
                ---------------------------
                ModPlug Player User's Guide
                ---------------------------


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                 HOW TO USE MODPLUG PLAYER ?
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[SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS]
- 486DX2-66 minimum (Pentium 100MHz highly recommended).
- Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51 or higher.
- A soundcard with 32-bit drivers.

SETUP:
------

  Clicking on the Setup button will bring a 4 property pages
  dialog:

  - Soundcard Setup:
  ------------------
    * Mixing quality:
      Select the output quality (A CD-ROM is 44.1KHz).
      If you don't want to take too much CPU, 32KHz is a good
      compromise between CPU and audio quality.
      A 32-channels IT module played at 48KHz,stereo with Tri-Linear
      oversampling can take up to 90% of the CPU on a DX2-66.
      Note: I noticed that 48KHz output can create noise on some
      sound cards, like the AWE32 -> 44.1KHz could be better in this case.

    * Stereo:
      This will create a stereo output.
      Playing in mono takes less CPU than in stereo.
      You need to have the stereo option enabled to hear panning
      effects and surround sound.

    * 16-Bit:
      You are strongly advised to use this option, unless your
      soundcard doesn't support stereo playback.
      Playing in 8-bit mode doesn't decrease the CPU usage.

    * Sound buffer length and Number of buffers:
      This option configure the size of the buffer sent to the soundcard.
      (Total length = SoundBufferLength*NumberOfBuffers milliseconds)
      If you are using a small buffer, the player will respond faster
      when you change the player options or move the Pre-Amp slider.
      At the same time, if the PC is very busy in a multitasking
      environment, the sound may get cut from time to time.
      The default settings should work fine, but you may want to increase
      it if you are using CPU-intensive applications, or decrease it if
      you have a very fast PC.

    * Stereo Separation:
      This allows you to control the stereo separation between right and
      left channel. You may want to decrease it with headphones, or increase
      it to feel a stronger stereo. This works only in stereo mode.

    Note: If you choose a setting that your soundcard doesn't support,
      the player will ignore it.

  - Player Setup:
  ---------------

    * Spectrum analyzer:
      When this option is checked, ModPlug Player will display the frequency
      spectrum of the sound (using Fourier analyzis). This takes more CPU and
      doesn't affect the quality of the sound. When the player window is behind
      another window or is minimized, the spectrum is not calculated and doesn't
      take any CPU. The frequencies in the spectrum display range from 86Hz
      to 11KHz (There is 44-bands).

    * Stereo Spectrum:
      When this option is checked, together with the Spectrum Analyzer, the
      player will display one spectrum for the left and right channels.
      (In this case, there is 2x21 bands in the spectrum, and the range
      for each channel is from 86Hz to 8KHz). It doesn't take more CPU than
      the mono spectrum analyzer. (You need to play in stereo mode to use this
      option, or else you'll see the same on each channels, duh!)

    * Enable Tri-Linear oversampling:
      You better have a fast CPU to use this option.
      By default , the player is using a regular linear oversampling to create
      a smooth sound. At the same time, the linear oversampling decreases a
      little bit the magnitude of the sound. This is done by using a algorithm
      based on B-Spline curves to smooth up the sound: your pentium is doing the
      work of a DSP! This takes A LOT of CPU time (about double).
      If you have a fast CPU, you can try to try with and without it: if you
      don't hear the difference, don't use it (If you have good speakers and
      good ears, you should hear a difference).

    * Reverb:
      This will create a echo on the sound with 12% depth and 0.2s delay.
      It doesn't sound really good on all modules, but sometimes it sounds
      damn good.

    * Force surround for all channels:
      This options sends all the channels to the surround speakers,
      according to the Dolby Pro-Logic surround specs. Well, actually,
      it's a pseudo surround, since the spec says that the right channel
      must have a 90deg phase with the left channel. In the player,
      the right channel with a 180deg phase with the left channel.
      Use it only with a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder, or else the sound
      will sound weird.

    * Disable Oversampling:
      This option will completely disable the oversampling. Unless you
      have a 486SX-25, you should use this option. Try without it, and
      if you don't hear a difference, go see your doctor.

    * Enable Oversampling control by Amiga filter command:
      This option allows the song to control the oversampling option.
      I don't think you should use it, but on some Amiga modules, they
      were using this option to control the hardware filter.
      A very few modules are using the filter control command anyway.
      (Commands ProTracker E00/E01 and ScreamTracker S00/S01)

  - Directories:
  --------------

      * Songs Directory:
        You can enter the path where your mods are located, and the
        player will automatically go to this directory when running.

      * Register Extensions:
        This makes Windows use ModPlug player as the default player
        for all the modules recognized. After clicking this button,
        you can open a song just by double-clicking it in the Windows
        Explorer. If "Use DDE" is selected, each time you open a mod
        it will stay in the same window, or else Windows will open
        another ModPlug Player Window.

  - Packing:
  ----------

      The slider allows you to control the quality of packing for the
      Pack As command, and give you information about which samples
      would be packed in the current song. The compression used to pack
      the samples is ADPCM, which can make the file size twice smaller.
      If the compression quality is low, more samples will be packed,
      but you may lose quality. If the compression quality is high, you
      probably won't lose any quality, but less samples will be packed.

OPEN:
-----
  Opens a file or a module list.
  The following file types are supported in the current version:
    - *.669: UNIS 669, 669 Composer modules.
    - *.IT:  Impulse Tracker modules.
    - *.MED: OctaMed modules.
    - *.MOD: ProTracker modules (4-32 channels, 15/31 samples).
    - *.MOL: Module lists, compatible with MOD4WIN.
    - *.MTM: MultiTracker modules.
    - *.NST: NoiseTracker modules.
    - *.S3M: ScreamTracker III modules.
    - *.ULT: UltraTracker modules (in alpha).
    - *.WOW: Grave Composer modules.
    - *.XM:  FastTracker modules.
    - All the above when zipped (*.MDZ, *.S3Z, *.XMZ, *.ITZ, *.ZIP).

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                       SHORTCUT KEYS
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Ctrl-O:    Open a file
Ctrl-S:    Save the current file
Ctrl-D:    Delete the current file (useful to remove crappy mods)
Del:       Remove the current file from the playing list
Shift+Del: Clear the playing list
Space:     Jump to next song

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                          HISTORY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1.06:
-----
- Added stereo separation option.
- Added stereo samples support in IT modules.
- Fixed bug with ping-pong loop with a non-zero loopstart.

1.05:
-----
- Added Ping-Pong loop support.
- Fixed NNA bug with looping samples.
- Fixed divide error when skipping to next mod in an empty list and shuffle.
- Added beta STM loader.

1.04:
-----
- Added automatic click removal.
- Added Set 64K Offset support in IT modules.
- Fixed bug in S3M detection function (some S3Ms were loaded as MODs)
- You can now drag & drop list files (*.mol).

1.03:
-----
- Fixed crash when loading IT modules with a lot of instruments.
- Fixed problem with some files playing too low.
- Added Tri-Linear oversampling option (P133+ recommended)
- Fixed S3M bug with non-looping samples having a loopend < length.
- Added Stereo Spectrum option.

1.02:
-----
- Added "Edit" button.
- Fixed finetune bug in XM modules.
- Added "Details" button.

1.01:
-----
- This version fixes most of the 1.00 bugs.
- You can now use the Open button for both lists and modules.
- Command line, Drag & Drop, and DDE bugs fixed.
- Added NNA/DNC effects in IT modules.
- Added beta ULT support.

1.00:
-----
- First public release of ModPlug Player (Actually a beta)

