New Milkdrop defaults

[Dr.Flay]

I would like to suggest that the Milkdrop defaults are due for an update, and to get some user opinions.
The original defaults are based on the common GFX cards and CPUs of the era, but now it is safe to assume most people are using something made within the past 10-15 years with multiple cores, and much higher resolutions than back then.

My suggestions are for increased times for display of the current track and the transition times.
I will give my settings as an example you can try and give feedback perhaps with alternative values.
In the "Artist Tools" tab
Duration of song title animations = 5
Time between random song title anims = 30
Time between random custom messages = 20
Automatically show title when song changes = on

In the "Transitions" tab
Time between auto preset changes = 30
Additional random time = 10
Auto preset blend time = 30
User solicited blend time = 3

Disable Hardcuts is best to have off so you don't interrupt any transitions.

The author of Butterchurn was certainly impressed enough with the longer transitions to consider making the change in the web version, but he won't have had all the extra text effects blending with the visuals.
Try for a while and play with the settings. Nothing in those 2 tabs with dramatically affect the speed of the visuals or processing needs.
The stuff in the previous tab "More Settings" is probably fine as it is, though maybe we could  push the mesh size up 1 or 2 notches.

[dro]

I'm indifferent on this so over to you lot to decide what happens 

-dro

[Dr.Flay]

This kinda relies on community feedback and opinion, so please speak up people even if you want to say you are happy with the current defaults.

[dziban303]

The changes you propose to the blend time and song title animations don't have anything to do with increased CPU/GPU power, so I'm not sure why you cite that as the reason for updating the defaults.

The default graphics options (mesh size and whatnot) could be increased slightly; I don't see a huge difference between them, so I'm not convinced it's necessary.

I think a 30 second blend time is *way* too high, especially with the auto preset change time set to the same amount. 30 seconds between showing the song title is way too frequent, as well. I just don't see a reason to change any of those defaults, and certainly not to the extent you propose.

Also, I suspect most users for whom changes to the default settings would be meaningful are the same users who customize the defaults anyway.

[Dr.Flay]

You have to bare in mind how well visualisers are made as some can induce a lot of frame drop.
I have also imported my collection of presets from my winamp install.

The overlap period with 2 complex visualisers that use a high enough amount of CPU to lower the FPS on their own, is enough to make a noticeable impact in the smoothness during the overlap transition so 30 seconds of stuttering would not be desirable.

The existing defaults are from MD1 and it didn't do pixel shaders back then. It can make older presets faster but new presets made with PS functions are often a lot more complex and demanding.

Setting the mesh size any higher on my intel powered laptop will show a noticeable performance hit during a transition between some of the Martin and Evet presets, hence I suggested going no higher.
The laptop is low spec system for todays standards, but a common low end spec.

I am guessing you have not actually tried the suggested settings before making your opinion, as you haven't commented on what you get to see with this extended period.
The idea is to improve the visuals for people that don't change defaults (most users).

The song title text may seem too frequent but depending on the visual running, the text may become absorbed into the viz and add more randomness, so is intended to be as much a part of the end effect as informative.
I settled on 30 seconds due to having a lot of short tracks and it being a division of the average length.
60 seconds will on average show the song title 3 or 4 times per track.
Unless you are watching the screen for the whole track, there is a good chance you will only see the name when the track started.
If you have it on casually in the background and are not sat staring at it, 30 seconds works out you are realistically likely to see it 3 or 4 times per track.

At the point someone finds the settings too much it will "encourage" them to actually go and inspect those settings and experiment.
Currently it is all off by default so many users have no idea it can do any more and never experiment.
I used to use MD and AVS as part of my VJ setup and people that already used winamp were amazed at what it can do.

Try the longer overlap settings at least and you will see why the suggestion, otherwise you are just guessing.
Then suggest your own preferred values.

[snappyapple632]

I never really cared about transition defaults, nor do I see any connection to them with performance.

However, I would like see some improvments in MilkDrop in the future, if that falls in the scope of WACUP.

[dro]

However, I would like see some improvments in MilkDrop in the future, if that falls in the scope of WACUP.

What sort of improvements?

-dro

[LuxXx]

Unfortunately, you are incorrect in your assessment. Here are the correct values:

In the "Artist Tools" tab
Duration of song title animations = 3.7  (it'd be great if this could be a range)
Time between random song title anims = 47 (and this as well)
Time between random custom messages = -1 (I've never figured out how to edit these in a way that is not painstakingly slow)
Automatically show title when song changes = on

In the "Transitions" tab
Time between auto preset changes = 0.1 seconds
Additional random time = 9.7
Auto preset blend time = 13.2
User solicited blend time = 5.3

Enable Hardcuts is best to have on so you keep things moving. The key is to space them out a bit. I like 260 seconds (4 min + 20 seconds)
I put the slider all the way to right, and then back left one or two notches (80-90%)?
260 seconds between hard cuts gives a good dynamic change on peak volume or most emotion-producing part of the song. More often for shorter average song length.

These are the best numbers and should be used for WACUP Milkdrop's default values.

 

All i want is Milkdropp3D.

Sliders.
Geneology tracking.
3D models.
3D fractals
VR support
Chemical distribution matrix
Support for robots
AI mutagens

[Aminifu]

Thank you LuxXx for your guidance. I've tried various settings in the past. Yours do seem to work well for my system and make the transitions between presets better than the settings I've been using. I usually run Milkdrop in fullscreen mode. I have collected several hundred presets over the years and currently have about 200 active. The FPS rate on my system ranges between 40 and 60 and most of these presets run at the higher end.

You and Dr. Flay disagree on whether to use hardcuts. I have them enabled and see little to no interruptions. There is 1 thing. My version of Milkdrop (2.32.2) doesn't support 260 seconds. I currently have it set to 60, but at least 180 will work. Do you recommend I use the larger value?

[Aminifu]

All i want is Milkdropp3D.

While support for 3D presets would be nice, what I would like to see is a pseudo-random mode. Meaning that all the active presets are chosen before the same preset is selected again. Sure random mode can be turned off, allowing all the presets to be selected in alphabetical order, but having all the presets selected out of order before the same preset is selected again would be great, imo.

Off Topic:
Such a pseudo-random mode would also be great for playlist playback, imo.

[LuxXx]

Check out Milkdrop 2077 then. Unfortunately, I haven't found it to be useful to locate other amazing presets.