I've been browsing the sound support notes in the DM reference guide and found that file types supported by BYOND are mod, .it, .s3m, .xm, and .oxm. (for music), .wav, .ogg, .raw, .wma, or .aiff (for sound) and I've got a few questions.
Currently, I'm trying to make my music and sound files for my project smaller. I use ogg, and it seems really great, reduces file size of my music and sound effects by about 1/2 and almost no reduction in quality. Should I use ogg for both music and sound, or just for sound, and what are good file types to use as alternatives for music and/or sound that might be better than ogg vorbis in reducing size and not significantly reducing quality?
Also, would players need to install ogg vorbis codecs (if they don't have them already) or any codecs for anything other than midi, wav and mid formats to hear them in Dreamseeker?
ID:152408
 Dec 3 2006, 11:16 am (Edited on Dec 3 2006, 11:23 am)
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Thank you.
I'm understanding that I should problably just use .ogg files for my music and sound, correct? I remember in an older version of BYOND you could not run more than one midi/mid file at once, while wavs and other sound files had a larger limit, this version wouldn't have the same limitation on .ogg files would it? | |
Your best bet for music is usually a Mod format, like .mod, .xm, etc. They're like MIDI so they can handle long pieces of music without adding much to the file size. The main driver of their size is the quality and number of the samples used. Unlike MIDI, they store the instrument samples right in the file. The .oxm format is a compressed version that converts the samples to an .ogg format internally, and you can create those with a utility called Oggmod. Not many applications support the .oxm format but BYOND does.
For sound effects, yeah, .ogg is a good idea. I plan to convert a bunch of SotS II's effects to .ogg format to save space. This is especially worthwhile if you have sounds with a high sample rate like CD-quality 44.1 KHz. Lummox JR | |
Yakuto wrote:
I'm understanding that I should problably just use .ogg files for my music and sound, correct? Generally, yes. If you have a music file that's already in one of the .mod-type formats (like MIDI, but way better), you should leave them as that. (see Lummox JR's post in this thread) I remember in an older version of BYOND you could not run more than one midi/mid file at once, while wavs and other sound files had a larger limit, this version wouldn't have the same limitation on .ogg files would it? Whatever limitations BYOND has in regards to sound should be the same for all file formats (except .midi, which may or may not be weird: I'm not sure). I think there's a limit on the maximum number of sounds/music being played at once, but I can't remember what it is, and it might be soundcard-specific. | |
Jon88 wrote:
Whatever limitations BYOND has in regards to sound should be the same for all file formats (except .midi, which may or may not be weird: I'm not sure). Midi will behave the same as other formats now that we're using FMOD Ex. I think there's a limit on the maximum number of sounds/music being played at once, but I can't remember what it is, and it might be soundcard-specific. In theory, FMOD Ex can play thousands of sound channels even on limited hardware. Part of how it accomplishes its magic is to swap out voices based on 3D distance and priority, so you should be sure to set the priority of sounds if you expect to have many playing at once. BYOND supports 1024 channels, and to BYOND a multichannel sound only consumes one channel. | |
Shadowdarke wrote:
In theory, FMOD Ex can play thousands of sound channels even on limited hardware. Part of how it accomplishes its magic is to swap out voices based on 3D distance and priority, so you should be sure to set the priority of sounds if you expect to have many playing at once. BYOND supports 1024 channels, and to BYOND a multichannel sound only consumes one channel. There are some strange issues with extremely high numbers of channels, however. I haven't produced a test case yet, but sounds in the high channels can cut other high-channel sounds off. | |
Jtgibson wrote:
There are some strange issues with extremely high numbers of channels, however. I haven't produced a test case yet, but sounds in the high channels can cut other high-channel sounds off. I'm interested in the results when you do test it. While you're testing, please see if the priority setting helps any. | |
I apologize for coming in late, but some of Jtgibson's experience comes from the testing I was doing for ID:503869. The problem was most noticeable when the channel numbers were higher, but it seems to still be there after I set a much lower limit.
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Ogg Vorbis is the best form of audio compression that is supported by BYOND. All other formats don't compress their audio except for .oxm, which is a FastTracker 2.0 mod music file with instruments compressed by Ogg Vorbis.
Nope, BYOND handles all of that by using the FMODex library, which handles all of the decoding.