, WinAmp3. Well, my computer rarely hangs. However, it has begun to recently, and 100% of those incidents have been from "Studio.exe" -- the winamp application. The CPU utilization goes back to 'trivial' after I kill Studio.exe.

So I figure that NullSoft has made the same mistake so many others have made: start out with a lean, tight utility that does something well, and then keep bolting on more and more features until it becomes bloated and poisoned with bugs.

So I guess I will give this thing a chance -- figure out if there is an upgrade available. Otherwise, I'll just de-grade back to version 2.

One interesting thing I read in the troubleshooting guide at NullSoft was the following:

    If you own a SoundBlaster Live or SoundBlaster Audigy then you definitely need to update your drivers. In fact since the drivers from Creative are coded by morons it is highly recommended that you instead use the kX Project Drivers. These should clear up most problems with Creative sound cards.

Now I have a Soundblaster Extigy, not Audigy, and I wasn't experiencing any problems with my card (as far as I know). However lately it seems like the audio level between songs varies dramatically (I blamed this on WinMediaPlayer ripping CDs with stupid audio levels that are different than the other MP3s I have.) Perhaps I should see what kX says about my Extigy drivers, but changing them is definitely not the Occam's answer to the terrible performance of WinAmp3.

An aside: Creative's equivalent of WinAmp, 'Creative Player', is an absolute piece of shit, and I didn't even bother to install it on my new computer. Furthermore, there were no updates, and very little support, on their crappy site.

Posted by Nils Blutig at March 1, 2003 04:52 PM | TrackBack