Re: [Audyssey] 22k vs 44k, was: Re: Creating game levels to scale?
Hi Peter, Well, in principle I do agree with you. There is no argument that there is a dramatic difference in fidility between a 22500 KHZ sound file and a 44100 KHZ sound file. That said, there is technical reasons why a programmer may choose not to use a 44100 KHZ sample rate in his /her games. To begin with let's try and remember why it was I converted the sounds from 44100 KHZ to 22500 KHZ in the first place. At the time beta 14 and beta 15 were released I was using a different mixer, OpenAL, which is used by SFML Audio. I noticed when attempting to load 44100 KHZ sound files in OpenAL there was a huge increase in system load on both Windows and Linux platforms. By reducing the sample rate to 22500 KHZ I nearly reduced the system load by half, and made the cross-platform version of the game run smoother and better by doing so. So while your criticism is justified I'd just like to point out that there were good solid technical reasons why I chose not to continue using 44100 KHZ sounds at the time, and that particular issue couldn't have been resolved by using ogg files or some other compressed file type. Compressing a file only makes it smaller on the hard drive, but when you load it into memory it has to be decompressed which means it will use roughly the same amount of memory as a straight PCM wav file would. As for the future of MOTA I can tell you right off that beta 17 is using 44100 KHZ sound effects not 22500 KHZ. Since the engine no longer relies on OpenAL and uses Philip's Streemway API all I had to do was drop the original sounds back in the data directory and the audio quality was restored to the way there were in beta 13 and earlier. The 22500 KHZ sounds were nothing more and nothing less than a temperary test to see if I could make the cross-platform engine work better which it did and didn't. So while I welcome your criticism and suggestions it just feels as though you were missing the point of why I had to do that at the time, and the fact you are not a private tester left you completely out of the loop regarding current development changes in beta 17. Basically, I just wanted to say that don't worry about it, because MOTA beta 17 is going to be a much better release than the previous ones because I've gotten serious about completeing the game, and am willing to admit and recognize that not using DirectX is a mistake from a technical point of view. For example, let's consider joysticks. If I use DirectX I can support force feedback devices like the Philips 2909 game pads. Although force feedback support is optional it is still a feature that would improve the G3D engine and could be used to make your joystick vibrate in your hands when you activate a light saber or jurk when the player is hit etc. In other words it could add an extra sensory experience to the whole way we do gaming. Unfortunately, when we look at an open source operating system like Linux joystick support is largely experimental and not very good. SDL offers extremely generic joystick support, and currently does not have force feedback support at all. So you might be able to move the character around, fire, etc using a gamepad under Linux you'll never get that force feedback experience until someone upgrades SDL with that ability. I've heard it is suppose to be coming in SDL 1.3, but who knows when or if that will happen. For right now it is a feature we simply do not have with Linux game APIs. Which means SDL is infurior in ways to the Windows APIs. What that means to you, the customer/gamer, is that if I don't support DirectX I'm going to have to leave out features like force feedback or use some lower quality sample rate etc that may be less desirable in order to maintain cross-platform compatibility. If you don't own a Mac or Linux computer and I happen to leave some feature out because of reason x you are going to basically lose out on features even though you have no interest in supporting other operating systems. On the flip side there is the Linux and Mac user who will not mind the loss of features as their personal operating system is directly supported. It is a difficult compromise, and one I truly have not figured out how to resolve yet. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] 22k vs 44k, was: Re: Creating game levels to scale?
Hi Peter, I can't anything but agree here. I notice a massive! drop in fidelity from 44100 to 22050 hZ, which is hardly surprising since it's half the amount. I think Thomas' main reasoning was to not use Ogg but 22050 hZ Wave instead, but at least to me, 44100 Ogg above or at quality level 6 sounds way superior to 22050 Wave. Ogg decoding really isn't that much of a resource killer either since most of the sounds will be decoded at the start of the level and the majority of them will then be cloned/duplicated internally, but that doesn't require another decode. Streemway already comes bundled with an Ogg Vorbis decoder, of course, but this can also be used in the Linux version as the decoder is available as a public domain C library from: http://nothings.org/stb_vorbis/ Kind regards, Philip Bennefall - Original Message - From: "peter Mahach" To: "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 9:33 PM Subject: [Audyssey] 22k vs 44k, was: Re: Creating game levels to scale? ***constructive critisyzm follows*** Um. I thought we were supposed to make audio games more mainstream like? but yet, it seems as though we're still restricting our selves in a way? I understand how older games used to drop sound qualitydue to size. But now, even most mainstream games are using cd quality 44100khz 16 bit sound. I personally see a major experience improvement with that kind of quality. That's one reason I so love work that liam and phillip did with the sounds being so hq. MOTA also used to be like this, but with b14 I did notice that drop of quality which I really don't like. if this is such a major problem just use something like ogg to compress the size. Seriusly! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Philip Bennefall" ; "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 1:38 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Creating game levels to scale? Hi Philip, Yeah, I get what your saying. The mixer is definitely a huge factor in over all game performance. In fact, that is one reason why I switched bakc to Streemway for the Windows releases. When I used OpenAL for Windows it used a massive amount of memory to load the same amount of sound data that I had in DirectX and performance went way down. Switching back to Streemway performance went way back up. Plus reducing the sound quality from 44100 KHZ to 22500 KHZ made a massive improvement in over all system performance as well. __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5266 (20100709) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] 22k vs 44k, was: Re: Creating game levels to scale?
***constructive critisyzm follows*** Um. I thought we were supposed to make audio games more mainstream like? but yet, it seems as though we're still restricting our selves in a way? I understand how older games used to drop sound qualitydue to size. But now, even most mainstream games are using cd quality 44100khz 16 bit sound. I personally see a major experience improvement with that kind of quality. That's one reason I so love work that liam and phillip did with the sounds being so hq. MOTA also used to be like this, but with b14 I did notice that drop of quality which I really don't like. if this is such a major problem just use something like ogg to compress the size. Seriusly! - Original Message - From: "Thomas Ward" To: "Philip Bennefall" ; "Gamers Discussion list" Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 1:38 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Creating game levels to scale? Hi Philip, Yeah, I get what your saying. The mixer is definitely a huge factor in over all game performance. In fact, that is one reason why I switched bakc to Streemway for the Windows releases. When I used OpenAL for Windows it used a massive amount of memory to load the same amount of sound data that I had in DirectX and performance went way down. Switching back to Streemway performance went way back up. Plus reducing the sound quality from 44100 KHZ to 22500 KHZ made a massive improvement in over all system performance as well. __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5266 (20100709) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
