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Openhpsdr Zeus v0.8.3

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v0.8.3
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OpenHPSDR Zeus v0.8.3 — Windows audio responsiveness

⚠️ Windows operators upgrading from v0.8.0, v0.8.1, or v0.8.2: please completely uninstall the old Zeus first

If you've been running v0.8.0..v0.8.2 on Windows, your install was almost certainly missing the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime (the bug this release fixes) and may have left behind broken state on disk. To make sure v0.8.3 installs cleanly and starts the right way, please fully remove the old Zeus before installing the new one.

Two ways to do that, easy first.

Easy way — Revo Uninstaller (recommended)

Revo Uninstaller Free is a free Windows tool that uninstalls a program and sweeps up the leftover files, shortcuts, and registry entries the normal Windows uninstaller misses. It's the right tool for the job and you don't need to know anything technical to use it.

  1. Download Revo Uninstaller Free here: https://www.revouninstaller.com/products/revo-uninstaller-free/ — click the green Free Download button on that page.
  2. Run the installer you just downloaded. Click Next through every screen, then Install, then Finish.
  3. Open Revo Uninstaller from your Start menu. It will show a grid of icons for every program you have installed.
  4. Find OpenHPSDR-Zeus in the grid. Click it once to select it, then click the Uninstall button at the top.
  5. Revo asks how thorough you want to be. Pick Advanced mode (the most thorough — finds leftovers in the registry and on disk), then click Continue / Scan.
  6. Revo runs the normal Zeus uninstaller first. When that finishes, Revo scans for leftovers. When the scan completes, you'll see a list of leftover items — click Select All, then Delete, then Yes to confirm.
  7. Click Finish. Zeus is now fully gone. Scroll down to the Downloads section below and install v0.8.3.

Alternative — PowerShell commands (no extra software to install)

If you'd rather not install Revo Uninstaller, you can do exactly the same thing with built-in Windows PowerShell. Open PowerShell as Administrator first: click the Start button, type powershell, right-click Windows PowerShell in the results, click Run as administrator, click Yes to the UAC prompt.

Then copy each line below, paste it into PowerShell, and press Enter. Do them one at a time. Most of them won't show any output — that's fine, it just means there was nothing in that location to remove.

winget uninstall "OpenHPSDR-Zeus" 2>$null

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Zeus" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:APPDATA\Zeus" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\OpenHPSDR-Zeus" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "C:\Program Files\OpenHPSDR-Zeus" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Force "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\*Zeus*.lnk" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Force "C:\Users\Public\Desktop\*Zeus*.lnk" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\OpenHPSDR-Zeus" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

When all eight commands have run, scroll down to the Downloads section and install v0.8.3.

macOS and Linux operators

You don't need to do anything special — install the new build over the old one normally. The wipe-first advice only applies to Windows.

What's New

This is a Windows-focused hotfix release. Every Windows operator who installed v0.8.0, v0.8.1, or v0.8.2 on a fresh Windows machine has been silently broken in one or both of these ways:

  1. A missing Microsoft system runtime stopped Zeus's audio and DSP libraries from loading at all — leaving the operator with a blank panadapter, no audio, and no transmit power even though MOX visibly keyed the radio.
  2. A growing audio buffer caused the MOX-engage delay to climb to 2-3 seconds after a few minutes of operation.

v0.8.3 ships three coordinated fixes that bring the Windows operator experience to parity with macOS and Linux for the first time. macOS and Linux operators get a few small bug fixes and the new Audio Suite master bypass — nothing in this release changes Mac or Linux audio behaviour.

Windows audio responsiveness — the headline

These three fixes work together. Each is necessary; together they make Windows feel like macOS / Linux for the first time.

  • Installer now bundles the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime (#452, #453). The runtime is what wdsp.dll and miniaudio.dll need to load. Fresh Windows installs without Office, Visual Studio, or another large desktop app silently miss it. The v0.8.3 installer now installs the runtime automatically (skipped if it's already there). Installer grows from ~54 MB to ~67 MB; no manual workaround needed. Diagnosed and fixed by Doug (KB2UKA) after standing up a fresh Windows 11 VM specifically to reproduce operator complaints.

  • WASAPI Pro Audio scheduling hint (#450). Tells Windows to treat Zeus's audio thread as a high-priority Pro Audio workload and to use the smallest possible buffer between Zeus and the speaker. Drops that buffer from ~100-300 ms down to ~10-30 ms. No-op on macOS (CoreAudio) and Linux (ALSA/PulseAudio). Fixed by Brian (EI6LF).

  • MOX-coupled RX audio ring drain (#403, #454). On Windows, the radio's sample clock runs slightly faster than the soundcard's clock. Zeus's RX audio buffer accumulated this drift as a growing backlog — after 10+ minutes the buffer held ~1.3 seconds of audio, so pressing MOX or TUNE produced 2-3 seconds of stale audio before silence reached your ear. v0.8.3 drains the audio buffer the instant TX engages, so the MOX-engage transition stays snappy regardless of how long the session has been running. macOS and Linux see no change. Diagnosed by Doug (KB2UKA). Root cause confirmed via the desktop-vs-browser asymmetry that Ronnie (@RonnieC82) spotted in his original report.

Audio Suite

  • Master Bypass toggle (#449). One click disengages the entire Audio Suite plugin chain (Noise Gate / EQ / Compressor / Exciter / Bass / Reverb) instead of clicking six separate bypass buttons. Default on a fresh install is ON (chain inert) so brand-new operators aren't surprised by an unfamiliar processing chain transforming their first TX before they've configured it. State persists across server restarts. CFC is downstream in WDSP and is unaffected — master bypass acts on the plugin chain only. Designed by Doug (KB2UKA). See the Audio Suite wiki page for operator workflow.

Protocol & RX fixes

  • HermesC10 / ANAN-G2E receive now works (#425, #440). The G2E was connecting but producing no RX signal. Root cause: an earlier PR mis-mapped the G2E's RX path to the wrong DDC slot. Fix routes it correctly. Thanks to Stig (@lb5va) for bench-confirming the fix on his own G2E before merge.

  • PureSignal stall banner direction corrected (#438, #451). Banner pointed the wrong way after a stall; messaging refinements followed. New operator-facing PS usage doc included. Fixed by Brian (EI6LF).

  • RX trace colour now persists across restarts (#437). Changes to the panadapter trace colour used to reset to default on every backend restart. Now persisted alongside the rest of the display settings.

Cleanup

  • Dead 2-DDC PureSignal scaffolding removed (#434, #436). Behind-the-scenes cleanup; no operator-visible behaviour change. Thanks to Ramón (@rampa069).

Developer / infra

  • Nightly builds are now available. A rolling pre-release nightly installer is published every night from the latest develop code at https://github.com/Kb2uka/openhpsdr-zeus/releases/tag/nightly. Useful for testers and operators who want the freshest fixes between tagged releases. The "Latest" badge stays on this tagged release. Fixed by Brian (EI6LF).

  • miniaudio.dll committed to the repository for fresh Windows clones (#448). Developer-workflow improvement; doesn't affect installed-app behaviour. Fixed by Brian (EI6LF).

What's still next for Windows

These three fixes get Windows to parity, but optimisation continues. The MOX-coupled drain is a workaround for the underlying clock-drift between the radio and the soundcard; a proper asynchronous resampler is future work to eliminate the drift entirely.

If you're on Windows and something feels off after upgrading to v0.8.3, please open an issue. The v0.8.0..v0.8.2 Windows bugs got missed because every maintainer was on Mac or Linux — the more Windows operator voices we hear, the faster the next refinement lands.

Thanks

  • Brian (EI6LF) — WASAPI Pro Audio fix (#450), nightly-builds infrastructure (#433), miniaudio.dll clone-and-run fix (#448), PS stall direction + usage doc (#438), PS messaging refinements (#451)
  • Doug (KB2UKA) — Windows responsiveness diagnostic from a reproduction VM, VC++ Runtime bundle (#453), MOX-coupled ring drain (#454), Audio Suite master bypass (#449), HermesC10 / ANAN-G2E RX fix (#440), RX trace colour persistence (#437)
  • Ramón (EA5IUE) — PS scaffolding cleanup (#436)
  • Stig (LB5VA) — bench-testing the G2E receive fix on his own radio before merge (#425)
  • Ronnie (@RonnieC82) — the original "desktop slow, browser snappy" observation in #403 that pointed straight at the WASAPI backend asymmetry; thank you for the persistence

Downloads

Windows

  • openhpsdr-zeus-0.8.3-win-x64-setup.exe — Windows x64 installer (Intel/AMD). Bundles the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime; no separate download needed.
  • openhpsdr-zeus-0.8.3-win-arm64-setup.exe — Windows on ARM installer (Surface Pro X, Copilot+ PCs). Bundles the ARM64 Visual C++ Runtime.

macOS (Apple Silicon)

  • OpenhpsdrZeus-0.8.3-macos-arm64.dmg — DMG, drag to Applications.

  • After install, clear the macOS quarantine attribute (required because Zeus is not yet signed by a registered Apple Developer):

    xattr -cr "/Applications/OpenHPSDR Zeus.app"
xattr -cr "/Applications/OpenHPSDR Zeus Server.app"

Linux (x64)

  • openhpsdr-zeus-0.8.3-linux-x64.tar.gz — extract; run ./install-icons.sh to register Zeus + Zeus Server in the application menu, or invoke any launcher directly (./openhpsdr-zeus, ./openhpsdr-zeus-desktop, ./openhpsdr-zeus-server). Self-contained .NET runtime + statically-embedded FFTW3.
  • OpenhpsdrZeus-0.8.3-linux-x86_64.AppImage — single-file Photino desktop launcher. chmod +x and run.
  • OpenhpsdrZeus-Server-0.8.3-linux-x86_64.AppImage — single-file server launcher: backend + status window with the LAN URLs and a Stop Zeus button.
  • Both AppImages require libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 (install via apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 on Debian/Ubuntu or dnf install webkit2gtk4.1 on Fedora).

License

GNU GPL v2 or later. See LICENSE.

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