DougB

> Does the GUI load properly with this player? When I tried similar MPlayers, the GUI's usually failed to load and the playback buttons would often cause a crash. If you're asking about MPlayerWW, then yes -- the GUI has always worked fine for me (under basic KernelEx). To hopefully shed further light on your question, remember that the original/traditional MPlayer executable (as in Ringo, Sherpya, Redxii, and Linux from which the Win versions were ported) has no real GUI -- it's a command-line-interface executable (MPlayer.exe) that opens up a separate graphic window in which the media is actually played, and which has a primitive keyboard interface. The CLI window will spit out *lots* of progress messages unless you set "Quiet" or "Really-Quiet" in the config file (or as a command-line option). The issue that i've encountered with almost-all other MPlayer GUIs is that they're just front-ends that load a separate MPlayer.exe file with whatever additional command-line options. Similar to your experience, none have worked even half well for me -- frustrating. MPlayerWW is different: the MPlayer executable file is *not* called from a separate GUI executable file -- in MPlayerWW, the MPlayer code is integrated right alongside the GUI code in a single executable (exe) file. So never a problem... at least, in my experience. (You can still set up MPlayer default behavior in config files.) But i fear i'm getting too far off main topic here, as this thread is dedicated to native-Win9x applications, and MPlayerWW requires KernelEx. I do apologize to the list for this. But i did want to address your question. - Doug B.

> I haven't been able to use Ringo's builds on all machines. Interesting -- i have never had a problem with RamonUn's "Ringo" MPlayer builds. In fact, it's my default "Send To" media player -- by far the most up-to-date MPlayer for Win9x, and it runs on native Win9x (doesn't need KernelEx). Actually, i never had a problem with Sherpya's "MPlayer On Windows" builds either, or Redxii's "Mplayer For Windows" builds... that is, until they went 'beyond' KernelEx. > I usually use a build from Sherpya. I think r34401 (12-7-2011) is the last to work with Win98. The final KEx build from Sherpya that worked for me on 'plain' KernelEx (no KExt) was r37199 2014-May-11. > But the builds from redxii ... when used with KernelEx (default settings). Seems you can use up to r37203 (5-17-2014). Same experience here. Note that Sherpya has also released a more-recent ("experimental / unsupported") native-Win9x player (doesn't need KernelEx) build r38116 in late 2018. Search the page for "Win98 SE build": https://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/ And if i might add: My all-time favorite MPlayer is MPlayerWW by William Wang. It seems that development has stopped and its website is gone, but the last version was r37356, 2015-Jan-13. MPlayer code is embedded within a nice, skin-able GUI executable. It requires basic KernelEx. This is my system default media player! You can still get it at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mplayer-ww/ - Doug B.

> Some have had stalling problems with 3.66. But that seems to be mostly a Virtual Machine issue. Just to throw my two cents into the fire. (Hey, is that a mixed metaphor?) I had a terrible experience with U98SESP v3.66 on a *real* 98SE machine (not virtual) -- many of my apps began to crash or not run right after. I *tried* going back to v3.65, but with only partial success. I've never had a problem with any previous versions. I really should do a full Win98SE re-installation (a major undertaking). To summarize: I *highly* dis-recommend using U98SESP v3.66 -- use v3.65 instead! - Doug B.