README for the Windows version of SIDPLAY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ April 10 version (2000) This file isn't meant as a complete manual, simply as a brief description of the features of SIDPLAY/Windows What is SIDPLAY/Windows? SIDPLAY is a music player and SID chip emulator written by Michael Schwendt . For info on SIDPLAY and SID files, go to the SIDPLAY home page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147/ SIDPLAY/Windows is a port of SIDPLAY to the MS Windows environment. The Windows port and user interface is written by Adam Lorentzon . INSTALLATION Simply copy the SIDPLAYW.EXE file to a directory of your choice, add an icon to it and you're done. If you wish to run the 32-bit version under Windows 3.1, you will need Win32s. It can be obtained from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/ . The 32-bit version is almost twice as fast as the 16-bit version. If you want SIDPLAY to start playing a file when it is double-clicked, you need to associate the file extension (usually .dat) with SIDPLAY: Windows 3.1: In the File Manager, choose File|Associate, enter the extension, press Browse, browse to where you put SIDPLAYW.EXE and press OK. Windows 95: In the Explorer, hold the shift key and right-click on a file with the extension you want to associate. Choose Open With, press Browse, browse to where you put SIDPLAYW.EXE and press OK. USAGE - DESCRIPTION OF THE MENU The file menu has five entries: Open, Save as, Conversion, Properties and Exit. File|Open: (Shortcut - Alt + O or Ctrl + O) Opens a standard Windows file open dialog, from which you can choose a sid music file to open and start playing. If you open a SIDPLAY playlist, it will be loaded and the first entry will start playing. File|Save as: (Shortcut - Ctrl + S) Asks for a filename and the type of file to be saved. If no extensions is specified, the extension corresponding to the chosen file type will be added to the filename before saving. If the Windows PCM file format is chosen, a WAV file is saved using the settings in the Settings|Wav dialog box. During the creation of the WAV file, a progression dialog will show how much is done. It also has a cancel button, which if pressed will abort the save process and delete the partially saved WAV file. (Note that the old shortcut for saving WAV files, Alt + W, still works although the explicit menu option is removed.) File|Conversion: (Shortcut - Alt + C) Dialog for converting sid files to a specified format. For example, suppose you've got a dir full of sid files in DAT+SID format. Use the filter to show all *.dat files, set destination directory to the same as the source, convert all files with the overwrite option, making the PSID files (.sid) overwrite the old .sid files, and the delete source files option, removing the old .dat files and you've replaced all DAT+SID files with a corresponding SID file in PSID format. Be a little careful with the overwriting and deleting though, make sure you have a backup if something goes wrong. File|Properties: Shows information about the sid file currently loaded. File|Copy filename: (Shortcut - Ctrl + C) Copies the full pathname of the currently loaded sidfile to the clipboard. If the '"File-Copy filename" is relative to the HVSC base dir' option is checked, the path relative the HVSC base dir is copied to the clipboard. File|Exit: (Shortcut - Alt + X) Terminates the program. --- The view menu controls which windows apart from the main window that are shown. It has four entries: Mixer, Filter, Directory-based UI and Playlist. View|Mixer: In the mixing dialog, you can control the volume level and the Left-Right panning of the individual SID voices here. Panning is not available in mono. If HQ mixing mode is selected you only have limited control over the panning, a sort of blending of the left and right stereo channels. With manual panning, you can set the panning position of each voice. With auto-panning, the panning position changes during the duration of the note, creating cool effects. Centered auto-panning works like auto-panning, except that the pan position starts in the middle, which gives a more balanced, not so jumpy, mix. Switching off the mixer uses a somewhat faster algorithm. View|Filter: This window controls the three parameters to the adjustable SID-filter emulation. You can also switch off the filter to gain speed. View|Directory-based UI: (Shortcut - Alt + D) Toggles a file-selection window which looks like the main window in SIDPLAY/DOS. Use the mouse or the arrow keys to select a drive, directory or file and press enter or double-click to change to the selected drive/ directory or start playing the selected file. Backspace takes you up one directory. Entering an alphanumeric key highlights the first entry that begins with that character. Repeated use of the same key will highlight the next entry beginning with that character. Pressing the Filter button lets you choose which files that will be shown in the directory window. If you press the delete-key when a file is selected, a confirmation box will appear, and if you select Yes the file will be deleted. View|Playlist: This window shows the current playlist. Double-click an entry to play it. Press the Edit button to open the Playlist Edit dialog. --- The settings menu is for configuring the program and has six entries: Play, Wav, Emulation, Directory UI, Extensions and Device. Settings|Play: Controls the quality of the sound: frequency, resolution and channels: Frequency can be chosen between 4000 and 48000 Hz. 8-bit or 16-bit output. Mono or stereo output. (The reSID engine only supports mono output.) The number and size of buffers can be increased if the music is stuttering, and there are gaps in the music when you're running other programs. If you want faster response time, lower the size of the buffers. Higher frequency, stereo and 16-bit output all increase the CPU demand, so you might have to do with a little lower sound quality if you have a 486 or a slow Pentium. Settings|Wav: Here you set the type of WAV file that will be written when you choose File|Save as WAV. You also choose how long the WAV file will be in seconds. Be careful not to record too long files - the required filesize is shown at the bottom of the dialog. Settings|Emulation: Memory model: This option controls how the bank-switching works. Full bank-switching is just like the real commodore. The other options are provided for compatibility. Clock speed: PAL and NTSC commodores plays some sids at different speeds. Without the force clock speed option checked, this setting doesn't matter (actually, for sids that use the CIA timer, the speed will differ with factor of 1.038). SIDPLAY will play the sids as the composer intended them to sound. If you want to hear the music at the same speed it played on your commodore, choose clock speed and check the force play speed option. Waveforms: The combined waveforms will use a table lookup with values recorded from a MOS-6581 R4 (old SID chip) or a MOS-8580 R5 (new SID chip), depending on this choise. Measured ADSR envelope master volume: Using measured values instead of theoretical. SID emulation: Choose between the original emulation engine and the new cycle-based reSID engine. Note that the filter and mixer features and the stereo output are not available when the reSID engine is chosen. The oversampling option for reSID can improve sound quality, but uses a lot of processor power. For more information about the emulation settings, please visit the SIDPLAY home page. Settings|Directory UI: Configure the appearance of the files in the Directory UI. Select between short or long filenames, lower, upper or mixed(original)-case filenames. Select the order in which the files, directories and drives appear in the listbox. Settings|Extensions: This dialog lets you specify which extensions SIDPLAY will use for the different file formats. These extensions will be used in the File|Open, File|Save As and File|Conversion dialogs. (AWB stands for Amiga Workbench icon + ASCII info strings) Settings|HVSC: If you have the High Voltage SID Collection on your hard disk, use this dialog to tell SIDPLAY in which directory the collection resides. This is also where the settings for the STIL View are found. You can customize the type of STIL entries to be shown and whether the STIL View window should auto-size, and in that case, what maximum height it will auto-size to. More information about STIL in the chapter below about STIL View. The "File-Copy filename" option affects the filename copied to the clipboard when Ctrl+C is pressed, see File|Copy filename. Settings|Device: Choose the preferred output device: * Soundcard - the default output device. If several soundcards are installed, choose the preferred one. * Commodore 64 - if the PC is connected to a C64 through a PC64 cable, this option will play the sids on the C64. Note that sidloader_pc64.prg must be run on the C64 before this device is selected. * HardSID - The HardSID ISA card is used to play the sids. Select the device number that was chosen in the HardSID setup program. * None - This option is for those who want to run SIDPLAY on a system without a soundcard. PLEASE NOTE: The Commodore 64 and HardSID output is still very experimental and will not work for all sidtunes. In particular, digi tunes will not work with HardSID and often not with Commodore 64 either. Many settings such as speed setting, filter and mixer will not have an effect when the HardSID or Commodore 64 output is used. Settings|General: * Recall main volume settings - will, if checked, save the main volume setting when SIDPLAY is closed, and restore it the next time SIDPLAY is run. * "Author: Title" as window title - will, if checked, show the author and title, instead of the filename, of the current sid in the window title. * Enable hot keys - toggles the use of SIDPLAY's hot keys (see GLOBAL HOTKEYS). --- The help menu has only one entry: About. Help|About: Shows information about the program, such as authors, whether it is the win16, win32s or win32 version, which version of the emulation engine is used and what date it was created. It also shows how long you have listened to SID music: First line shows how much you've listened the current session, last line shows how much you've listened since you installed the April 24 version. The value is stored in the SIDPLAYW.INI file, so if you want to keep the statistics, don't delete it when you upgrade. USAGE - OTHER A filename can be given on the command line, so associating SIDPLAY with the .sid extension might be a good idea. If you have SIDPLAY open you can drag a sidfile or playlist from the File Manager (Explorer in Windows 95) and drop it on the main window and it will start playing. PLAYLIST EDITOR: To the left is the directory window. Use this to navigate to the sidtunes you want to add to the playlist. To the right is the playlist. Adding sidtunes to the playlist: To add sids to the list, mark them in the directory window and press the [Add] button. Double-clicking a single sid will also add it. Press the [Add all] button if you want to add all the sids in the directory to the list. If the "Add subsongs" checkbox is marked, adding a sid with subtunes will add an entry to the list for each subtune. If there is a number in the "Default playtime" edit box, the added entries will have the same playtime as in the box. Removing sidtunes from the playlist: Doubleclick an entry, or highlight it and press [Remove] to remove it from the list. [Remove all] will empty the list. Ordering the tunes in the list: Highlight a tune and press the [Up] or [Down] button to move it towards the beginning or the end of the list. List properties: If the "Repeat" check box is marked, the list will start playing from the beginning of the list when it has reached the end. Otherwise it stops. Normal play order means that the entries are played in the same order as they are in the list. Random order means that each time there is time to choose a new entry, it is randomly chosen from the list. List entry properties: Highlight a list entry to see its properties: the filename of the sid file, the name, author and copyright of the sid, the subsong that will be played and the time it will be played. The subsong and playtime can be edited. Loading and saving playlists: Straightforward - press the [Load] button to load a new playlist or the [Save] button to save the current list. NOTE: when a new list is loaded, or the program is terminated, the changes made to the playlist will be lost unless they're saved first. No warning will be issued! STIL VIEW: The High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) has a file, STIL.txt, in the DOCUMENTS directory. STIL is short for SidTune Information List. From the FAQ (STIL.faq): " The SID Tune Information List (STIL) contains information about the SID tunes found in the HVSC beyond the standard TITLE, AUTHOR, and COPYRIGHT information. STIL goes a little deeper listing SID tune information that only a true SID freak would enjoy. Such information listed in STIL includes cover information, interesting facts, useless trivia, comments on the tunes by the composers themselves, etc. The STIL, though, is limited to factual data and does not try to provide an encyclopedia about every original artist. " The STIL View shows the information in the STIL about the current sid loaded. The various types of information to be shown can be turned on/off in the Settings|HVSC dialog. If the STIL View is set to auto-size, the window will adjust its size to show the entire STIL entry. Because some STIL entries are quite long, there is a maximum height that the STIL View will auto-size to, also adjustable from the settings dialog. Double-clicking in the STIL View window closes it. The STIL View also shows entries from the BUGlist.txt document, with information about tunes in the HVSC that are incomplete or flawed. If you want to add to, or correct the STIL, please read the STIL.faq document in the DOCUMENTS directory of the HVSC. TABLE OF SHORTCUT KEYS: Alt+P = Play/Pause Alt+S = Start/Stop playing Ctrl+O = Open file Alt+O = Open file Ctrl+S = Save as Alt+W = Save as Wav Alt+C = The conversion dialog Alt+D = Show/Hide the directory window Alt+X = Terminates the program Alt+Left = Previous entry in playlist Alt+Right = Next entry in playlist Alt+Up = Next subsong Alt+Down = Previous subsong Alt+1 = 1x play speed Alt+2 = 2x play speed Alt+4 = 4x play speed GLOBAL HOTKEYS: (works even when SIDPLAY is in the background) Ctrl+Alt+P = Play/Pause Ctrl+Alt+S = Start/Stop playing Ctrl+Alt+Left = Previous entry in playlist Ctrl+Alt+Right = Next entry in playlist Ctrl+Alt+Up = Next subsong Ctrl+Alt+Down = Previous subsong Instead of Ctrl+Alt, you can use the [Alt Gr] key, so [Alt Gr]+P = Play/Pause, and so on. --- BUGS Known bugs are: * The sidstation support can only handle single-speed sidtunes without digis reliably, due to the limitation in transfer speed on the MIDI channel. Most double-speed tunes seem to work fine though, but higher speeds will likely fail. The sidstation is not muted on pause. * The HardSID digi support is still a bit flakey, sounding bad on certain tunes. Galway-noise is not supported, neither are the extended sid registers for a second channel of digi playback. * The c64 support doesn't work with all tunes, due to memory conflicts between the playing program and the sidtune. Digi tunes that use PlaySID's extended SID registers do not work either. --- DISTRIBUTION SITES For the latest version of SIDPLAY/Windows, look at these places. The WWW page will have the new version first, as well as the past and future of SIDPLAY/Windows. It also contains PSID files for use with SIDPLAY, and links to other SID resources on the net. WWW: http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/spw BBS: Point of No Return Node 1 (28k8) +49-6039-95934 Node 2 (ISDN) +49-6039-95935 For extensive SIDPLAY and sid music information, like the file formats supported by SIDPLAY, information about how to rip SID music from games or demos and much more, don't miss the original -= SIDPLAY WWW Home Page =- at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/5147/ For the greatest collection of SID tunes on this planet, get The High Voltage SID Collection at http://www.hvsc.c64.org --- THANKS TO Michael Schwendt for everything Dag Lem for the reSID engine LaLa for the STIL View Andreas Varga for various tips Laurent 'lo!lo!' Ovaert for the idea and original source to the PC64 transfer and c64 player Téli Sándor for the HardSID Rainer Sinsch for HardSID sample support ideas and code Justin Beck for a cool show and nice on-air greetings ;) All betatesters for finding bugs, making suggestions and general motivation Jonathan Hunt for drawing the nice icon Alpaslan Deveci (Kris/Clique) for additional icons All C64 composers for the groovy tunes Sid rippers and sid collection organizers for making them available (esp. the High Voltage SID Collection crew) --- CONTACTING THE AUTHOR If you have questions, comments, suggestions or bug reports, don't hesitate to mail me at adam.lorentzon@home.se . The C64 WWW Games page at http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d93-alo/c64/ has links to most C64 resources on the net. Try it! Be well! / Adam Lorentzon