              _      #-                             -#     _
                /| ~ #==--=- | P l a y   I T | -=--==# ~ o 
               | o~  #-       _______________       -#  ~| o     
               o                                          \|
                  /           for  Windows 95
               /                                        \
                 /                 _____                   \
                                                         \

                               version 0.02a
                              _______________
                             
                                          by    O l i W a n


  Hello everybody !

  
    I am very happy to present you  ` Play IT ' and I thank you to use it
    (at least one time :). The program is far to be ended, but it's a
    very hard thing I have started (I should be a bit mad :), and before
    going further, I wanted to know what you think of the job I have done.

      This program can be a bit surprising by the way it run (I think
    to the buffers filling before the player start to play). In fact my
    aim was obviously not the speed, but the sound quality (less obvious:),
    the portability (so it is fully written in C, no asm), the readability
    of the code (the main reason for the long variable names) and a good
    protection against CPU time lacks. 




  What's new since the 0.01a :

    Well, I didn't progress a lot in handling new IT effects. I mainly
    worked on the mixing routines to achieve a better sound quality, and
    so I made a little innovation by replacing my fixed point mixing
    routines by floating point mixing routines. Consequences are :
    - more precise mixing.
    - much more precise volumes and pannings handling.
    - better sound quality.
    The drawback is that it now requires at least a Pentium to run
    correctly.
    I added surround for more natural sound and a bass boost filter (very
    slow though :-( .
    I included volume ramps to suppress clicks between samples.
    (And of course I should add that I fixed a lot of bugs :-).




  What are the features of the version 0.02a :


    - play INSTRUMENT MODE Impulse Tracker Modules (don't try sample mode
      modules, they are not supported in this version). Be aware not to use
      compressed IT modules too (you can load and then save them with IT to
      uncompress them).

    - almost full NNA/DCT/DCA support.

    - almost full volume and panning envelopes.

    - volume, panning and pitch slides.

    - up to 256 virtual channels.

    - up to 255 buffers of 16384 samples (around 6 min of sound even on a
      386sx :-).

    - three levels of mixing thread priority (be aware of the HIGH priority
      mode though, because in this mode, the program has more priority than
      the most part of the system, and could prevent cache memory flushing
      on slow computers).

    - high precision FLOATING POINT mixing routine with integrated linear
      interpolation

    - SURROUND.

    - 'Bass Boost' digital filter.

    - Full VOLUME RAMPS support to suppress most of the clicks.

    - full source code for Borland C++ 5.0 (I think it should compile under
      other Win32 compilers without problems. Let me know if you experience
      problems of compilation). The mixer and the loader should compile
      under every compilers. In fact, Play IT was started with DJGPP GCC.
      You shouldn't try to compile it with a 16 bit compiler, because even
      if it might work, the resulting program would be very slow (if you
      do that, then don't forget to select the HUGE compilation model, or
      you could have some problems with >64k samples)



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 \    
-   * Please look at the license in the GPL.DOC file to see what you are 
 /  * allowed to do with this code. 

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  Greetings and thanks go to :

    - Jeffrey Lim for his wonderful Impulse Tracker, and for his tips and
      help.

    - Jean-Paul Mikkers for his great help about the mixing routine.
      Try his 'MikIT', it's the only one player that fully implements the IT
      format.

    - Edyx (author of RealTracker II), for the volume ramps tip, and for
      construcive dialogs on IRC.

    - TheGlide : good luck for your Demo.
    
    - My B-testers : Jerome, Thomas and Samy. They have accepted to hear
      horrible sounds and to crash their computers only for this program.

    - The whole #demofr IRC channel.

    - These wonderful composers :  Purple Motion, ToalNkor and Chris Jarvis.

    - All of the other composers I forget (but I don't forget your songs).


    -   All of you




  Closing words

    It was a great pleasure for me to code this program (even if it's very
    hard), and I hope you'll enjoy using it. For those of you who learn to
    program, or who start to write a player, if you learn anything by reading
    this program, then I will be even more happy.

     Every feedback, comment, question, tip, remark, bug report or anything
     else in relation with  Play IT  is welcome. 

    This would greatly help me to continue to work on it.



      T h a n k   Y o u,



       Olivier AUMAGE / OliWan




                        ____________________________


       Address : Olivier AUMAGE
                 46, rue d'Arsonval
                 Batiment I
                 69800 Saint-Priest
                 France
                 ------

        E-mail : Olivier.Aumage@ens-lyon.fr

        Homepg : http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~oaumage/        

           IRC : OliWan on #pizza, #coders, #trax,  . . .

  Play_IT page : http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~oaumage/files.html
                 ==========================================

                        ____________________________



     PLAY_ITW.EXE v0.02a : Player for Impulse Tracker modules files
     Copyright (C) 1997  Olivier AUMAGE
     E-mail : Olivier.Aumage@ens-lyon.fr
     Web : http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~oaumage/

     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
     it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
     the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
     any later version.

     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
     but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
     GNU General Public License for more details.

     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
     along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
     Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

                    
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