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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 18 for Windows => Topic started by: Matt on November 08, 2012, 05:10:58 pm

Title: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Matt on November 08, 2012, 05:10:58 pm
This is an experimental build made with VS2012, Microsoft's Visual Studio Development Environment.  I'm not sure when or if we're going to move to VS2012, but I wanted to give it a try for a build.

This build will not install automatically as part of the update channels because I'm not sure if it's good.

The only missing piece I'm aware of is that the Chromium web browser engine.  You'll have to pick 'IE' in Options > Tree & View.

It would be interesting to post your JRMark results with 18.0.70 and again with this build.  For me, it's around 4% faster.

Download:
[Removed -- This is now part of the standard build available on the MC18 board and download page]
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: TheLion on November 08, 2012, 05:18:45 pm
For me it is 3514 with 18.0.70 versus 3633 with the new build. So a healthy 3.4% total improvement with the image benchmark having especially improved. I will test stability shortly.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: mojave on November 08, 2012, 05:49:11 pm
I went from 3524 (just beating out TheLion  ;D) to 3746 so a 6.3% increase for me.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: TheLion on November 08, 2012, 05:56:54 pm
Stability seems to be fine.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Mike Noe on November 08, 2012, 06:08:33 pm
b70:  1875
b71:  1886

AMD Athlon II 620/AMD HD6570
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: JimH on November 08, 2012, 06:27:12 pm
Build 70
HTPC  4248
Notebook  368  

Build 71
HTPC 4594
Notebook 459

The HTPC has an Intel i7 3770K 3.5Ghz.

The notebook is a Sony running a hamster on a wheel.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: JimH on November 08, 2012, 06:31:58 pm
SSE?
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: kensn on November 08, 2012, 06:52:32 pm
Did 2 consecutive runs for each version:

70:

2396
4766
5043
JRMARK = 4068

2436
5069
5241
JRMARK = 4249

71:

2430
5673
5356
JRMARK =  4486

2447
5674
5376
JRMARK = 4499

Nice jump in the Image category.....

Ken
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Mike Noe on November 08, 2012, 07:13:10 pm
FSE mode (ROHQ/madVR) with DVD playback is kooky.  Jumping from windowed to FSE, the screen goes blank, then it seems, the DVD resets and the load process starts again.  Windowed mode seems to work as expected.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Matt on November 08, 2012, 07:32:46 pm
SSE?

There's nothing we've done to help JRMark.

So the differences are entirely the compiler.

The compiler probably is using more SSE by itself.  It's also doing a better job compiling SSE intrinsics (the SSE code we write) into machine code.

Since CPU architectures change with time, it sort of makes sense that a newer compiler can make choices that perform better on newer CPUs.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: jmone on November 08, 2012, 08:18:56 pm
V70 - 2638
V71 - 2862

...but the code base got almost 200K larger!
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: jmone on November 08, 2012, 08:43:48 pm
HTPC
V70: 3730
V71: 3920

All looks OK to me and it may be a placebo but video playback seems to start quicker/smother
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: JustinChase on November 08, 2012, 08:58:02 pm
Slower Math for me, but faster overall...

Running 'Math' benchmark...Score: 922
Running 'Image' benchmark...Score: 1845
Running 'Database' benchmark...Score: 2647
JRMark (version 18.0.70): 1804


Running 'Math' benchmark...Score: 917
Running 'Image' benchmark...Score: 1917
Running 'Database' benchmark...Score: 2661
JRMark (version 18.0.71): 1832
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: jmone on November 08, 2012, 09:14:21 pm
The HTPC defiantly feels snappier to me when launching content.  Could you try re-compiling in VS2013 and see if you get another 5% improvement for free  ;D
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: kensn on November 08, 2012, 09:15:54 pm
Well not sure what the cause.. but ...

I was looking at my cover flow for movies and was experiencing the stutter that was mentioned in another thread. I went back tonight to look at it is noticeably smoother.
This is on a Nvidia 560.

Ken
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: fitbrit on November 08, 2012, 11:56:24 pm
JRMark (version 18.0.70): 1725
JRMark (version 18.0.71): 2213
(+28.3%  :D ) i3 530 + N450GTS
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: InflatableMouse on November 09, 2012, 12:41:18 am
i7 2600k/16GB/256GB SSD:
18.0.70: 4398/4245/4358. Ave = 4333.67
18.0.71: 4501/4505/4545/4395/4573. Ave = 4503.8

Increase: 3.93%

I'll test the HTPC later today.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: marko on November 09, 2012, 12:59:23 am
JRMark (version 18.0.70): 3006
JRMark (version 18.0.71): 3113
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: jmone on November 09, 2012, 01:00:59 am
I'm not sure when or if we're going to move to VS2012, but I wanted to give it a try for a build.

I vote that you try it for say... the next 71 Builds!
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: TheLion on November 09, 2012, 01:30:37 am
I also vote for making the switch permanently. I am neurotic enough and open to any kind of placebo effect so to get the impression that this new build feels a touch "snappier". But no, I don't think it sounds better... :P
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Hendrik on November 09, 2012, 01:53:01 am
I personally had some issues with VS2012 when building LAV, so i'm not switching yet myself.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Lasse_Lus on November 09, 2012, 01:57:45 am
i get the message "..not a valid Win32 application."  ?
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Hendrik on November 09, 2012, 03:09:50 am
Sounds like its either using CPU instructions that your CPU doesn't support, or OS features which are too new for you.

Or the good old corrupted download, most likely. :p
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Lasse_Lus on November 09, 2012, 04:19:50 am
Sounds like its either using CPU instructions that your CPU doesn't support

i read about the change to SSE2, even though i dont have a new computer (2005) according to everest it should support it, or am i misreading

Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: AndrewFG on November 09, 2012, 04:27:24 am
There's nothing we've done to help JRMark.

So the differences are entirely the compiler.

The compiler probably is using more SSE by itself.  It's also doing a better job compiling SSE intrinsics (the SSE code we write) into machine code.

Since CPU architectures change with time, it sort of makes sense that a newer compiler can make choices that perform better on newer CPUs.

Following is a quote from the Microsoft document (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh975398.aspx) referenced in the other thread about SSE2.

Quote
Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2) is a previous standard that is supported in Intel and AMD processors. All processors that support NX also support SSE2. Many Windows 8 applications have code paths with the SSE2 instruction set. Performance optimizations in the latest versions of Visual Studio are enhanced to generate SSE2 instructions by default. To prevent these applications from crashing when running on a system without SSE2 support, the SSE2 support requirement is also enforced in Windows 8.

Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: MrHaugen on November 09, 2012, 04:40:54 am
Running on a medium specced Dell Laptop with i5-2540M @ 2.60GHz & win7 pro x64
 
Build 70: 2699
Build 71: 2913

= 7.35% speed increase?

If it does not introduce serious issues, I would say GO for it :)
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: bytestar on November 09, 2012, 05:04:05 am
Running 'Math' benchmark... Score: 1888
Running 'Image' benchmark... Score: 2386
Running 'Database' benchmark... Score: 2577
JRMark (version 18.0.70): 2284

Running 'Math' benchmark... Score: 1887
Running 'Image' benchmark... Score: 2695
Running 'Database' benchmark... Score: 2673
JRMark (version 18.0.71): 2417
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Matt on November 09, 2012, 09:17:29 am
i get the message "..not a valid Win32 application."  ?

They removed XP support.  Lots of people complained (surprise!). 

Fortunately they've released an update to Visual Studio to allow compiling something that runs on XP.  A little more here:

http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/how-to-get-visual-c-2012-vc-11-beta-statically-linked-crt-and-mfc-applications-to-run-on-windows-xp/
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Hendrik on November 09, 2012, 09:30:33 am
At least they released an official CTP update already to allow you to target XP again.

Personally, i think supporting an 11 year old OS is equally bad as supporting equally old CPUs without SSE2. :P
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: TheLion on November 09, 2012, 11:40:09 am
They removed XP support.  Lots of people complained (surprise!). 

Fortunately they've released an update to Visual Studio to allow compiling something that runs on XP.  A little more here:

http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/how-to-get-visual-c-2012-vc-11-beta-statically-linked-crt-and-mfc-applications-to-run-on-windows-xp/

Are you saying my fancy Windows Me system isn't working either??  :'(

Scandalo!
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: MrHaugen on November 09, 2012, 12:24:31 pm
Ruling out XP would not be a great idea.... Yet. There's still quite a few around.
If it's easy to make it compile for XP, I have little problem with it.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: TheLion on November 09, 2012, 01:41:42 pm
Yes, the problem is that Vista was so bad that many lost faith in MS and just sticked with XP . It seems history repeats itself with Windows 8 - I guess most will stick to Win7 and even XP.

On the other hand still continuing to support an 11 years old OS (as in making sure every new feature runs there as well) requires many ressources from Matt and Co and therefor gets more and more in the way of progress.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: MrHaugen on November 09, 2012, 02:08:51 pm
I know. We have a lot of this kind of decisions in our company as well. It's not exactly fun stuff. But I think the best time to do this switch is to follow Microsoft's own end of support plans. That will give JRiver a very good argument as well. As far as I know, this is the current plan for End of Support.

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003
Support Ends April 8, 2014
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: jmone on November 09, 2012, 02:25:56 pm
But it is also a balance of what limitations are being placed on those with current OS?  Eg we are seeing good performance bumps in the above posts, so to keep with the old compiler is now a deliberate decision to sacrifice performance for those with a current OS.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: MrHaugen on November 09, 2012, 02:48:26 pm
OPERATING SYSTEM TOTAL MARKET SHARE    
Windows 7   40.42%
Windows XP   36.02%
Windows Vista   5.03%

Other OS not mentioned. This is from October.

With those numbers in mind, you have to think about those 36%. Even though many of them are company computers, there's still a lot of potential users on this aging platform.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: glynor on November 09, 2012, 05:13:44 pm
At least they released an official CTP update already to allow you to target XP again.

Personally, i think supporting an 11 year old OS is equally bad as supporting equally old CPUs without SSE2. :P

Hah!  I'm with you on this, nev.
Title: Re: Media Center 18.0.71 [experimental]
Post by: Craig on November 11, 2012, 02:38:48 pm
I got fed up of chasing the latest and greatest,
my main PC is an intel 6600 2.4G running XP and it still does everything I want (well unless it won't run MC anymore)

Craig