[directmusic] drop-outs in streaming wavs
- From: "Ciaran Walsh" <ciaran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Directmusic Group" <directmusic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 11:35:19 +0100
Paul mentioning "Don't pre-roll" reminds me of a problem I'm having with my
current project, in which I'm using multiple streaming wavs for both
ambience and music (usually about 7 or so large wavs per level). Checking
"Don't pre-roll" significantly reduces the memory hit (I can't remember now
what the numbers were when I tested it, but it's something roughly like 300k
per stereo 48k wav instead of >1Mb - a bit of a showstopper if you can't use
it). As I understand it, if it's unchecked you always have a chunk of each
wav buffered ready to play, whereas if it's checked DM handles this
dynamically.
My problem is that when running in the game, particularly on my main
machine, I seem to occasionally lose the streams. Usually what happens is it
will cut out for half a second or so, come back on for another second and
then cut out altogether. It then only resumes either very rarely and
randomly or when you trigger a script routine that starts a new segment.
It never happens in DMP or DMDemo. Some levels seem to be more susceptible
than others with no apparent pattern in terms of number of wavs etc. There
seem to be certain things that make it more likely to happen, such as
opening up an inventory screen with lots of OSD stuff, or triggering
cutscenes with moving vehicles etc. None of this is consistent though. I've
heard it happen once or twice on other machines, but much less than on mine,
even though some of the test PCs are way less powerful.
I messed about with don't pre-roll and the read ahead value thinking that I
might be able to exchange a bit of memory for stability but the results were
pretty inconclusive.
Has anyone come across (and fixed!) this problem? On the Xbox I'm pretty
sure this isn't an issue, but for the PC version it's a worry...
Ciaran
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Ciaran Walsh
Creative Director
Wide Sounds
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www.widesounds.com / www.widegames.com
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Fax: +44 (0)1273 818652
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