Mamba Black 1.90 now available

[smogthemog]

After lots of expletives I finally found out what all the access violation problems where - Winamp.
After removing it, everything worked fine.
I am going to try a fresh install of it this evening to see if the two will run together. It maybe that my install of Winamp was corrupt?

Thanks to all that helped.

Jim

[buffo]

I don't know if this is still an issue with version 1.9 of Mamba Black, but the earlier version that I'm running (1.8-something) would *NOT* run with any version of winamp that was higher than version 5.13.

I had it working on my computer with version 5.07 of Winamp. But when Astroguy bought his copy of Mamba, it wouldn't work with Winamp at all for him. (Turns out he was running version 5.21 of Winamp at the time.) So we went to oldversion.com and download one of the earlier versions of winamp to make it work.

If a fresh install of Winamp doesn't solve the problem, you might try rolling back to version 5.13 and see what that does.

Adam

[buffo]

I hate to reply to my own post, but I decided to play with Mamba Black tonight, and I ran into the same problem that Jim had. It's definitely Winamp that is causing the problem.

Unfortunately, since I use my Pangolin QM-2000 board as the DAC when I run Mamba Black, I really need Winamp installed on that computer too. (Pangolin has an awesome laser visualization plug-in that works with Winamp.)

I went ahead and un-installed Winamp just long enough to get Mamba Black running. Then I re-installed Winamp, and sure enough, Mamba bombed again.

Hopefully Old Grumpy can fix this problem soon. Winamp is a pretty common install on most people's computers. If it can't be made compatible with Winamp, I'll probably end up selling my copy of Mamba Black. (Much as I'd like to keep it...)

Adam

PS: I was wrong about the version of Mamba Black I've been running. It's actually a lot older that I thought. Version 1.61 J is the one I have. (Circa November, 2006!)

[OldGrumpy]

The WinAMP guys changed the plugins API framework and internal workings some time ago (and from their point of view, for a good reason). I asked on their forums about how to use the newer plugins externally a while ago, and they replied that such wasn't intended nor documented and that I'd be all out there on my own with that idea because that would mean I'd have to implement a lot of their framework (which doesn't make sense considering the effort). That's why Mamba displays a warning when you *enable* WinAMP support in the general options dialog. However, you don't have to use WinAMP in Mamba.

To achieve the functionality available in previous WinAMP versions, I have to write a WinAMP plugin myself that can tap into WinAMP and forward the data to Mamba. This was previously done by simply loading the plugin and accessing it through the plugin API without WinAMP being directly involved. This doesn't work anymore.

So simply uncheck the "Use WinAMP" checkbox for now. The plugin will take some time, as I'm predominantly busy with Mamba itself, but it's on my todo list (actually it's a more generic point on my todo list, as WinAMP isn't absolutely mandatory for the functionality itself).

Sorry that I can't tell you "it's fixed" just now.

EDIT: The correct checkbox to uncheck is "Visualise music", sorry!

[smogthemog]

After trying a fresh install of the new Winamp it still didn't work so I have downgraded to Winamp 2.95 and they all now work in harmony with each other.

[smogthemog]

Will MB work ok with the current Windows Media Player 11 ?

[buffo]

So simply uncheck the "Use WinAMP" checkbox for now.

That doesn't work, OldGrumpy - at least not on the older version (1.61 J) of Mamba Black that I've got. (No reply yet for my upgrade request to the 1.9 version of Mamba Black from yesterday) As soon as you install Winamp, Mamba will crash on load-up. (I'm using the latest version of Winamp, BTW - Version 5.52.)

If I un-install Winamp, I can run Mamba Black just fine, and everything works. (I have always had the "use Winamp" checkbox deselected - I let it use the MediaPlayer engine for sound because it seems to handle timing better - especially for longer shows.) But as soon as I re-install Winamp, I can't run Mamba Black anymore. It gives me the "nscrt.dll not found" error, then a couple memory access errors, and finally it loads up in what I assume is demo mode. (The title bar says Mamba 2004, and there are no effects controls, but if you select "About" from the menu it reports as Mamba Black, but the dongle serial number comes up as zero.)

Bottom line, Mamba Black won't run with Winamp installed on the machine, even if you have the "Use Winamp" checkbox deselected. At least, this is the case for the version I've got. (1.61 J) You mentioned that you weren't working on this particular issue right now, so I'm assuming this part of the code is the same as it has been for earlier versions of Mamba Black. If not, then I'll re-test it after I get my 1.9 upgrade e-mail.

Adam

[OldGrumpy]

1.61j has been long before I laid my hands on the code so I can't say a thing about it. But there is a rather simple remedy if unchecking the checkbox does not help: Downgrade Winamp to the latest 2.x version. I'll go back to work and process your upgrade request later this afternoon (in an hour or so), I need to take care of my dogs first (Dustin is already howling again, "Me Am Want Take A Walk, WOOF!")

I'll also check again if plugin enumeration is done regardless to the GUI settings. That would be pointless, useless and cause unwanted trouble

[buffo]

Cool! Thanks OldGrumpy. (Now that's prompt service for ya!)

I'd rather not downgrade to an older version of Winamp, because I also use the Winamp Laser Visualization Plug-in that comes with Pangolin on this same computer. (I've only got one QM-2000 board, but since Mamba Black supports the QM-2000 as a DAC, I can run both the Pangolin software *and* Mamba Black on the same machine, which is very cool!) I'm pretty sure the Laser Visualizer won't run on anything less than Winamp 3.1 though. (It uses the AVS version 3 render engine.)

Understand what you mean about the dogs... When they want to go, well, they let you know! (This is why I have cats!) Though truthfully, I miss having a dog every now and then. (It's hard to wrestle with a cat...)

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll post back here once I've had a chance to give it a try with V. 1.9.

Adam

PS: For everyone following this thread - Andre is having trouble posting to the forum today. He's tried a couple times since his last post, but keeps getting knocked off for some reason. Spec is looking into it.

[OldGrumpy]

If you can read this, I'm able to post again

After finding out that 1.61j didn't allow to bypass WinAMP plugin loading, sending out the new 1.90 to buffo and unchecking "Visualise music" in the "General settings" dialog resolved the problem.

@smogthemog: Mamba should be fine with Media Player 11 - it uses just a few basic multimedia things that even the old WMP 6.4 already had.