useful free software for running programs from ram memory

[Tim]

Maybe one of these could do the job. http://www.apple.com/uk/macbookair/

Sorry Dave, I wouldn't have one of those if you gave it to me, it would go straight on eBay
Doesn't make me a bad person though

[AlexM]

Hi,

I think that there is a misconception here in that there will always be activity on the PCIe bus whether or not the HDD is active or not, from the the display adapter, network chipset, sound cards etc.

The operating system will be accessing the paging file as a matter of course as well, preventing any inactivity timer from spinning the drive down.

Having said all of that, I have noticed some noise break-through on the headphone socket of my laptop during intensive disk access on my laptop, but I wouldn't expect this to affect a SPDIF or USB output. I put this down to careless EMI suppression on the analogue output stage, but I doubt anyone with high SQ aspirations would be using an onboard sound card in this way anyway!.

In my own case, I use a remote NAS server (Thecus N5200Pro) with a wired ethernet connection via a switch to a wireless router and directly into a squeezebox touch. That way, the server is a long way away from the listening room, so mechanical noise, induced jitter, OS driver or mixer issues or other problems potentially affecting a local music server/client are irrelevant.

I think for a digital music solution, seperating the roles of client and 'audio renderer' has significant advantages, not least because you don't need to interact directly with a PC desktop. You could still use a diskless/headless quiet PC client in conunction with squeezeboxserver via squeezeplay, controlling the whole lot through an iPad running iPeng or similar.

There are lots of possible solutions, and I do feel that computer audio will remain somewhat problematic for the majority who can't or aren't interested in a fairly complicated computer-based solution. For them I would say that Squeezeboxserver / SBT and a good Dac is an excellent platform with less to cause audiophilia nervosa.

BTW, thanks for the ramdisk tip - it has speeded up my browsing considerably!.

Regards,
Alex

[alfie2902]

Well, this memory player software is not free but there is a downloadable free trial.

For the last couple of weeks or so, I've been trying out the trial version of a memory based audio player for the Windows 7(or vista) platform, called JPLAY. So far I'm pretty impressed with the sound quality it's a step up on Foobar IMO.

The idea behind JPLAY is ultimate sound quality & it's certainly very good, but to get the extra quality it's a very minimal player at only 250KB & has no GUI, File management or playlist support! Its stripped-down, bare-bones playback engine fits completely inside CPU cache & will allow you to pick tracks from Foobar, JRiver etc by copy & paste method. JPLAY then pre-loads the complete chosen tracks into the PC's RAM guaranteeing zero disk operation during playback. There's a few options to choose from & it's pretty easy to get up & running. One of it's main features is 'hibernation' mode, Your PC is used for audio playback only, this kills all unneeded processes from running in the background during the hibernation. A drawback to this is your PC is locked into hibernation until the chosen tracks have been played i.e no browsing or nothing. Hibernation is an option, so you can choose a little less sound quality to be able to use your PC during playback, but this does kind of defeat the point. You can use the player from a USB memory stick & removing the stick will stop the hibernation if needed.

Here's a link to the website for more info & it's full features. There's 32 & 64bit downloadable trials, it does drop out for a couple of secs every 2 or 3 mins or so but it's good enough to see what it's about! It does though cost 99Euro for a single license of the full version.

JPLAY claims
Full memory-based playback: most other memory-based players dynamically load tracks into memory during playback. In contrast, JPLAY pre-loads complete playlist into RAM guaranteeing no disk activity during playback.
Large Page Memory: superior memory management provides minimal CPU latencies.
Maximum System Timer: reduce operating system latency by making Windows switch tasks faster. (0.5ms instead of default 15.6ms)
Maximal Priority Scheduling: ensure uninterrupted flow of music data by running music playback at highest possible priority.
Hibernation Mode: cancel OS ‘noise’ by eliminating dozens of jitter-inducing processes and hundreds of threads.

http://jplay.eu/

Review here http://www.digitalaudioreview.net.au...er-for-windows

It does seem to lift a veil & offers improved low end performance & better separation over what I'm hearing with Foobar, infact as good as I've heard in a player, but at some expense, in cost & ease of use in file management.

Well worth a trial if you use a Windows 7 PC set-up IMO.

Edit: 2nd thoughts, I think this software is that good it deserves it's own thread! that's here http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12735

[dave2010]

Sorry Dave, I wouldn't have one of those if you gave it to me, it would go straight on eBay
Doesn't make me a bad person though

Agree it doesn't make you a bad person, but misguided perhaps. They seem really nice machines, though I don't yet know whether Lion is going to be better/worse/just the same as Snow Leopard.

Now have my hands on one of these, so may be able to test if the SSD drives will work, though not in a rush to do this.

[Tim]

Agree it doesn't make you a bad person, but misguided perhaps.

that's an Apple users response for sure..... yep, I'm misguided and I have yet to see the light.