Because of the public response stemming from Winamp3 release, it was decided to scrap the Winamp3 in favor of a new project, dubbed Winamp 5. Winamp 5 will try to have the best of both worlds, the modularity of Winamp 2's DLL plugin system and its low consumption of resources, with Winamp3's freeform skinning that broke the Winamp 2 UI mold. This shall be a quickie thread for those who tinkers with alpha/beta/prerelease softwares, or for those who are just curious.

Winamp 5 is based off the v2 codebase, obvious from looking at the folder structure of the base install, the naming convention, and the UI itself. This also explains the sudden appearance of Winamp 5, as a total rewrite would take much more time to do. Inputs and Outputs remain the same, along with the General, DSP/Effect, and Visualization plugins. There is also an addition of the library, which by default is akin to that of Winamp3's Media Library. There appears to be a 'CD Ripping' function although I have yet to tinker with this. One thing that is most welcome is the 'Freeform Skin' plugin, which lets users dump Winamp3 skins into Winamp 5. Anyone who has seen some of the amazing Winamp3 skins (ie. BOOM or MMD3) will know that this is a powerful addition. No more being confined and limited to a small v2.xx UI box.

If anyone else has any other findings or comments about this, feel free to post it here. Also, make sure your comments are constructive criticisms/opinions. I'd like to see the thread be kept as an informative guide about Winamp5 and not a place where people can freely say "It sucks" or "It rocks" without anything to back it up as to why.

I have looked at winamp.com under the Latest News and under Developer and found nothing about Winamp 5. Is there a link for it? Thanks

Winamp 5 can be downloaded here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2490

Just you wait, the same dumb fucks who bashed Winamp 3 for it being solely an upgrade for upgrades sake will be bashing this (and staying with Winamp2) for the same reasons. I really wish Nullsoft hadn't let all the WA3 criticism get to them and continued adding all that they'd planned to 3 instead of flushing it down the toilet by continuing to beat the dead 2.x horse...

All the bashing that I heard about winamp3 (and admittably did) was the huge system resources usage and that it seemed very bloated. The original winamp was designed to do one thing and it did that one thing very well. I think that's why it was so popular.

I heard that same bashing too but considering WA3 ran just fine on my old 128Mb Pentium II under XP and most those that were complaining had machines that were many, many times more powerful than mine at the time I couldn't help but think they were full of shit.

It did not run well at all on my old 450 MHz under 98.

That's cuz you were running 98

Maybe so but there are a lot of people out there running 98 to this day.

So? If they can't be bothered upgrading that should be there problem. Nullsoft (and other companies) shouldn't be expected to keep supporting old versions of their products simply because people can't be arsed upgrading their OS. Things would move a lot faster if software companies learned the gentle art of giving users of older versions of their software "the finger".

And then users would have given "the finger" to Nullsoft.. I don't think Nullsoft really wants it.

Seriously, you can't compare WA3 to WA2. Yeah it looks pretty, but it uses twice as much memory, has poor metadata and no icecast support as well.

peopel who give the finger to winamp can die.!!! BUAHAHAH


U get what you pay for and last time i checked - winamp was free!

so winamp should not have to support anyone

i REALLY REALLY! hate people who complain about something that is free!

lets see you do a better job!

P.S - Winamp3 was great - it had great features and i did not mind the extra 5 second wait for it to start!

First I'll applaud for your computer being capable of running XP on a P2 w/ 128MB memory. It's a possible feat but I'll admit that it's an achievement. But that's a different matter altogether.

I firmly believe that the market is what helps drive Nullsoft (and other companies) to make decisions on supporting older products. Some have the resources to progressively move forward. Others do not. Despite that Nullsoft has the possible monetary backing of a giant corporation, the market and a lot of the public voices say that they rather go with Winamp 2 because it consumes less memory and resources. This is technically true because Winamp 2 was not designed to be a large application at that time. Winamp3 do have some technical and visual merits. That is a given. However, the responses Nullsoft got from Winamp3 gave them the impression that the next major version should be to take some of the best part of Winamp3 and combine it with the speedy and small Winamp 2.

Let me say again that this thread aims to be an informative guide revolving the early builds (and its progress) of Winamp 5. Should you wish to discuss Nullsoft and their Winamp2/3 softwares, I ask that it be done elsewhere.