CHARM, the customizable, helpful audio resource monitor

Details:

  • Version: 0.2
  • Size: 11.4 MB
  • Operating System: Windows
  • Download: charm.zip

Description

CHARM is a Customizable, Helpful Audio Resource Monitor. It turns your CPU load, RAM activity and disk activity into audio landscapes.

Changelog

Version 0.2

  • You can now set custom volumes.
  • CHARM got a global hotkey. By default, Control Shift F11. There are two modes for this hotkey.Toggle and Push to Play.
  • In case of errors CHARM will now try to automatically correct them.
  • CHARM now loads and saves everything into a settings file.
  • More bug fixes. Hopefully.

How it works

CHARM takes your CPU load, RAM usage and disk activity and turns it into audio. It's customizable, so every pack is going to represent it in it's own way.

There are three ways CHARM can display information.

  • Volume: The louder the volume, the higher the activity.
  • Pitch: The higher the pitch, the higher the activity.
  • Fade: Depending on the activity, it will fade between an idle and a activity sound.

Processor cores

Some packs will use an average of all cores, while others will show you every individual core. In the case of individual cores, the hard left panned core is your first core, the hard right panned core is your last core.

Starting

When you start CHARM, it's going to ask you to select a pack. By default, there are 9 packs included with CHARM. Simply select one of them and press OK. After loading it will start playing the sounds and appear in the system tray.

Packs

There are 9 packs included with CHARM as of yet. There might be more with newer versions.

Following is a list and description of all the available packs, as well as a way to create your own!

Computer fans

This pack plays different computer fans for different activitys. All cores are panned left to right and are controlled individually. There is a ram and a disk fan in the center.

Default

Sine waves represent each individual core. In the center, the higher pitched whirring noise is your ram, the lower pitched whirring noise is your disk activity.

Rain

This pack uses an average of all cores. The more intense the rain, the more CPU, RAM usage and disk activity.

Scifi1

Engines represent each individual core. The simple beep indicates your disk activity. The higher pitched ping is low RAM usage while the continuous short clicks is heavy ram usage.

Scifi2

The louder the rumble, the more RAM is used. The morse code beeps is low disk activity, the high pitched, continuous whir is high disk activity. The beeps show each individual core.

Soccer

The louder and more intense the crowd, the more your computer's at work!

Volcano

The angrier the volcano, the angrier your computer! :-P

Water

The more intense the water, the more intense the computer's work.

Windchimes

The more wind, the more work!

Create your own pack

There are two parts to a pack. Let's start with prefs.ini

prefs.ini

prefs.ini needs to be in the pack's directory along with it's sounds. Let's have a look at the default pack's prefs.ini.

[soundpack]
UseAverages=0

UseAverages tells CHARM to use the averages for all core's. In this case, the CPU sound will play in the center.

CPUSoundMode=1

Sound modes range from 0 to 2.

  • 0: Volume
  • 1: Pitch
  • 2: Fade

These values also apply for the following two keys.

RAMSoundMode=1
DiskSoundMode=1

SlideInterval=20

The higher the number, the longer CHARM will take when sliding between two values.

necessary audio files

The necessary files change depending on prefs.ini. If the sound modes are 0 or 1, only CPU.wav, RAM.wav or Disk.wav need to be present, depending on which value you're modifying. If the sound mode is 2, you need to have a CPU_A.wav and CPU_B.wav, also depending on which value you're modifying.

Example

If CPUSoundMode is set to 0 or 1, you only need CPU.wav. If CPUSoundMode is set to 2, you need CPU_A.wav and CPU_B.wav.

file formats

Currently, CHARM supports wav, ogg and flac files.

CHARM's menu

After CHARM opens, it will create a menu in the system tray. From there you can control certain values like refresh time, volume, the elements to play or reload a new soundpack.

Development

This thing is still in development. There are likely bugs and it's feature set is not yet complete. There are certain features I would like to add, however I also have a few other projects I'd love to work on, so it might take me a little bit of time. If you find any bugs, please do send me a message.

Thanks

Many thanks go out to Pitermach for helping me design packs. He did about 90% of them. He also kept me motivated. So thanks a lot man.