[vorbis] seeking information

[Michael Smith]

At 03:27 AM 4/28/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi`
>
>I just subscribed to the list and already have a couple of questions ;) I
>read the FAQ and skimmed through the archives but I'd rather get up- to date
>information and not rely on what I read in old posts.
>
>Are there any games/ mods using Ogg Vorbis?

2 that have been released:
 Operation Flashpoint
 Star Trek: Away Team

There may also be mods using vorbis, as opposed to standalone games, but I'm
not aware of any (I haven't looked).

>
>Are there any other tools despite standalone music players using Ogg Vorbis?

Not quite sure what you mean here. There are a fair few tools for 
manipulating/creating/etc. vorbis files. Can you be more specific?

>
>How fast is decompression? How big is the memory overhead for decompression?

As far as complexity goes, decompression is similar to mp3. The current
implementation is, however, still a fair bit slower than the best mp3 decoders
(it's faster than the really bad ones, but 50% or more slower than the best.
There's no significant assembly optimisations in place, though, so big
improvements should be possible.

>How many people are actively working on Ogg Vorbis?

The core development team is about 4 or 5 people, I guess. 

>
>Is there funding behind Ogg Vorbis or are all contributors working on it for
>free?

There was funding until late last year. At the moment, all contributors
are working on it for free. However, several are paid for vorbis-related 
contracting work. 

>
>What's the roadmap for Ogg Vorbis? I read that the decompression code hasn't
>been optimised yet so I'm wondering whether there is an ETA for that or not.

It has been somewhat optimised, but a fair amount remains. 
The roadmap from here consists of completing the core libraries - there are 
a number of features that haven't been done. Parallel to that, optimisation
continues whenever people have time for it, tools development is ongoing, etc.

The API is complete, and we expect to maintain binary compatibility from here
on until at least version 1.0 (and source compatibility well beyond that).

The main 'missing chunk' of work before 1.0 is further features, most of 
which are aimed at lower bitrates and/or streaming. One thing that Monty
is currently working on will increase quality (hopefully) and provide an
alternative to one of the slowest parts of decoding - so that'll make 
decode significantly faster.

>
>
>Maybe some of the questions might sound strange but I'm trying to get a
>broad overview and am wondering whether Ogg Vorbis would be suitable for
>game development :) From a development point of view my main concerns are
>stability and decoding speed.

It's certainly suitable. Stability should not be a problem - libvorbis is 
very stable - I've had programs decoding multiple streams in parallel for
days at a time, in some cases. Decoding speed may be of concern - but it
is not particularly bad, and is improving. 

If any of my answers above haven't covered what you wanted to know, please
ask again.

Michael

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