Hi
My XP computer is getting old. Is there a MP3 player that is easy on resources. It wold need to have a play list
cheers Possum..
I'd recommend VLC player. It's a damn small download, easy on resources, minimalist, but has very powerful capabilities for more advanced use. Oh, and it can play just about any media file you throw at it (which is especially useful for the odd ones like OGG-VORBIS, FLAC, xvid/divx, etc.).
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ well .. since it came out, i've been using winamp you could try that.. or like Jmanamj said, try out VLC. They're both good.
I just use windows media player but it takes up a bit of resources.
None of the above are light. How about Windows' built-in Media Player 6.4? Start it with the command mplayer2. It supports M3U playlists which you can make with another piece of software, e.g. M3UListr.
http://www.softlookup.com/download.asp?id=18831
Alternatively, there's 1by1. | Quote: |
| None of the above are light. How about Windows' built-in Media Player 6.4? |
I'm new to this forum here, but I won't let this one slide.
VLC Player is probably one of the "lightest" media players out there, and is well recommended. Its a very small download and plays a wide variety of file formats, including most video. I have a vey old laptop running a pentium 3 (with XP SP2 installed on it). The poor thing can't handle more than one application at once. VLC player consumed less resources than Windows Media Player (default installed), and didn't freeze the computer.
I think you need to recheck your definition of light, because the Windows Media Player built in to the asker's computer isnt light, and obviously isn't doing the trick. Even if he has a different version installed, or 6.4, I doubt it would tax the CPU any less.Foobar2000 is pretty light. Its what I use and with some customization and addition of components you can have it looking pretty nice, but you probably don't want to do that if you want it to run light. Still the player is very good in my opinion.
| Quote: |
None of the above are light. How about Windows' built-in Media Player 6.4? Start it with the command mplayer2. It supports M3U playlists which you can make with another piece of software, e.g. M3UListr.
http://www.softlookup.com/download.asp?id=18831 |
Oh my, thank you for this! Been looking for this command forever! I loved this media player on older computers because there was nothing to it other than it just being a media player! Now, with Media Player 11, there is graphics, searching, album art and visualizations. Even though they make listening to Music even more entertaining, it's just a lot easier and lighter for older systems, and heck it works perfectly fine!@ProfessorY91
VLC player is a 9 MB download. Compare that to 1by: 109kB including the installer, and it even has its own MP3 decoder!
Obviously VLC can't be the lightest solution for playing MP3's, because it supports so many other formats. I certainly commend its flexibility in playing video formats etcetera. But on this occasion, it doesn't win.
If you think a Pentium III is old, I think you have a wrong definition of light. FYI, Windows Media Player 6.4 runs smoothly on a Pentium I with 32 MB RAM.
But you're probably too young (judging by the '91) to ever have seen that version. From version 7, WMP is absolute rubbish. That's why MediaPlayerClassic was made: it's an open source remake of WMP 6.4 with some enhancements. I don't need the enhancements so I use the original 6.4, but if you're an OSS fanboy / Vista user, MPC is a good option as well. (WMP 6.4 apparently isn't included anymore in Vista.) | driftingfe3s wrote: |
| Foobar2000 is pretty light. Its what I use and with some customization and addition of components you can have it looking pretty nice, but you probably don't want to do that if you want it to run light. Still the player is very good in my opinion. |
Second this.
For just a straight-up MP3 player, it's pretty cool. Even without all the tweaks and configuring. I seem to remember it had some pretty powerful MP3 editing features too.
The download site is http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html.
Plus it's only a 3 meg download.thanks for this goog links, i like the player...
For a really light player, check out Billy.
I use it constantly. I uses less RAM than any program I've ever seen.
I'd suggest getting the 1.04k beta, it's pretty stable.
It can create/edit/save playlists as m3u or plain text.
Plus, download size is only 536 KB. | Possum wrote: |
Hi
My XP computer is getting old. Is there a MP3 player that is easy on resources. It wold need to have a play list
cheers Possum.. |
I would recommed foobar2000, http://www.foobar2000.org/
it's the lightest player I've used. It's green software that don't need installation. Just copy and run it. It's very useful especially when you reinstall you OS, isn't it?What about an old version of Winamp with classis theme? It's really not resource hog...
I use VLC player. Its Free and Small. Also works with lot more formats than other MP3 players.
mplyer with MPUI for Windows is lighter and better than VLC (which is good too, but then you are also paying by the download size and resource utilization for the streaming media capabilities which most end users almost never use!)..
try using real player...it can support mp3 as well..just download it and its free..
I like Billy (above) too. Another such program is Apollo. In the words of afterdawn.com: | Quote: |
| Apollo 37 MP3 player. Supports WinAmp plugins and almost all the stuff that modern MP3 players should. Very efficient and easy to use GUI - no flashy graphics here though. Apollo has been around 1998 and it's one of those programs that has a bunch of fanatic supporters. |
I find it's a little unstable for a lightweight player, but it has a very nice compact mode. And a lot of useful plugins. Not sure if it's light enough, but FOOBAR2000 is the way to go. Free and functional. Plays everything!
| Arnie wrote: |
| Does it play MODs? |
I'm not familiar with MODs. (is that music-on-demand)?
whoa, thats a pretty decent player for its size..... I just tried it on my old computer and it worked good... although I'm going to stick with winamp on my main machine | soljarag wrote: |
whoa, thats a pretty decent player for its size..... I just tried it on my old computer and it worked good... although I'm going to stick with winamp on my main machine |
In my opinion, the latest Winamp versions are bloated and heavy. The good one, the 2.93, is, on the other hand, limited.About MODs, sample files here I use foobar... simple yet sound good. ^_^
start --> run --> mplayer2
very light
but usually i use my heavier winamp for music but i also like my MPC-HC to play everything i want to 
| fadirocks wrote: |
| but usually i use my heavier winamp for music but i also like my MPC-HC to play everything i want to |
Those are the very same tools that I also use.
Winamp - without excess plugins
MPC-HC - without excess codecs
If you use Winamp and have some RAM to spare, you can set it to cache the whole music file from the disk into memory at the beginning of the track - reduces disk reads.VLC is great as an all-purpose media player, as it requires no extra codecs and can do nice things like play back DVDs without worrying about what region they're from, but if you just want to play MP3s, Media Player Classic is the way to go: it plugs into the Windows codec system, so it needs external codecs, but Windows has codecs for MP3 installed by default anyway.
Try foobar. Its known to be very light and provides very good sound quality. Winamp with classic skins is also pretty light if you disable compnents like radio etc which you may not be using.
I agree that VLC is very good. Doesn't slow down anything at all, and it plays virtually anything
@Arnie
VLC Player, just like any other software out there, is updated. I didn't check the size of the download before I recommended it. It used to be much smaller. Media Player Classic is great and all that, however I had a bad experience with codec incompatibility and that software. K-Lite Codec Pack fixed that, but I got rid of Media Player Classic. (and no, I didn't go beta).
And, don't try to tell me that 109kB is light and useful. I can personally build you software that will play music and video with more compatibility that's in the kB range. I recommended VLC because of its compatibility and lack of problems.
And a pentium III is old. Digital technology changes at a much faster pace. You we're wrong to judge by the 91, but thats besides the point, I've seen my fare share of old technology. I personally run a watered-down version of Vista on that same Pentium III laptop now with Aero glass turned on.
Thanks for the rebuttal, but to everyone his own.
It's very simple. You shouldn't have made the undefendable statement: | Quote: |
| VLC Player is probably one of the "lightest" media players out there |
Do you really require me to present experimental evidence contradicting this? That would be an outrage. The filesizes give an indication that, I'm sure, memory / CPU measurements would confirm.
Just about everything you said in your post is unrelated to this argument. Doing the following won't suddenly make VLC lighter than the large amount of truly lightweight alternatives:
1) showing that MPC has codec incompatibility;
2) personally building me software that will play music and video with more compatibility that's in the kB range;
3) showing that you're experienced with old software.
Note that I'm not saying the above points are acceptable, I'm simply stating that whether they're acceptable or not, they have no relation to your original statement. Actually they do since if you did (2), you would just be proving my point that VLC is not light. And regarding (1), the only condition in this topic is that the software plays MP3 (see the title). MPC does that without codec problems.
The fact that VLC has been updated simply means that your information is outdated. By your own words, | Quote: |
| Digital technology changes at a much faster pace. |
It's a matter of relativity, and when you make a representative lineup of available MP3 playing software, VLC comes out as relatively heavy. That's why it's a bad suggestion. I would go with VLC player. Winamp is too "heavy" these days.
| phpc0d3r wrote: |
For a really light player, check out Billy.
I use it constantly. I uses less RAM than any program I've ever seen.
I'd suggest getting the 1.04k beta, it's pretty stable.
It can create/edit/save playlists as m3u or plain text.
Plus, download size is only 536 KB. |
Thanks for showing me this. I love it. | Phil wrote: |
| driftingfe3s wrote: | | Foobar2000 is pretty light. Its what I use and with some customization and addition of components you can have it looking pretty nice, but you probably don't want to do that if you want it to run light. Still the player is very good in my opinion. |
Second this.
For just a straight-up MP3 player, it's pretty cool. Even without all the tweaks and configuring. I seem to remember it had some pretty powerful MP3 editing features too.
The download site is http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html.
Plus it's only a 3 meg download. |
yeah, i also use foobar... simple. though not very intuitive. but i dont care bout the looks haha... i just want to hear my music in the background and consume the least amount of memory.
