Anyone tried JPlay?

[jkeny]

It works. Ad hoc network is the way to go for simplicity & so far no glitches.
Would be interested in others experience.

ill give it a go to see what happens, did u have to do anything else after ad-hoc and assigning ip addresses and reboot

Nope, nothing else! The reason it wasn't working before was just my DAC wasn't working. I pinged from both laptops & they talked to one another. One laptop is running Win8 & it has a better network traffic display than Win 7 - it shows the amount of data going back & forth between laptops - it's interesting to watch how much is being transferred between laptops. Signalling of a couple of K is sent from audioPC every second or so & chunks of data of many Ks or a MB are returned. I have to look at this some more but it is a nice view into the traffic between PCs.

[jkeny]

Just following up with some more datapoints:
- ad-hoc network sounds pretty good to me in my main rig. As good as direct ethernet connection? Don't know haven't done direct A/B comparisons yet
- I suggest anyone with Win 8 use the Task Manager & look at what's happening with resources when playing. Here's my very preliminary results which might shed some light on what hardware is important in the audioPC when running different playback engines:

My AudioPC is a Tosh Pavilion Satellite 2.3GHz AMD V140 - I think it's single core (WIN8 reports 1 logical CPU) Virtualisation enabled (whatever that means?)
I have turned off all applications in Win8 that I can (Chrome was running even though I hadn't got it open).
So my base level stats on CPU usage are (all these figures fluctuate a small bit):
- processes around 35
- threads around 454
- % CPU usage 4%
- Handles 11930
- memory 1.7GB usage (out of 3.7GB available)

When running Xtream:
- same as base level except
- 35% CPU usage
- handles jumps to about 780707 (again fluctuates from this by some 10s)
- very minor disk activity
- memory jumps to 2.6GB

When running River:
- same as base level except:
- 35% CPU usage
- handles goes to 13340
- small disc activity
- mem still at 1.7GB

When running Beach:
- same as base level stats except:
- 30% CPU usage
- handles goes to 12500
- some intermittent large disk activity spikes
- mem still at 1.7GB

So very tentatively (I know it's just a first test) can we see a kind of analysis of how the audioPC should be best configured depending on which playback engines we use?
- Xtreme is a bit more memory & processor heavier then the other engines (doh, I guess this could have been stated anyway)
- River is intermediate
- Beach is more dependent on disk usage

All very tentative, of course but it might be interesting for others to do some analysis of their stats & maybe a picture will emerge.

Of course, you can't turn on hibernate or you don't see the stats in real time (I don't know if a log can be set-up?)

Hope this is of some interest? If too technical & too anal, just say & I'll leave in a huff :)

[Diapason]

It's of interest to me, John, and I haven't even heard the bloody thing!

[tony]

Don't go off in a huff unless that is when you are at your most creative. If that is the case just flag it here and we can fire ahead with the insults.

So many posts there I will need to read through them carefully. On my brief read you are checking out task manager for activity while playing.
Well I think hibernate sounds best and xtream also. I run the dac pc with Total commander so can check nothing except activity on the streamer.
Thrilled with the sound using last years now old technology!(JKDAC32). I am a bit skeptical you can get much more improvement tweaking around with those options but hey if something comes of it I will jump aboard. Maybe I am just happy where I am but think any big improvement in texture,depth of soundstage will come from the components now. i.e. new dac,amp or speakers.

[jkeny]

It's of interest to me, John, and I haven't even heard the bloody thing!

Cool, so at least one interested member :)

The other interesting thing is that the range of this ad-hoc network is surprising - I stressed it by using my control laptop in the back of house extension & the audioPC in my work room (about as far apart as possible & many walls for the signal to traverse) & it seems more robust than I expected - working without a hitch. This location usually causes me problems when using wifi through my router. I know it probably depends on the wifi cards in the 2 communicating laptops but the one Im using typing this is a standard card, nothing special
Description: Ralink RT5390 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter

Any idea how I might set up IPV6 communication between the 2 laptops? Do I need to find the IPV6 addresses of both laptops & how do I ensure that it uses IPV6 for comms & not IPV4?

As you can tell, I'm not a networking guy - usually stay away from it, actually as I found it frustrating in the past but needs must :)

Yes, Tony, I agree with your analysis of where the next SQ improvement might come from but my analysis is more to determine what might be the hardware configs best suited to the audioPC. I know over-specing the hardware is the simple answer but for us cheapskates who want to get the best performance with the least outlay, knowing the resource usage of the various Jplay configs COULD (maybe) help to determine where we need to focus our spend - disks or memory or processor or ?

I also think that ad-hoc networking has a role to play for those who may not want to get another router or who want the simplest connection solution. If it also allows us to use IPV6 - this might help?

[tony]

Small world really.I was on a one day course today and ipv6 was discussed!. They have run out of ipv4 addresses (4.2 billion to be exact) and ipv6 (128bit) addressing was developed to deal with this. My understanding is that this is just to provide unique addressing for components.
When ipv4 was originally developed they didnt reckon on everybody having 2 laptops for music.A nexus,A smart phone and maybe a smart tv and old fashioned desktop.

Not sure what advantage you are going for or if there is any but will investigate it next week as I will get to see this tutor again.

I copped out and went for a separate modem(router) specifically for the laptops. But I reckon the solution Ken spoke about was the way to go to avoid contention and get reliable streaming from a single modem/router with dual band and higher wifi speed (i.e one used by all and sundry in the house)

Is it better to fire off a question to Marcin and Josef around your thinking as they may be better placed to give a definitive on whether to keep exploring this route?

[jkeny]

Yea, I know a little bit about IPV6 from the theoretical side & yes it is really to answer the need for more address space. But I believe that the opportunity was also taken to include a lot more, including a more efficient packet structure (with less overhead?) which might have a possible benefit for Jplay? Anyway, it is also something that is supposed to be easier to connect to without the need for a network admin so might turn out to be simpler for all?

I already started a thread on Jplay about ad-hoc networking & Marcin replied pretty quickly - he seemed to put a damper on it with his post saying direct ethernet connection would be better. I don't disagree with this as direct wired connection will always be better than ANY wireless connection. Not one to be easily deterred until I have my own tests, I asked further & he claimed that it would suffer in robustness & SQ. So far, I don't concur with his findings. I mentioned the possibility of using ipV6. I await his reply.

[nige2000]

im still here too

i was pulling my hair out with vmware virtual image trying to install win 8 within windows 8 to dividing cpu and ram resources between them and stream between them, got it working in the end, but it was a waste of time sounds no better than standalone mode

these stats will help us figure out the minimum requirements for jplay streaming, they all look similar to what i get except for cpu usage but ive got the 3770k i7 it barely running at all.

tried that ad-hoc thing wasn't successful yet did you use virtual router software or command prompt.
might need help.

nige

[jkeny]

Nige, re the ad-hoc, I only used "Set up a network connection" from the control panel & chose "Set up a ad-hoc (computer to computer) network" - gave it a name "JPlay network". I set my adapter ipV4 to a fixed address (192.168.1.30) & did the same on the Win8 laptop (192.168.1.31). I just connect both PCs to the "Jplay network" & bingo it works - can ping between both PCs.

You need to run Jplaymini on both PCs & then run Jplaysettings on controlPC. In the field "AudioPC" select LAN, click OK & Jplay will search for other Jplay on the network - gives a message of found & closes JPlaysettings when it has found one. Reopen JPlaysettings & now in the "AudioPC" field select the computer found. You are now selecting settings for Jplay on the AudioPC, including what sound device you want to use.

Hope that help?

[Fran]

I got the windows 8 audiophile thing working on a memory stick. Lot of hoops to jump thorugh to get it working, but it is now. First track tried would suggest that win 8 running from the memory stick is roughly equal to the 2 PC w7 setup, but more testing required.

It hibernated and came back out OK!!

Fran