forcer

I listen to musicc whenever i am on my computer using winamp simply because its stable and small. but as new versions are being released its alot more intense on my computer because of all its special effects and skins, so heres a little guide i come up with when trying to bring down its cpu usage but still have it looking nice.


First of all download & install winamp 5 and apply this skin:
http://www.winamp.com/skins/details.php?id=122902

Load the player and double click anywhere on the players interface(not the buttons) doing this should transform it into a flat, long skin.
Move it to the top of your desktop and it should snap automatically when it gets close enough, then centre it.

Right click on the player and go to Options > Preferences.
Click General Preferences then manage your language and connection and make sure every box on this form is unticked.

Move the Priority Class all the way down to "IDLE"

Move to the File Types section and disable winamp agent, select an icon of your choice and choose the file types you want to assiociate with winamp.

Untick "restore file assosiations at winamp start-up"

NOTE" unticking this box will not asossiate your selected file types back to winamp if another program steals them so make sure any programs you install are configured not to take them.

Now visit "Modern Skins" options and change the settings as follows:

General Tab
Timers Resolution: 250ms (all the way down to Choppier, uses less CPU)
Text Scroll Speed: Average(centre the slider)
Untick Enable tooltips in the Misc Section


Alpha Blending
Untick Enable Alpha Blending

Tick "Link all windows in all skins" and choose:
Auto Opaque on Hover and set Transparent to 10%.

Move "Fade In", "Hold" and "Fade Out" sliders all the way down to 0

Finally select Plugins Section and set the priority to idle

Exit the options and right click again but this time select "Always On Top"

and you are now done.

so what will this do for you?
well if you followed the instructions correctly(or if i explained them correctly :P) then it should load alot faster.
Its also positions and set to be out of your way... you will notice it looks like its not there but if you look closely you can see it very faintly. simply hover this and u can see it fully then when ur not hovering it fades away. There is also no icons or bars bogging up your task bar.

you can also make winamp start up with windows and letit sit at the top all the time.. and whenever u click a song there wont even be a loading time.

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i know this aint much of a tweak but it helps your computer run smoother... i hope this has been helpful to people

mike forcer

Led

And if you like a good VJ-show synced to your music, be sure to get the BeatHarness plugin

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XxFirebrandxX

Wow! Awesome tutorial! I checked the task manager and instead ofusing up about 20mb of my system memory, it's now only using 7mb. I'll have to see if there will be any performance decreases whileplaying video games. Games like Warcraft are perfect forlistening to music