weakest CPU that can play MP3 smoothly.

[SleepyGuy]

a friend of mine wants to copy my mp3 box but is wondering what cpu to do the task of decoding mp3. my mp3 box is a k2 300@450 w/64 mb ram and it runs perfectly fine. will a pentium class do the trick? what is the least cpu resourse hungry player today? i use coolplayer on my box cuz it is simple and does the job fine. winamp is a little more cpu hungry than coolplayer. i wonder if a 486 dx/66 can do the trick! thx, peace out.

 

[Ipno]

I used to play mp3s on my 486dx4/100 with no problems.

 

[Sunner]

Pretty much any Pentium class CPU or better.
If you're using CPU hungry players, or very high quality decorders/files, I guess maybe you could choke lower end Pentiums, but anything, say 133+ to be sure, will handle it just fine.

 

[Elledan]

A P75 running Winamp or XMMS will do the job.

Sonique or any other memory-hungry player aren't likely to work without skipping.

 

[Samadhi]

I don't know what the state of MP3 players on Windows is like compared with Linux, but on my P100 running Mandrake 8.0 I can play MP3's without any problem at all on all the popular MP3 players I have tried.

To be fair though I wouldn't want to compile a kernel at the same time

 

[mithrandir2001]

I have a P200MMX with 64Mb and use WinAmp 2.72. My CPU utilization when playing MP3s is about 24%. I use a AWE32 sound card (no built-in MP3 decoding). You should be able to get away with a fast-class 486, really, but go with an original Pentium system as they cost no more than obsolete 486s.

 

[TheCorm]

I think that a Pentium MMX 200 + a fairly decent sound card would be a good idea.

also, if you have a live series card then the cpu will only have impact on encoding and even then, the live card will assist a fair bit.

Corm

 

[Looney]

I use to play it on my notebook P133 just fine as long as i wasn't trying to multitask. My friend use to play it on his P100 desktop just fine as well.