RE: [GD-General] Writing an audio mixer

[Brian S. <bs...@mi...>]

Threaded is easier than non-threaded?  Ha!

No, I think the advantage is that a non-threaded architecture is more =
portable (as Brian Hook has already mentioned, old Mac OS doesn't have =
preemptive threading, and older consoles didn't either) and it's more =
efficient not to have a separate thread if you can run your main loop =
fast enough to service the sound buffers.

Threaded is easier if you're a company like RAD selling a sound engine, =
because you can guarantee good performance and you don't have to field a =
bunch of calls from people with games running at 15 fps complaining that =
their sound is dropping out.

As for SMP, well, about 0.00001% of gamers are going to have 2 or more =
processors ;)

--brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Mads Bondo Dydensborg [mailto:ma...@ch...]=20
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 2:39 AM
To: Ignacio Casta=F1o
Cc: gam...@li...
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Writing an audio mixer


On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, Ignacio Casta=F1o wrote:

> Hi,
> I will be writting sound mixer next week, and I have to admit that I=20
> have no idea of sound programming. I could use sdl or any other=20
> library, but i just want to do that myself to learn how it's done.=20
> I've been looking for info about sound programming witout much look,=20
> I've only found low level details about the sound blaster :-( So if=20
> somebody knows where to find a good tutorial about this, I would=20
> really appreciate it.

I do not know about tutorials, but I wrote my own mixer once in about =
1000 lines of code. It used a seperate thread, because I thought that to =
be easier. The problem with my code was that I could only support mone 8 =
bit samples. This is easy to do. When you want to support stereo, or =
even more channels, and formats where the byte order is important (e.g. =
16 bit samples), it begins to suck. Also, you need to support a number =
of different interfaces if you wish your code to work across platforms.

> Anyway, I just can learn that by reading source code, for example,=20
> quake's sound engine runs on every game update, while sdl's and=20
> minifmod's run in a different thread. Updating the audio in the game=20
> loop seems to be easier to me, at least i have to write less platform=20
> independant code, but it seems that you have that work already done.=20
> On the other hand threaded audio seems to be the right thing, since=20
> most libraries do that.

Threaded is easier. For _ultimate_ performance, you want to schedule =
yourself, in this case from the game loop.

But, seriously, who needs that? Carmack might, because he writes to =
highend metal, but the rest of us? You loose SMP benefits, etc.

YMMV.

Mads

--=20
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               =
ma...@ch...
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right =
to say it.
  - Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 1907 (many times =
wrongfully
    attributed to Voltaire)


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