INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 16 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: preproman on July 20, 2011, 01:56:34 pm
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Before I start testing this out, I would like to know if anyone has tried it out with MC 16 and got positive results? Or should I stay away from it.
http://www.windowsxlive.net/fidelizer
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Media Center makes every effort to be as efficient as possible, and it's careful about thread priorities and scheduling. The ASIO and WASAPI Event Style buffer filling system is especially efficient, and this is the most critical part of the audio chain.
However, I can't hear any difference when I start and stop a system stress tester while playing audio. Since I can't hear 100% CPU usage with expensive headphones and a headphone amp, it makes me wonder how tuning away 1% CPU usage from system services could be relevant. I would like to hear an electrical-engineering explanation for the argument that it does matter.
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I have tried Fidelizer. It is easy to use and a reboot restarts any services it has stopped so it is safe to use. I just purchased a Steinberg MR816 and have tried an Echo Audio Audiofire 8. Both of these recommend in the owner's manual to set background services as priority. I think this is one thing that Fidelizer does. I have not yet done any critical listening to determine if Fidelizer makes an audible difference.
With the Steinberg MR816 I was getting a brief pause during playback when opening Internet Explorer or opening a new window in IE. I tried many things including running Fidelizer to see if it would take care of the problem. The solution was to increase the memory speed in the bios and change the memory timings.
For what it's worth, there are Mac users (on the AudioCircle forum) that believe the software upgrades by Mach2 Music (http://Mach2Music.com) improve the sound when using the Mac Mini. They pay $400 for probably the same thing done to a PC by Fidelizer.
We want the music server applications to have as much of the computers attention as possible. This greatly affects the sound quality, and after all this is a Dedicated Music Server. So we optimize the Snow Leopard Operating System for playing music by removing anything we can that doesn't support that goal. Our special combination of modifications removes or turns off numerous non-music related applications and processes.
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From what I recall, a lot of Japanese and Italian people are positive with it and very please with recent version 2.1 release.
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As I am curious by nature, it took me 2 minutes from reading about it for the first time to install this. It keeps my idle (tri-core) CPU load between 0 and 2%, and seems to suppress any attempt by any background service. I did not notice any positive OR negative effects so far. Was somewhat afraid it would slow down movie playback and cause stutter, but it didn't I guess it will be a set-and-forget application until my next computer upgrade.