From the archive: Rick wrote this for cablenut.com in early March 2001. It is reproduced from the Internet Archive with light edits for readability. Some tools and links it mentions no longer exist.
I’ve used Winamp since some of its first builds, but now there are a lot of other MP3 players on the market. The two major ones today, in my opinion, are Sonique from MediaScience and Winamp from Nullsoft. This is a quick look at how each player behaves inside Windows. It is not about sound quality or usability.
The test
- Song: “Live – Sparkle.mp3”, a fairly heavily compressed 128 kbit/s stream.
- Both players loaded at the same time, playing the same song in parallel.
- Each process monitored separately (CPU, memory and so on) with the Windows 2000 management console.
- Playlist mode, visualizations off.
- Both using Wave Out, not DirectSound.
- Test system: AMD Athlon “Classic” 950 MHz.
Just loaded, not playing
| Counter | Winamp 2.72 | Sonique 1.9 |
|---|---|---|
| Pool nonpaged bytes | 2.8 KB | 9.3 KB |
| Pool paged bytes | 24.7 KB | 23.0 KB |
| Private bytes | 1.25 MB | 6.48 MB |
| Priority base | Equal | Equal |
Playing the same MP3
| Counter | Winamp 2.72 | Sonique 1.9 |
|---|---|---|
| Processor time | 0–1% | 2–4% |
| Pool nonpaged bytes | 5.9 KB | 12.1 KB |
| Pool paged bytes | 25.1 KB | 23.8 KB |
| Private bytes | 1.73 MB | 8.21 MB |
Bold means less resource usage.
The Nut’s last words
Winamp used less CPU (this varies with CPU speed) and about 5.8 MB less RAM. Sonique showed some signs of poor memory allocation or leaks, though that could be down to its buffering method. If you want the MP3 player that uses the least of your resources, Winamp fits nicely.
2026 footnote: Winamp 2.x really did whip the llama’s ass. Nullsoft also made NSIS, the installer system CableNut itself was built with.
Rick (Cablenut)
