Porting to a new Audio System

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Zefz
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Porting to a new Audio System

Post by Zefz »

There have been some numerous problems with SDL_mixer (mostly crashes and a few bugs) in addition to the lack of true 3D positional audio and variable frequency (allowing each sound to be more unique) so I've been looking into porting into a different audio system.

The two I found interesting were OpenAL and FMOD. With further investigation I found FMOD to be easier to use and implement (in addition to much less hassle with decoding ogg vorbis and importing another 4 libraries for the OGG format).

FMOD is supposedly known to work good under Linux, but before I went to do the radical procedure of replacing SDL_mixer with FMOD, I wanted a confirmation of one of our Linux users.

Other games using FMOD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMOD#Games_using_FMOD

I checked the license for FMOD as well, it is fine to use it for a non-commercial open source project.
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Post by penguinflyer5234 »

FMOD AIN'T FREE AS IN SPEECH

but I'm getting Ben's opinion, should get one in like 6 hours (he's at work now)
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Post by Zefz »

penguinflyer5234 wrote:FMOD AIN'T FREE AS IN SPEECH

but I'm getting Ben's opinion, should get one in like 6 hours (he's at work now)
True, but is that a real issue?
FMOD Non-Commercial License

If your product is not intended for commercial gain and does not include the FMOD library for resale, license or other commercial distribution, then use of FMOD is free. Yes that's right, free from license fees!.

No license fees for non-commercial applications


Conditions/Limitations
When using this license, the FMOD library cannot be used for resale or other commercial distribution
This license cannot be used for products which do not make profit but are still commercially released
This license cannot be used for commercial services, where the executable containing fmod is not sold, but the data is.
When using FMOD, a credit line is required in either documentation, or 'on screen' format (if possible). It should contain at least the words 'FMOD Sound System' and 'Firelight Technologies'. Logos are available for box or manual art, but are not mandatory. An example credit could be:

FMOD Sound System, copyright © Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd., 1994-2010.

Note this in advance, as it must be done before shipping your product with FMOD.
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Post by penguinflyer5234 »

to some people it could be
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Post by bgbirdsey »

I think we should certainly put off any changes to the sound at the moment. It doesn't seem that there are too many problems with SDL_mixer.
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Post by Zefz »

Except the occacional crash bug because a OGG file is loaded corrupt. And that crash bug you mentioned when sound was disabled. And that crash bug whenever you save sound settings (I managed to do a work around using a release build of SDL_mixer.lib, so instead of crashing it doesnt restart SDL_mixer and spits out an error message).

But it is true we have more pressing concerns, such as making Egoboo work under Linux again.
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Post by penguinflyer5234 »

[18:36:03] <BenUrban> fmod no go
[18:36:51] <BenUrban> openal or sdl_mixer
[18:36:56] <BenUrban> or libvorbis :P
[18:47:46] <BenUrban> i says use openal
[18:48:32] <BenUrban> the one-time cost of making openal work can't compare with inconveniencing lots of ppl
[18:48:52] <BenUrban> hmm
[18:48:59] <BenUrban> what about sdl_mixer for moosic?
[18:49:12] <BenUrban> btw openal comes with mac os [x]
[18:49:27] <pf5234> would OpenAL and SDL_mixer like each other?
[18:49:37] <BenUrban> dun see y not
[18:49:55] <BenUrban> if it turns out they don't, just use openal
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Post by Zefz »

Hmm... more work implementing OpenAL then. But I'll keep it in a planning phase. First we need to get 2.8.0b released.
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Post by Seth »

I assume you took my e-mail into good account? :wink:

I agree the new sound system should be postponed until the more critical problems get fixed. You mentioned a crashing bug with the sound loading, can that be prevented by removing the sound files? If so, that could justify holding it off a bit.

I have another question: would it be possible to turn off the unique features of OpenAL through the sound menu?
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Post by Zefz »

As long as we code it in, it should't be too hard to disable the features from the sound menu, although I don't see why that would be necessary. What is bad with 3D positional sound and pitch varied sound effects?
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Post by Seth »

Zefz wrote:As long as we code it in, it should't [sic] be too hard to disable the features from the sound menu, although I don't see why that would be necessary. What is bad with 3D positional sound and pitch varied sound effects?
Compatibility issues, maybe? Although I really doubt there are any sound cards (even old ones) that can not handle those features.

It was a petty question, perhaps. Since there are source ports for Doom that support such switching, I was curious how difficult it would be to code them into Egoboo.
Last edited by Seth on Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by penguinflyer5234 »

Seth wrote:
Zefz wrote:As long as we code it in, it should't [sic] be too hard to disable the features from the sound menu, although I don't see why that would be necessary. What is bad with 3D positional sound and pitch varied sound effects?
Compatibility issues, maybe? Although I really doubt there are any sound cards (even old ones) that can not handle those features.
It's called OpenAL-soft (as in software) for a reason :P
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Post by Seth »

penguinflyer5234 wrote: It's called OpenAL-soft (as in software) for a reason :P
My mistake then. I do not have very much knowledge of software in general.
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Post by Maxaxle »

OpenAL works pretty well, just for the record. Not super epicly well, but pretty well anyway.
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