projectM in Clementine at full HD resolution

I have used many music players in my lifetime. They have come and gone mostly due to changes for the worse. I have used Windows Media Player, iTunes, RealPlayer, foobar2000, MediaMonkey, Winamp, Amarok, Exaile, Rhythmbox and many more, but one stands alone – Clementine.

Clementine was built on the old Amarok 1.4 series, and simply brings it up to date. (I used to use Amarok until version 2, which is just a piece of crap.) One of the nice features in Clementine is the built-in projectM visualization system. I still recommend using the standalone projectM plugin for PulseAudio (if you use Linux) as it offers more features, but if you use Windows (or simply don’t want the extra plugin) the built in version is good enough.

projectM is hardware accelerated using OpenGL, and one thing that I noticed was that Clementine renders projectM at one of 3 user-selectable resolutions, and then scales it to fit the window. You can choose which by right-clicking in the visualization pane and clicking ‘Quality’. Similarly, you can also adjust the frame rate the same way. I personally don’t want my visualizations to be all pixelated on my full HD display(s), so I had to find a way to override these settings.

To change the resolution to any custom size in Linux:

1. Make sure that you have changed the resolution to 1024×1024, and the frame rate to 60fps using the right click menu described above.
2. Shut down Clementine completely, by going to Music>Quit.
3. Open the file: /home/<username>/.config/Clementine/Clementine.conf in any text editor.
4. Find the header labeled [Visualisations]. (usually at the bottom of the file)
5. Below you will find 2 lines which read size=1024, and fps=60. Change the size= line to contain the x resolution of your monitor. (In my case it is size=1920)
6. Save the file, and open Clementine.
7. The visualizations should be the set resolution squared. (In my case 1920×1920)

To change the resolution to any custom size in Windows:

1. Make sure that you have changed the resolution to 1024×1024, and the frame rate to 60fps using the right click menu described above.
2. Shut down Clementine completely, by going to Music>Quit.
3. Open regedit.
4. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Clementine\Clementine\Visualisations
5. In the key you will find 2 attributes which read size=1024, and fps=60. Change the size attribute to contain the x resolution of your monitor. Make sure that you enter it in decimal, not hexadecimal. (In my case it is size=1920)
6. Reopen Clementine.
7. The visualizations should be the set resolution squared. (In my case 1920×1920)

This same technique can be used to increase the frame rate as well. I prefer mine at 100fps.