Stereo Tool

Hello,

I've just downloaded Stereo Tool 4.0.4 and install it with Winamp.

But after run Winamp and play a song, the sound get very bad as streaming from the Internet but with a very very slow connection.

So, for now I ask for the minimum requirements to run ST (since the CPU with ST always at 99% of its work, ). And how to fix this issue?

My sound-card is CMI9739a (From C-Media).

Thanks for helping me!

The minimum requirements depend on your settings! So if it doesn't run properly, please try the following:
- If you're only LISTENING to music, not broadcasting or anything, use the "Generic presets", not the web radio, FM or AM presets. The latter attempt to squeeze the most volume out of the sound, which requires a lot of CPU power, but for normal listening that's not necessary.
- You can change the "Quality" setting to reduce the CPU load.

The type of sound card doesn't matter, the only things that really influences the performance of Stereo Tool are the CPU and memory speeds.

Thank you for your quick reply.

My CPU is Dual Core 2.4GHz, socket 478. RAM is 768MB DDR333.

I've tried all the presets and still (Those of GENERIC), even when I set the CPU usage (Quality to Lo), the listening experiece still very bad.

Is this issue related to the bitrates of the MP3 file?

Sorry for the slow reply - I was on holiday

A dual core 2.4 GHz should have no problems at all with Stereo Tool. The RAM is a bit slow, but especially for the Generic presets there should be no problem at all.

BUT, if the CPU load is 99% it seems to be overloaded regardless. What happens when you turn ALL the processing off? (eg. just press the RESET button and then play some music). Also, can you try what happens when you set the "screen refresh speed" slider all the way to the left?

You are playing MP3s, right? Are you using the normal MP3 decoder that's in Winamp by default, or have you downloaded another one?

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I think the main problem is the CPU, so I decided to adapt a new one and this time every thing gone smoothly.

Thanks for your kindly support!

Cheers!

I have tried the demo and found my old computer will barely run it even with everything switched off (but not bypassed)! So I am building a new one. What do you recommend for running the full works; gate, AGC, 10-band compressor/limiter, Bass booster, filters, Final limiter, FM pre-emphasis, stereo encoding and RDS?

I was surprised at the heavy processor load as I have found that I can run Thomasino's Sound Solution on an 800MHz PIII.

I suppose that's with the latest version (6.21)? If you turn everything off it should use nearly nothing - could you try turning the screen updates off to see if it's that?

You won't be able to run it properly on an 800 MHz machine though - unless you do indeed turn nearly everything off. If that was still the speed of modern PC's I would have written something that works on that type of hardware - but the result would be far less good.