OCP can be widely configured using the ocp.ini file, which should reside in the home directory ($HOME/.ocp/ocp.ini). This file is processed at every startup and informs the player about various modules / plugins and their respective configuration. For average users the default configuration should be sufficient. However if you want to change certain aspects of the player permanently you have to modify this file. You can use any text editor to edit the ini file.
The ocp.ini consists of many sections. Each section starts with a section identifier tag in square brackets [ ]. Examples of sections are [general] or [sound]. The sections id tag should be followed by a newline. After a section has been declared with the id tag the options describing the sections follow. Each options takes a single line and consists of a keyword followed by a “=” and the parameters. Example:
mixrate=44100
All options following a section id are options for that section. If a new section starts with a id tag all forthcoming options are assigned to the new section. All options for a section have to be grouped together. Multiple declarations of sections are not valid.
[general] link=dos4gfix [defaultconfig] link=mchasm [general] dos4gfix=off
the above example has to be written as:
[general] link=dos4gfix dos4gfix=off [defaultconfig] link=mchasm
Note that in the above example the option link has not been overridden by the defaultconfig section. Both sections now can access an options named link, but both options are totally independant of each other.
Comments can be placed anywhere in the configuration file and are marked by a ;. The rest of the line starting from the ; is considered as a comment and not processed.
When modifying the configuration you should always start with the default configuration file and configure it to your needs. Building a bug free config file from scratch is difficult. 19
We will now have a look at the individual sections and their options.
The general section describes which internal modules or plugins to load at startup. The required modules for for normal operation of OCP is placed in a special directory, causing them to be automatically loaded. All options listed in this section are loaded every time OCP starts! general section looks like:
[general] ; link= ; prelink= ; datapath= ; path to opencp's pictures and animations. ; tempdir=
| link | this options describes the modules to load when starting OCP. There is no need to change this option, unless you have coded a basic internal module. |
| datapath | OCP searches for background pictures and animations in its system directory. If you want to store your artwork at a different place use this option to set the right directory. |
| tempdir | this directory is used for extracting modules from archives. If you have set a DOS environment variable called either TEMP or TMP these will be used. |
The defaultconfig section is very similar to the general section. But unlike the general section which is always processed the settings in the defaultconfig section can be ommited with an alternative section and the -c flag from the command line. If the -c flag is not present the defaultconfig section will be processed.20
[defaultconfig] ; default configuration link=medialib ; prelink=
| link | just like in the general section this option defines which modules should be loaded at startup. You can delete some entries if you will not need them – however this is not recommended as they do not use much memory and do not require any processor power. |
| prelink | these files will be loaded before starting the main module. If something goes wrong here OCP will continue to work. |
This section is the most important one for using OCP. If you want to change the configuration permanently you have to modify the entries of this section.
[sound] playerdevices=devpALSA devpOSS devpCA devpSDL2 devpSDL devpNone devpDisk wavetabledevices=devwMixF devwmixQ devwMix devwNone mixrate=44100 mixprocrate=4096000 plrbufsize=200 samprate=44100 defwavetable= itchan=64 cdsamplelinein=off bigmodules=devwMixF amplify=100 panning=100 volume=100 balance=0 reverb=0 chorus=0 surround=off filter=2
| playerdevices | OCP uses three different devices to communicate with the hardware. The playerdevices are used to play a stream of samples. As all sound cards support this feature you will find playerdevices for every sound card supported by OCP. This device is needed for playing .ogg, .wav and .mp3 files and if you want/have to use the software (quality) mixer. OCP searches for all devices listed in this option at startup and only those found are actually loaded. You can delete all devices you have not installed to speed up to startup procedure. If you have multiple sound cards installed be sure to list all devices if you want to use more than one sound card.21 If more than one device is listed the first in the list will be used as default. |
| wavetabledevices | for mixing several channels you have to use wavetabledevices. Most sound cards are only able to play to channels simultaneously normally assigned to the left and right channel or your home stereo. The mixer devices are used to mix the sample data of module files to those two channels. However modern sound cards have special hardware to mix channels “onboard”. But all hardware mixers have a maximum amount of channels to mix22. Especially .it files often use more than 32 channels so an errorfree playback can not be guaranteed when using hardware mixing. You should include one of the software mixers for this case. |
| mixrate | the default mixrate. Unless you have a very old sound card23 or a very old processor24 there is no need to change this option. |
| mixprocrate | if you have a slow cpu25 you might not be able to play 32 channels at full mixrate. This value defines the maximum “calculation power” to which OCP tries to use the full mixrate. |
| plrbufsize | When running in a multitasking environment there is no guarantee for constant cpu resources. To avoid a break in the sample stream OCP will calculate in advance. This option sets the buffer lenth in miliseconds. |
| samprate | When using diskwriter, this value will be used. |
| defwavetable | this option sets the default wavetabledevice. Can also be set with -sw command. |
| itchan | the .it format can play more than one sample per channel simultaniously. A maximum number of channels to mix is required for this file type too. When playing .it files using a hardware mixer the maximum number of channels is again limited to the hardware. |
| cdsamplelinein | If you select a .cda file the cd input of your sound card is used to sample the current music. If you do not have a cd input or if you have connected your cd-rom to the line-in jack enable this option to change to sample input. |
| bigmodules | This option is of interest for users of hardware mixing devices only. Sound cards capable of mixing channels are not only limited by the amount of channels played simultaniously, but by the amount of onboard memory to store the sample data too. If files are marked as “big” in the fileselector this device listed in this option will be used for mixing this module.26 |
| amplify | the default amplification to use within the player. The following options are described in section see General in detail. The command line option -va overrides this option. |
| panning | the default panning (command -vp) |
| volume | the default volume (command -vv) |
| balance | the default balance (command -vb) |
| reverb | some sound cards have an onboard effect processor 27 which features a reverb effect. This option controls the intensity of the onboard effect. (command -vr) |
| chorus | dito as reverb (command -vc) |
| surround | this options controls the fake surround effect 28 (command -vs) |
| filter | The software mixer can use a software filter to enhance the
playback quality. Different algorithms can be used. (command
-vf)
|
When the player starts it will use the options in this section as the initial appearance.
[screen] usepics=*.gif *.tga compomode=off startupmode=text screentype=7 analyser=on mvoltype=1 pattern=on insttype=0 channeltype=1 palette=0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f fps=20
| usepics | When using graphics modes you can use a picture to show in the background. OCP will load any TGA files with 640x384 dimensions and 256 colors. As the TGA format is poorly implemented in modern graphic programs this might change in the future. As some colors out of the 256 are used by OCP you should leave either the first or the last 16 colors in the palette black. The pictures should be copied to the home directory of ocp, unless you specify a different location in the defaultconfig section. |
| compomode | this option will enable the compo mode. Section see Using the Compo mode describes the details. |
| startupmode | start the player in either text or graphic mode:
|
| screentype | the default screentextmode:
|
| analyzer | if the player starts in textmode show the analyzer (or not) |
| mvoltype | the appearance of the peak power levels:
|
| pattern | show the tracklist when starting OCP in textmode |
| insttype | the appearance of the instrument function:
|
| channeltype | the appearance of the channels in textmode:
|
| palette | with this options you can redefine the default colors used in textmode. The first entry defines which color to use for the original color with number 0. Leave things as they are if you are satisfied with the visual appearance of OCP. We will provide new color schemes in the future. |
| fps | This tells how many frames per second OCP should try to use, since UNIX isn’t a real-time system, this is needed. |
Except the first two options all options can also be specified at runtime by pressing ALT+z in the fileselector.
[fileselector] ; default fileselector section
modextensions=MOD S3M XM IT MDL DMF ULT AMS MTM 669 NST WOW \
OKT PTM MXM MID WAV RMI MP1 MP2 MP3 OGG OGA SID \
DAT AY YM HVL AHX PLS M3U PLT OGG
movepath= ; default path to move files
screentype=2
typecolors=on
editwin=on
writeinfo=on
scaninarcs=on
scanmnodinfo=on
scanarchives=on
putarchives=on
playonce=on
randomplay=on
loop=on
path=.
| modextensions | files containing these extensions will be scanned by the fileselector. Only those files will be shown. If you want to load files with different extensions you have to specify them at the command line.29 |
| movepath | the standard path to move files into. This is describend in section See Advanced usage. |
| screentype | the textmode to use within the fileselector. The options are the same as in the screen section. |
| typecolors | show files in different colors depending on the file type |
| editwin | show the edit window at the bottom of the screen |
| writeinfo | write the info to the information database located in the home directory of OCP. This speeds up the processing of directories, as files have to be scanned only once. |
| scanmodinfo | scan inside the music files for module information. |
| scanarchives | if archives (like .zip or .rar) are found in the current directory the are scanned for modules. |
| putarchives | show archives in the fileselector, so they can be used just like subdirectories. |
| playonce | play every file only once (thus not looping it) and then procede with the next file in the playlist. If the file contains a loop command the loop command is ignored. |
| randomplay | play files in the playlist in random order. |
| loop | loop files after the end. |
| path | the default path to use when starting the fileselector the first time. The default is the current directory (.). If you keep all your music files in one directory you can specfiy this directory here. |
The following sections define the various devices for the player. Unless you really know what to do you should not change the following options. As most entries are similar only some educational examples are listed here. For a complete reference have a look at your personal ocp.ini file for details.
The general form of a device looks like:
[handle] path=... mixer=...
The internal name to use within the player. The ocp.ini file must contain all handles listed in the devices options of the devices section.
The next subsections will look at the special features the different sound cards and drivers support. The original order of the ocp.ini has been slightly modified for the purpose of documentation.
ALSA is the modern sound architecture in Linux that can give direct access to sound hardware. For many modern systems, the default output driver might be a virtual sound card like PulseAudio making it possible for the desktop volume applet to adjust volume per application.
[devpALSA] card=default mixer=default
CoreAudio is the sound arcitecture for MacOS / OSX. The current state of this driver might be non-working, as the main developer do not have access to the given hardware. Testing/patching are welcome.
[devpCA]
Open Sound System is the common legacy sound API for most unix systems. This driver should work on most unix-like operating systems like different variants of BSD, old versions of Linux, etc.
[devpOSS] revstereo=on path=/dev/dsp mixer=/dev/mixer
SDL/SDL2 is a cross-platform library that gives a common simple API for playing audio, hiding the underlaying operating system. This library will work on almost all systems.
| path | where /dev/dsp is located. If you have more soundcards, this can be set to for instance /dev/dsp3. You can override config with the DSP environment variable. |
| mixer | what mixerdevice to use. Override with the MIXER environment variable. |
SDL/SDL2 is a cross-platform library that gives a common simple API for playing audio, hiding the underlaying operating system. This library will work on almost all systems.
[devpSDL] [devpSDL2]
OCP can write all sound output directly to hard disk. Data is written in standard .wav format. You can use this feature to burn audio cds from any sound format supported by OCP.
Although you can write .wav files in every possible sample format you should not alter the default of 44100KHz, 16bit, stereo. You should disable module looping so each module is written once onto harddisk. You can disable looping in the ocp.ini with the directive loop=on in the see Fileselector section. You can also change looping temporarily with the fileselector configuration while OCP is running. See the fileselector advance usage see Advanced usage for details.
To enable the diskwriter device you can change the ocp.ini file and select the devpDisk as default device by moving it to the start of the see playerdevices directive in the see [sound] section. You can also select the devpDisk device temporarily by selecting the setup:/DEVICES/DEVPDISK.DEV device.
Now simply start OCP and select a module to play. You will hear no output and notice that the module is played with maximum speed30. In the directory where you have started OCP (not necessaryly the directory where the module is located) subsequent .wav files named after the original filename will be created.
[devpDisk] stereo=on 16bit=on
By default OCP will use its own routines for mixing several channels to the two stereo output channels. You have the choice between to mixers. The normal mixer is faster in calculating, thus can mix more channels at the same time. The quality mixer however produces better sound ouput. For average modules and a pentium processor the quality mixer should be fast enough for sufficient playback. If many channels are used you may have to change back to the normal mixer 31
Both mixers take identical options. As the mixers will be rewritten in the future the options are likely to change. Therefore they are not documented here. Please have a look at future versions of this document if you want to change to mixer settings. However these devices never have caused any trouble/bugs and there should be no need for change.
[arcACE] get=ace32 e %a %n %d scaninsolid=false
| scaninsolid | scan in solid archives. As this takes more time you can disable this feature. |
The ocp.ini file contains descriptions for all supported file types. These features will be included in the file loader devices in the next version of OCP, so these options will soon be obsolete. There should be no need to modify any of the file types.
And remember to make backups before changing vital parts of the ocp.ini
Therefore it was named defaultconfig...
you can change devices by using the special setup: drive described in section See Fileselector.
mostly 32 channels
SoundBlaster 1.x or SoundBlaster Pro and compatibles
Something like 386SX
<486DX
See section see bigmodules for details about this feature
currently the SoundBlasterAWE and the TerraTecEWS
this has little to do with real Dolby Surround although there should be a certain effect if you have such an amplifier
however files with different extensions are likely to be no valid module format, so they will be refused to load
depending on your cpu power
You can toggle by using the bigmodule feature described in See bigmodules.