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Today, I want to talk about recent changes in Winamp and AVS. Don't worry, this is not going to be a rant on how irrelevant AVS has gotten or how we all miss the old days. This article will focus on the software side of the matter.
To everybody's suprise, there were a couple of new AVS versions: 2.82, 2.83 and Justin's 2.9, otherwise known as Cockos Happy AVS. The former versions tried to align the outdated AVS with the changes that were introduced in newer Winamp versions, basically related to the localization of the software. Unfortunately, these version did not meet up anybody's expectations and they performed poorly, usually resulting in frequent crashes. Justin Frankel, the creator of the original AVS (and Winamp), did not manage to improve the situations with his fork. His new version of AVS focused on introducing a couple of (rather irrelevant) features.
As a reaction to all these problems, Nullsoft decided to bundle the older AVS 2.81d with its new Winamp versions (5.6 and on.) Again, things did not go too well due to changes in the architecture of Winamp. To make a long story short: no version of AVS will perform reliably with any new Winamp version.
The solution? Well, I wouldn't call it a solution, but there's a workaround. First, you need to install an old version of Winamp, the last version that works with AVS is Winamp 5.58. Then you will need any version of 2.81, the original or any modification like vis_avsmod. You will find a couple of more versions over here, but I recommend to stick with what I just described.
Of course, you can also use AVS with a couple of other players, most notably foobar2000 and XMPlay. I have previously written some instructions* on how to setup AVS for third party players.
Apart from that, you might still run into crashes when using Windows Vista, Windows 7 or any 64-bit version of Windows. Most of the times, those crashes are related with the Global Variables APE, but oddly enough they don't happen with every preset using that APE. Once your Winamp crashed because of that, the only way to get you out of problems is deleting the vis_avs.dat file (located in your Winamp/Plugins directory.) You can avoid this by installing and old Windows version in a virtual machine, such as the Windows XP Mode that comes with Windows 7 Pro (and Ultimate) or third party product like VMware Workstation or the free VirtualBox.
I hope you find this article helpful, please share it with everybody you know who has run into any of the described problems!
* backup link for the installation guide
To everybody's suprise, there were a couple of new AVS versions: 2.82, 2.83 and Justin's 2.9, otherwise known as Cockos Happy AVS. The former versions tried to align the outdated AVS with the changes that were introduced in newer Winamp versions, basically related to the localization of the software. Unfortunately, these version did not meet up anybody's expectations and they performed poorly, usually resulting in frequent crashes. Justin Frankel, the creator of the original AVS (and Winamp), did not manage to improve the situations with his fork. His new version of AVS focused on introducing a couple of (rather irrelevant) features.
As a reaction to all these problems, Nullsoft decided to bundle the older AVS 2.81d with its new Winamp versions (5.6 and on.) Again, things did not go too well due to changes in the architecture of Winamp. To make a long story short: no version of AVS will perform reliably with any new Winamp version.
The solution? Well, I wouldn't call it a solution, but there's a workaround. First, you need to install an old version of Winamp, the last version that works with AVS is Winamp 5.58. Then you will need any version of 2.81, the original or any modification like vis_avsmod. You will find a couple of more versions over here, but I recommend to stick with what I just described.
Of course, you can also use AVS with a couple of other players, most notably foobar2000 and XMPlay. I have previously written some instructions* on how to setup AVS for third party players.
Apart from that, you might still run into crashes when using Windows Vista, Windows 7 or any 64-bit version of Windows. Most of the times, those crashes are related with the Global Variables APE, but oddly enough they don't happen with every preset using that APE. Once your Winamp crashed because of that, the only way to get you out of problems is deleting the vis_avs.dat file (located in your Winamp/Plugins directory.) You can avoid this by installing and old Windows version in a virtual machine, such as the Windows XP Mode that comes with Windows 7 Pro (and Ultimate) or third party product like VMware Workstation or the free VirtualBox.
I hope you find this article helpful, please share it with everybody you know who has run into any of the described problems!
* backup link for the installation guide
hello 2014
it's been a while, hasn't it? yet, there hasn't been much to say, ever since our new website went online, no packs have been released. well, that's something that might change in the near future. up next we hope to present you the remixes of 2011's effekthasch album. maybe a couple of new allstar packs. and –ho!– will there be a special 250th pack? it's hard to tell, but we're working on it!
RIP Winamp
As you might have heard by now:
Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release. Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.
On that occasion, we have decided to run our copiers over the Winamp AVS forums. You can view or download it here.
Enjoy and reminisce!
PS: This contains no attachments, sorry!
new website for 2013!
hey everybody
in the 10th year of visbot, we'd like to introduce a first public beta to our newly designed website!
visbot.net
for now it's only a page for our releases and there are still some features missing (search!), but a redesign was way overdue.
we hope you like it!
Webvs: A Winamp AVS-like clone in Javascript
Project Page
Demo*
Discussion
* currently works in chrome only, but not in chromium or other webkit-based browsers
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took a lil playing around as ElvisVR-War was the first one I went to and wouldn't render correct but a lil copy of the 5.58 avs dir and replace into the old I had got it all going and seems stable so far, much appreciation!