MilkDrop

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Screenshot of Preset Included In MilkDrop Version 1.04d

MilkDrop is a popular, hardware-accelerated music visualization plugin for Winamp, which was originally developed by Ryan Geiss. It uses DirectX. MilkDrop is an environment for running presets, software which controls MilkDrop, and does not produce visualisations by itself. MilkDrop uses a complex system of interpolation to transition between presets gradually through time, creating a constantly changing visual experience.

Presets are saved in .milk format, typically in a subfolder of the MilkDrop plugin directory. Creating new presets is generally referred to as authoring, or writing, making the person that wrote a preset its author. Presets are distributed on the internet though Winamp, the Winamp Forums, and through the personal webpages of MilkDrop preset authors. A preset's title also doubles as its .milk save name, and usually includes the preset author's or authors' pseudonym. MilkDrop presets often have more than one author, which is generally referred to as remixing or editing. A remix or an edit will often include these terms in the preset's title.

MilkDrop's hardware acceleration is limited, primarily handling the final step of rendering to screen. Overall performance is primarily CPU dependent, while graphics card acceleration through DirectX provides benefit to rendering at higher screen resolutions. As a result of the limited dependence on video card acceleration, MilkDrop is capable of achieving framerates on PC of 60+ fps in resolutions of 800x600 or greater even on video cards that are several years old.

Originally closed source, its source code was released under the BSD license in May 2005.

projectM is an implentation of MilkDrop using OpenGL in C, and released under the GNU GPL. It is available as a plugin for XMMS, Winamp and foobar2000.

MilkDrop has been ported to Xbox Media Center, a homebrew developed media player that can be downloaded for Xbox.

[edit] Trivia

Several subliminal messages such as "KILL", "YES", "NO", "DO DRUGS", "LOVE", "MILKDROP", "FEAR", "SURPRISE", "HATE", and "HAPPINESS" flash in one preset included in MilkDrop version 1.04d.