TGB Audio - Big Problems
by WesTT · in Technical Issues · 10/01/2008 (6:38 am) · 3 replies
Hi there. We are using TGB for our game and we are having quite a few problems with the audio. From randomly cutting out sounds, to repeating sounds, to audio that simply will not play on some sounds cards it really appears that the OpenAL implementation in TGB is really undercooked. I myself have a Realtek chipset that suffers from repeating sounds (that are set to non-looping) and sounds cutting out when using stock TGB audio.
If I hack the source code and alter the MAX_SOURCES constant (to something crazy like 32 or 64) in the audio.cc file, this problem tends to abate quite a large amount. It would appear that the audio code is culling sources that meet some criteria (don't know, haven't looked properly yet). It would be great if someone could comment on the current state of the audio system in TGB, or update us on if/when it's going to be replaced (as was rumoured).
While I'd like to have the time to trawl through this code and rewrite parts of it, I'm thinking that if I do not have any luck with it soon, I'll probably rip it our and use something like FMOD or BASS as it's simply not worth the compatibility problems with had with testers.
If I hack the source code and alter the MAX_SOURCES constant (to something crazy like 32 or 64) in the audio.cc file, this problem tends to abate quite a large amount. It would appear that the audio code is culling sources that meet some criteria (don't know, haven't looked properly yet). It would be great if someone could comment on the current state of the audio system in TGB, or update us on if/when it's going to be replaced (as was rumoured).
While I'd like to have the time to trawl through this code and rewrite parts of it, I'm thinking that if I do not have any luck with it soon, I'll probably rip it our and use something like FMOD or BASS as it's simply not worth the compatibility problems with had with testers.
#2
10/02/2008 (1:25 pm)
The audio layer in TGB (and other current engines) is definitely one of the more legacy and weaker systems. It's definitely something we are working on in our R&D tech. 3 out of 14 getting it working does sound like there may be something wonky with that openAL .dll you grabbed, they've definitely had a reputation of putting wonky updates out at time. The audio system has some issues and is simple, though it should work.
#3
All of our sound files are stored as Oggs if that helps at all.
As for the testers, I think it may have been a combination of overly aggressive settings for MAX_SOURCES and the updated DLLs. I am hoping BASS will give us much more luck.
10/02/2008 (6:30 pm)
Hi guys, thanks for your replies. I've actually been up all night and integrated BASS into TGB. It actually works really well and sounds great, and can hack a good spamming. :) I suppose part of the problem is that we have a lot of different audio files that can play at any time during the game, this will easily fill up the default 16 audio sources, at which points sources appear to get culled. However, it doesn't appear to be consistent, and errors will start to occur, such as repeating sounds. Sounds that repeat are definitely not set to do so in their audio descriptions. All of our sound files are stored as Oggs if that helps at all.
As for the testers, I think it may have been a combination of overly aggressive settings for MAX_SOURCES and the updated DLLs. I am hoping BASS will give us much more luck.
Torque Owner WesTT