Karaoke Forums

Well... cd+g is only 16 colour. It really is low quality graphics.
MP3's dont need much cpu power.
Back in those days windows came on 7 or 8 floppy disks. Cant remember.
I was a computer engineer when 8086's were new... Oh God I must be ancient.
I know what a 286 can do. Windows then used very little processing power,
Normal memory was 640k with 1 meg top up., and yes 20Mb was normal. 32Mb was real show off.
Anyway the point I was making got totally lost.
The karaoke tracks use little processing power.
Its windows, the karaoke software and anything else running in the background that is heavy on processing power.
The MP3+G is actually very crude. An 8088 could run it.
Most people suffer from using their system generally.
If its dedicated to karaoke... No Internet, No antivirus, and dissable half of windows services, you could get away with a lot,
Best recomendation. Use LINUX
The biggest problem you have is MICROSOFT.

exweedfarmer
Love the banter but please read my post on how to control lighting
and give me a recomendation
Please... pretty please

I don't know that it could be done on a 286 mostly because of the bus speed and you would probably have to write the whole thing in assembly and there's too much rust on my game for that.  I love old computers but even I don't have a 286 any more and 16 bit code died with the Dodo so the point is moot.  If you were feeling inclined to write it though, as I said I will stand on my chair and clap....loudly!

As for midi implementation during music playback.  Ahm, I don't know.  I never wrote a midi player but you are the second person to ask about that so maybe I will have a look-see and get back to you.  I have a sequencer around here somewhere to test it on.

I wouldn't think of doing it on anything less than a 486 machine, and even on those I saw blips of a pause here or there!

Every now and then just for kicks Ill install win 95 on a newer box.. It says windows is copying files This could take awhile... Blurp.... Then it sits there for an hour trying to figure out what usb and other things are...
 Linux 0n a 286 or 386 performs with and eqauls newer machines...
The troulble with softwae is it uses directx and complicated data bases which I dont think DOS assembly could handle Yes I know what MASM 6.0 is and have spent hours debugging programs with thousands of lines...
When the 386 came out I was getting an associates degree in comp I/o...
We started with 650 and Win98 and Cavs to do shows and evolved to Rox ans XP

XP is such a resource hog I am currently shifting to linux for the OS...And most of the Pros with Daws are shifting also to get away from the madness of higher speeds and more expensive boxes...

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When I start doing KJ I will load linux on to my laptop.
Since I havnt used linux for many years, I dont know what is available.
Can you recomend anyany linux cdg player software that has transpose and tempo please

There are a million distros. I use Fedora, but probably Ubuntu is the best current distribution for the end-user.


There is none. There is no usable Linux karaoke software other than pykaraoke, which does work but is probably not suitable for use. It doesn't have key changer or tempo changer capability, and is pretty temperamental.

I am a Linux user, am typing on it at this moment; I have really used nothing else since 1994. But my karaoke machine? Windows.

Oh go on. Burst my bubble why dont you.
Your telling me that the only stable OS we have, hasnt had a programmer write a package for such a crude thing as MP3+G.
No... I think it must be a conspirocy.
The world hates me. No it dosn't. Oh yes it does.
Well linux hates me. Yes it probably does.
I hate me. No I dont... I just come from Liverpool, England.
Were all daft. Laugh if you want to... Wish I could.
You mean I have to run windows...

Does anyone know if Barts stripped down windows could do a better job,?

I know that Karyoker is working to get winamp and Roxbox to work in a form of linux.  Don't know where he is at with this though.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

It took awhile to figure out this procedure but it works fairly well.
 There are two ways to emulate windows One is with Wine the built-in linux tool or Codewavers I did buy it its $30-or $40... It produces the real desktop icons and is maybe easier to use for the first timer.. They also have a beta version for use up to 60 days I think..

A win98 platform is used and there are a few things that need to be installed first to support the display and access data base..

First is ie6.0  It is easiest to setup with an inet connection (pref broadband).. If the one you are installing on does not have inet access use this way

Then download this zip unzip and copy into /home/`user name`

Install in this order..

1. IE 6.0
2. jet
3  madac
4 vbrun

To install roxbox it is necessary to go into winecfg Click on the graphics tab and click the emulate a virtual desktop Set it for 1024x768.. After install it can be eliminated... Install the old skin not the modern winamp For some reason the modern cant be minimized . Something you will like is liniux has multiple workplaces and you can put the winamps or plugins on a different one to view or adjust...

5 roxbox
6 reboot linux system
7 winecfg uncheck virtual emulator
8 copy the mfc42.dll into the system32 folder

If you have audio problems try winecfg audio tab put accelleration on emulation...

Ok this let me import a data base and I havnt really full blown tested it but it is a start!!!!

It worked with ubuntu  and etch..... The big secret with etch is you need to download at least binary disks 1-4  Then after building a repository  In root  apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`


EDIT  If anybody gets this working I would be curious as to which distro & kernel used and note any bugs with Roxbox or S & D....Or any other karaoke software.....

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This is a snapshot of system monitor showing  resource usage during running rox and being online (wireless) pic

Cpu1 & cpu 2 are about 30%  190.5 mb memory used out of 472.9 No swap or virtual being used..

This is with a 3.2 GB 1 MB cache 800 FSB Going into system and dont have the speakers here just listening on head phones or comp speakers I think the sound is equal to or better than windows.. It is super quick When you click on a song the graphics are there in less than a second.. Same with the search... Doesnt miss a beat...

It would run on any older comp like a 650 or so....

For some reason I couldnt paste the reg key in Had to type it in by hand .. The emblems on the fade buttons etc are missing but other than that it is fully functional... I am running with a sata hdd and the get tracks took about 5 minutes...

To start with I was trying to get linux to do things that windows does After running linux I am now trying to get windows to do what linux does and using linux more than windows now...

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Hi Karyoker,
could you please give me your opinion on Win4Lin.
It sounds a bit better than wine, but then I'm not
using linux

Havnt tried it I did try vmware Expensive  It builds a fake c drive then you actually install windows on the c drive..

That seemed to me defeating the purpose of shifting to linux.. Why not just add another HDD?

Prob the best is the beta version of codeweavers...Cross over linux...

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Reading through the forums... You install Win4Lin on linux, then do a full install of 2K or XP. It is apparently far more stable than simply running windows on its own. It will then run all your window apps.
I like the idea of nLite for streamlining windows cos it does contain too many unnessesary tempremental services.

The other day I forgot I was on linux and downloaded a windows software and dble clicked on it.. Crossover popped up and installed it.. It works just fine. I also got cuteftp running great  Its like having the best of both worlds..

The size of the C drive with 3 or4 windows progs is 93.1 MB..

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What's Linux like as far as viruses go.
Must admit I like viruses. I go on warez and crack sites just to get them.
It actually helps me... I earn a bit doing virus removal.
Hey I was asked by a guy the other day to install a stable version of windows.
Told him it is still in the development stage.

Realise that discussing linux and windows on linux may not appear that relevant  to this topic... But... I think it really is.
Could we have some feedback from laptop based KJ's on the stability of their systems, and any measures they feel they have to take.
Pretty please...

The system32 folder in the XP is 560MB with 3549 files..  The system 32 folder in the fake drive is 2.2 MB with 31 files. Its like taking the air filter lid off of a car choked with anti polution crap...

Ive heard that the firewall called shorewall is the best going... There are kids putting basic systems on 512 and gig flash drives. and booting with them If they get a virus they just put in another stick and later on redo it...2.2

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