For those who use HQPlayer + Roon there is a big update coming to roon on Monday.
HQPlayer desktop 4.16.2 or newer will be required. As for embedded, I believe newer version will work as well.
No more support for HQPlayer 3.x. for those still using 3.x, it seems better to disable automatic roon update, or no more music without hassle on Monday.
just saw this as well.
I’m running HQP Desktop 4.3 or something. Tried to download 4.17 to my 2012 Mac Mini, and it crashes upon launch.
Looks like those of us with older Macs are SOL with rather short notice.
From HQPlayer 4.14 onwards, the CPU must support avx2. This instruction set became standard in 2013, IIRC.
there was HQPlayer in 2013? (Or am I not getting what you’re meaning?)
He is saying the starting with HQPlayer 4.14, the processor in the computer must support the AVX2 instruction set. If you have a computer with an older CPU that does support AVX2, HQPlayer 4.14 and later will not run on it.
Yah, i get that. I just wasn’t getting the reference to 2013.
My frustration is that the announcement from Roon arrived in my inbox today, and I have until monday to either forget about HQPlayer, or get new equipment.
The AVX2 instruction were first used in 2011 and became standard in 2013. I think the point trying to be made is that only really old (in computer terms) hardware has CPUs that don’t support AVX2…
yes, that’s all well and good.
In practical terms tho, it’s crappy.
For things to get better, they have to change…sometimes that change requires a hardware upgrade.
Ya but it’d be nice to have a little bit more lead time
Nevermind, you win
I agree…more lead time would be great.
That’s the roon way. Down your throat whenever they feel like.
You could disable the automatic update to get yourself a little more time.
If you feel adventurous, you could install Ubuntu 20.04 on your Mac mini. There is a HQPlayer desktop version for Ubuntu (the generic one) that does not require avx2 and should continue working.
I don’t have a dog in this fight as I don’t use HQPlayer.
Am I understanding this correctly that HQPlayer came out with an update and for Roon to take advantage of it they are coming out with new SW? The beef people are having is that Roon isn’t giving people enough notice on the upgrade? How much time do one feel they should give? I’m not trying to be sarcastic I’m really curious.
The announcement was yesterday, and the Roon update is happening monday. (If there were previous announcements, I’d love to know. But i actually received an email yesterday.)
I’ve been curious about retiring the mac mini to get a ROCK NUC, but the mini works JUST FINE. I get that new software requires updated hardware, but my god man, give us more than five days warning!
Ahdunno… a month would be nice, I think, for users to research, purchase, install, test, migrate and implement new hardware.
But @jvvita is right, disabling automatic updates in Roon will allow users a bit more time.
Not quite right. About 3 years ago, hqplayer updated it’s api, from version 3 to 4. Roon did not follow suit, and kept communicating with HQPlayer “the old way”.
This triggered some problems to some users, especially roon “cutting off” the end of the song, especially considering the needed HQPlayer buffer for very long filters.
To solve this problem, they updated the API to V4.
Meanwhile, HQPlayer created a “sub-version4” and one the changes was to require avx2 instruction set.
This ruled out older CPUs.
Roon rolling out the update will solve the streaming issues. But will cease to support V3 (update from V3 to V4 was paid) and rule out pre-2013 CPU (unless they use a specific build for Ubuntu 20.04).
That is my take on the whole subject.
It is impossible to contemplate everyone. But such a short notice will cause headaches
Gotcha although I’m sure people would still be mad with a month notice. I guess the solution is not to upgrade and give one as much time as needed.
the thing is, I’m sure they knew it was coming long ago, right?
So maybe pin a thread so they can at least say “we told you so!”
But again, maybe they did tell us so, and we didn’t see it.
Well, to be fair, the fact that HQPlayer was updated to the point that CPUs were required to have AVX2 support should have triggered investigating new hardware. At the the very least that should have put you on notice that you might have issues moving forward.
well, to be fair, this announcement is the first time I’ve ever heard the term “AVX2 support”
Yeah, my bad, I know. But I wasn’t looking for it.
Anyway, don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine. Looking at building a NUC.
One door closes, and another door opens.
Yeah, but you knew you could not run the newer releases on the older CPU in Mac mini…well, at least if you tried the newer releases, found they did not work, and investigated why…
It’s not a great situation but it is not surprising that the latest releases of HQPlayer don’t work on 10 year old CPUs and it is not surprising that Roon and Signalyst would work together to fix Roon/HQPlayer integration problems that would only work with the latest versions of Roon and HQPlayer. Nor is it surprising that we would find out about these updates shortly before or the day of the new Roon software release. In fact, I am surprised that Roon told us about them before the release. That is not normally what they do. We usually find out about new Roon releases the day they drop.
We don’t live in a perfect world, that’s for sure!