MPXPLAY v1.40
Audio Mpeg 1.0,2.0 Layer II & III player
for DOS & SB16
from PDSoft

Mpxplay is a shareware product (not freeware)
and its use in a business, commercial, government, or institutional environment
requires registration.
The registration fee for the use of Mpxplay on one computer is $25 .
The registration of Mpxplay for personal at-home use is not required.
The registration also isn't required for any kind of distribution (only for usage).
 (the selling of my program (in itself) for money is not allowed,
  but you may put it to the CD of a computer news)
Business, commercial, government, and institutional Mpxplay users are permitted
a free 15 day period for the evaluation of Mpxplay.

Known bugs and limitations:
- interrupt decoding (-bp) works with low level sound card access only (SB16 & WSS)
- can't delete from extended playlist (-@x & -ig)
- random play isn't really random
- program sometimes shows bad alltime/allframe (at too many files)
- program may halts in win95/98 dos window
- you cannot crossfade from WAV to MP2/MP3 (and back too)
- volume correction is a software correction (the surround also)
  because of this sometimes there is a little quality bug on some songs 
  (large dinamic range,low average volume)
- program doesn't support MPEG 2.0 and 2.5 (16,22,24,8,11,12khz) in MP2
- the MIDAS can play 44100hz and 22050hz audio files only
- the spectrum analiser and the sound correction is not perfect yet
- in double dma mode the spectrum analiser fails a little bit
- in MIDAS: - the CPU usage shows a bad number (far from correct number)
            - sometimes it may crash the program
            - uses more CPU (interpolate sound)
            - the SBpro compatible cards sounds with 8 bit only (bad quality)
- the analiser doesn't work under wav playing
- mouse button step (right & middle button) sometimes too fast (steps more,solution:-pl 0)
- may be some display bugs too
- missing error messages

Plans (don't request them):
- GUS MAX support
- LCD display support (please send me C sources for it)
- keyboard reconfig file
- config file for all settings
- if you have source or document for a soundcard what my program doesn't support,
  please send me, and I will try to implement it

Additional informations:

-you can create a playlist in dos with the DIR /B/ON > PLAYLIST.M3U command

- MPXPLAY.EXE *.*     : the program loads *.MP? and *.WAV filenames from 
                        current directory and uses it like a playlist
  MPXPLAY.EXE *.*\*.* : searching in subdirectories too
  (of course you can give other mask too: subd*.*\tra*.MP?)

-You can use my program for editing the ID3 TAGS on this way:
 make a text file with this form (max.12 chars filename+2 space+artist:title):

filename1  artist1:title1
filename2  artist2:title2
filename3  artist3:title3

 name it to !FILES and run my program with these options:

 MPXPLAY.EXE -iw !FILES -@ playlist.m3u

 (the listfile is same like playlist file, but with artist & title)
 and the program will write the artist & title to the end of mp3 files.

-EXTENDED PLAYLIST: you can create an extended playlist with 
 '-is EXTLIST.MXU -ist 448 -@ PLAYLIST.M3U' options and you can load it 
 with '-@x EXTLIST.MXU' or '-@ PLAYLIST.M3U -ig EXTLIST.MXU' options

-SOUND CARD SETTING:
 Low Level Sound Card Access:
  (the program doesn't initialize the cards, and doesn't set the mixer channels, 
  you must set them with the mixerset program of your card)
  -SB16: you must set a DOS environment variable like this: 
         SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5
   (of course you must change the port, dma & irq numbers to your configuration)
   (I think so the Vibra Chip isn't 100% SB16 compatible, so maybe you get some
    extra bugs on it)

  -WSS : SET WSS=A530 I7 D1 (the same settings, what you use in MIDAS configuration)

 -MIDAS: the MIDAS Sound System supports more sound cards (-m), and by default 
  it tries to detect them automatically, you can configure it manually (-mm),
  save the manual settings to a file (-ms cnffile.cnf) and at next start
  load it (-ml cnffile.cnf)(you must give full path with the filename)

-DDMA : the double dma option (32k -> 64k) doesn't works in MIDAS Sound System, 
 only at low level sound card access (SB16 or WSS)

-LESS CPU USAGE: the program uses less cpu time without spectrum analiser, 
 volume correction, surround and volume meter
 (with -fe or -ff and without -pva and -psr option)

-PLAYLIMIT: cuts (don't write to the output) the signal below "playlimit"
 it doesn't play (only decode) while and it finishes the play (exit or step to
 next song in playlist) in last 400 frame when volume is bellow or equal
 to playlimit

-TEST MODE: in test mode (-t) the program write the output nowhere and you can 
 test the speed of your computer and my program, you get the results in the end 
 of running the relativ index value is that: 100% needed to play (2297 frame/min)

-VERBOSE: in verbose mode (-v) you get more informations (header info:layer,bitrate,etc.,
 ,ID3tag info:artist,title,year,...)(use it for -f0 or -fl)

-I have an Intel PII processor, and I can optimize for that cpu only

Spped test results on 128kbit MP3 & 256kbit MP2 
(test: mpxplay.exe -t -ff -bl file.mp3 ; play: mpxplay.exe -fl file.mp3):

 On Cyrix MX 200+ (2*75) with SDRAM and noname TX mainboard
  MPXPLAY 1.30:     MP3:  9259 frames/min, index:403.1%,  CPU:25-26%
		    MP2: 12228 frames/min, index:532.4%,  CPU:19-20%

    DOSAMP 0.8:     MP3:  CPU:34%
		    MP2:  CPU:28%

 On Intel PII 250mhz (2.5*100) with PC100 SDRAM and ASUS BX mainboard

  MPXPLAY 1.40:     MP3: 42660 frames/min, index:1857.3%  CPU:6%
                    MP2: 62052 frames/min, index:2701.6%  CPU:4%

    DOSAMP 0.8:     MP3:  CPU:9.8%
                    MP2:  CPU:9.5%

  XTC-PLAY 0.97c:   MP3:  CPU:13-14%
                    MP2:  CPU:11-12%
