I myself am using a mix of SAPI and recorded voices for Rail Racer, which works quite nicely. The Sapi is used for feedback from the systems of your racer, such as speed, current gear, fuel etc. I use a third party voice for the synthed stuff myself, as it sounds better, but for a long time I simply used Microsoft Mary, which isn't all that bad, and everyone has access to this voice. As for the inability to interrupt the wavs, not sure what that is about, I have a method for Rail Racer that stops wav playback and I've never had trouble with it. Bottom line for me is that I use what is appropriate, pre recorded stuff for menus and introductions and the like, and Sapi for feedback of dynamic information . Keeps both the CPU and programming overhead to a minimum. Rock. Che
----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 10:17 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] USA Games and SAPI support? > Hi Shaun, > > Quote > > 1. if sapi hasn't worked or is mangled somehow, and the user has no use > for it otherwise then the user may have to fix it or something. > > End quote > > In my personal case I have rarely seen or heard of Sapi being so damaged > it can't be effectively used. However, I would label this one as an > issue as this can happen with any dependancy weather it is .NET, > DirectX, and the files can be damaged and require reinstallation. > Bottom line, this is likely one of those end user issues where the end > user installs incompatible software, and something like Sapi then gets > broken. > > Quote > > 2. Unless said user has jaws8, zoomtext, or has got legally or otherwise > the high quality voices he/she will not have a nice time. > > End quote > > True. However, generally speaking high quality voices don't cost that > much in U.S. and U.K. currency. The Neospeech voices are something like > $30 each over on Nextup which isn't too bad. I don't have a current > price list for Scansoft, but if you buy the voices individually you can > save money that way as well. > Another reason to think about technically speaking recording parts of > the tts engine and using in a game violates those copyrights again. In > this case I can avoid those legal restrictions by asking the end users > to purchase a valid license for the voices they want, or I can become a > reseller for those voices and have two price skales for the games. > A $30 version with no extra voices, and a $60 version with one high > quality speech engine of my choosing. > > Quote > > You could do more things than a speech synth ever could. > End quote > > No, that is actually the problem. Using wav files is very inflexable. If I > want to create games with mission parsers, being scriptable, I'd have to > use Sapi. I could not use wav files to handle custom changes in the name > of ships, custom mission orders, etc... > Using wav files does slow the game down quite a bit just for the fact it > is constantly opening and closing wav samples except those that are > commonly > > being used. Those that are commonly used are stored in memory buffers > which in turns gets and waistes memory. > I'm not a resource fanatic, but I don't like waisting memory and CPU > speed either. The way Monty and STFC handles the system it is very > waisteful of resources.If it has them it will use them, and waiste them > on nothing more than speech where say a better audio environment could > have been used instead. > One last point is using wav files I have never found a good way to do > keyboard interupts etc. Sometimes it works, and some times not. A > glaring issue is the STFC full status report. I love getting all that > stuff read out, but I can't shut it up!!!! It does not work!!! > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org > To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can > visit > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make > any subscription changes via the web. > _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
