[M-dev]Re: MML reset problem

[Gregory S. <wo...@tr...>]

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 23:39 -0800, Bill Catambay wrote:
> First of all, thanks for taking a look at that and finding the problem!
> 
> Question: Is the crude vs. refined an issue of style, or is there 
> more to it?  In other words, does unloading all the sounds cause the 
> level loading to take longer?  (and you know how long it already 
> takes)
> 
> If it doesn't really put a burden on level loading, it seems that 
> crude may be refined enough.  What do you think?

It's mainly a style thing. It won't affect level loading that much. I
doubt you can tell the difference between the time it takes to load a
level when you command-option jump to it, and when you go to it from
another level.

Not all sounds are loaded when the level is loaded, either. Many are
loaded off the disk as they are needed (which is why it is good that you
use AIFF and not a compressed format). This used to cause problems for
me in LAN net games on ibooks/powerbooks because there was a fractional
pause while the hard drive came out of low acoustic mode, every time I
fired a new weapon. I eventually found a program called APM Tuner which
let me set the drive to high performance, and fixed the problem. Some
combination of the 5400 rpm drive in my 1.67 GHz 15" and the sudden
motion sensor also seems to have fixed the problem :)

I suppose the crude fix would also help keep Aleph One's memory
footprint down, since it won't keep sounds in memory the current level
isn't using. Which it used to do: it wouldn't unload sounds until going
back to the main menu, or until the OS refused to give it any more
memory. Which was fine back in OS 9 because you could set how much
memory you wanted to give a program, but in Windows/Linux/Mac OS X the
OS will keep giving you memory until the process limit is reached, or
the system runs out and crashes.

Gregory