OpenAL won't work

#1 Vik,

The latest OpenAL drivers do have some problems. These problems manifest themselves in different ways, but they occur in many games, Torque-based or otherwise.

As such, I believe the best fix for now is to simply revert to older OpenAL drivers.

This is not a permanent fix, of course. In the future, either a new set of OpenAL drivers will come out which behave as they were originally expected to, or we will update Torque's audio to adapt to the changes made in the new OpenAL drivers.

In the meantime, simply reverting to older drivers is a good solution that seems to work for everyone.

Thank you for bringing this up though. It's always helpful to be made aware of what's happening with people.

#2 Can anyone tell me where to get these old drivers and get them to work with torque so I can get audio going?

I have tried on my own compiling the new drivers in to the head but im new to torque and this is something that wil take me too long. I have looked in many places, here forums, and the net im runing out of hope. When I bought the engine I was under the impresion it did have working openAL sound in osx. Thanks in advance for any responses.

#3 Is there not a working OpenAl driver in the downloadable mac demo version ?

#4 I have the same problem, just compiled the source and ran the default demo, no sound.

The driver says OpenAL version 1.2, I downloaded Marble Blast Gold and it worked but the driver version was 1.0.5

Can someone please help resolving this issue?

#5 I tried using the 1.05 version that came with marble blast.. still no luck. Anyone? Maibe some of the vets? I would really apreaciate a responce.. even if it is torque does not support sound on os x and I need to go ahead and rebuild the sound api with the new OpenAl modules.

Thanks again,
-Thor

#6 Billy,

Unfortunetly no, there is not a working OpenAl Driver in the downloadable mac demo version,
nor does the demo version work with the new one.

Thanks for your responce... :)

#7 Billy,

Unfortunetly no, there is not a working OpenAl Driver in the downloadable mac demo version,
nor does the demo version work with the new one.

Thanks for your responce... :)

#8 You guys are talking about this driver right? That's the one that's not working?

The old driver installer for OS X used to be here. Looks like it's down now though. It may be mirrored here.

Let me know if that works for ya. I am talking to some other devs about how to handle the OpenAL stuff. The new drivers are causing headaches on both Mac and Linux.

#9 Thank you so much josh!

#10 Josh,

Just a side note, seems that apple will be bundling openAL with osx Tiger (as evidenced by it being in the demo build given to the attendes of wwdc). The old version works great, Thanks again.

-Thor

#11 I got it sorted too, i just copied the OpenAL that came with Marble Blast to :Library:Frameworks replacing the one that was there.

Seems like the 2.1 installed from creative is not compatible with TGE

Sascha

#12 Glad that works guys :)

Yeah, there's some incompatibility. I have looked at it a bit, and the new OpenAL drivers actually broke sound in a few games / engines. I think we can work around it, but I haven't done so yet because Ben says he is fairly confident in somebody in the community who is overhauling the sound system. So, it's kind of wait and see there, but waiting is starting to suck.

Should be a decision on whether to work around driver probs / compatibility changes or wait for a potential sound system overhaul early next week.

#13 I just installed the 'old' OpenAl lib and it woks correctly now, but have a nagging question.

Since current TGE is incompatible w/ the latest OpenAL lib, would anyone installing any one of our games also have to install the 'old' OpenAL lib? This seems to conflict with what Apple is intending to do with their Tiger release, which supposedly will include the latest OpenAL lib.

I'm new to Mac but the default OpenAL installation was placed in library\frameworks\ etc., originally where the latest library was installed then replaced with the old one. Would this be a problem for us or the users?

#14 Akio,

We are currently considering what exactly to do with the OpenAL stuff. Seems to run into probs not only on Mac, but other platforms as well. Regardless, probs can be avoided by including and locally linking to old drivers in your game distributions. Hopefully though we'll have a solution soon that'll work with Apple's recommended set-up.

The reason for the delay here is basically that we are considering some improvements to the audio stuff in general. So we don't want to burn dev time fixing stuff that may be subsumed soon anyway. However, this prob has persisted long enough now that we need to address directly, in one form another, asap. I am talking with Ben and other devs about what direction we want to take.

#15 Josh,

Thanks for the info. I wish I could jump right in and help with this problem, but unfortunately I'm new to Mac and still having trouble getting around in it. I am getting accustomed to its quirks everyday though.

I figured the OpenAL would have to be linked locally and package w/ our game distribution. Linking locally would be no problem, just have to figure out how to actually create an install package, or whatever is done w/ Mac. Any tutorials on this topic?

I think it'll be beneficial for us if more eyes on this issue, so I'll register and get a development access for OpenAL.

#16 Tutorials on Mac app package... I'm sure there are, but I don't have any off-hand. (oh-so helpful I am, sorry ;) We use hdiutil to create internet-installable disk images (.dmg files which get auto-extracted to actual folders once downloaded).

That might sound like gibberish when new to the Mac though. Google will help. Let me know if you have any detailed questions (maybe in another thread) after reading up a bit. :)

Cool that you're registering for dev access to OpenAL. Great!

#17 Not related to OpenAL but I found a simple app which creates a .dmg file for those of us who are not familiar w/ Mac package. www.c-command.com/dropdmg/

#18 Akio, I'm sorry I don't have time right now to give a detailed answer. I'd like to but I'm totally slammed.

So, for now let me just suggest that you download the TGE Mac demo from our site and examine how it packages up things. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question, it should be easy to figure out from there (no offense though if you don't get it... I'll try to reply in more depth when I get time).

#19 Hey Josh,

Don't worry about this issue. I finally figured it out and have it working.

#20 I can't get it to work. I had the latest Creative build of OpenAL working with all of my other projects (non-Torque stuff) but even reverting to the "old" build Josh posted a link to didn't work for me.