[vorbis] Audio Section - Game Programming Gems 3

[Alen Ladavac]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Hubina" <tomh at 3dgamedev.com>
To: <vorbis at xiph.org>
> The larger game houses can afford to spend a couple thousand dollars on an
> MP3 license (or just get it by using Miles) because they know no one is
> going to pull the rug out from under them later(like if the MP3 dorks got
> an injunction against all products that used Ogg Vorbis as part of a

I'd recommend that you check back the history of this ml. You can read
between the lines (IIRC) that even some major players (in gamedev
specifically) are not very happy with the mp3 pricing. I won't go into
discussing this further, but I can easily believe that.

> lawsuit .. valid or not). The smaller game companies are watching every
> penny and those are the ones that would be most interested in Ogg Vorbis.
> They're also the ones who are very pressed for time and pre-packaged /
> clean solutions are very interesting to them.
And if we are talking about making .ogg popular among the people, it will be
smaller gamedevs that are interesting, because they count a larger total
number of programmers. :o)

> An article showing how to stream the data into a DSound buffer efficiently
> using the callback functions and with a minimum of extra junk would be
> useful. Information about CPU load, memory use, and song start latency
> would be important as well.

Yeah, that is what I had in mind. I have a working implementation that I am
very satisfied with. It is simple to do and works well. And I don't mind
sharing code snippets. :)

> I would suggest that you guys build up some binary distributions of the
> playback stuff. In general, I think game developers want a clean solution
> that they can play with right off the bat. In general we're not interested
> in contributing to the code base or spending a couple days getting the
> projects to compile and integrate with our project. It's great to know the
> source is available if we have to port to PS2 or fix a bug, but it really
> isn't a primary concern. In other words, what I'd be looking for is a
> simple package with:
>
> 1. Static and dynamic libraries.
> 2. Header files required for playback.
> 3. Some simple examples to show playback through a FILE pointer and using
> the call back functions to feed into DSound.
> 4. Easy to use tools for creating the Ogg files that we can give to our
> music guys.
> 5. Docs for the API and tools.

Pardon my eventual ignorance, but I think all of the above already exists.
Well, no one shows you how to actually feed DSound with it, but I guess, if
you are a game programmer, you should already know that. :o)
And re tools, I think that OggDrop is as easy to use as it can be. LOL

> I would also suggest trying to get feedback from any developer using Ogg
> Vorbis and putting a list of titles that use it up on the web site.

Well, I think that the feedback was already sent, and that Monty and Jack
have had contacts with each. (I know for sure for me here - he he ;) ).
Putting the list on the website is a good idea! Anyone from the xiph web
reading this?

Alen

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