[openal] Querying speaker configuration

Chris Robinson chris.kcat at gmail.com
Tue Oct 7 02:55:46 EDT 2014


On 10/05/2014 01:29 PM, Leszek Godlewski wrote:
> Here's the thing – I have a similar use case to Peter. Namely, a game I'm
> porting is using a customized version of FMOD, and since it already has an
> OpenAL backend, I decided to go with it. However, FMOD only creates one
> output source if it can help it (otherwise it creates a bunch 3D-localized
> mono sources in a configuration resembling the given speaker arrangement),
> and the kind of source it creates depends on the number of speakers queried
> from the "control panel" (as per Windows parlance, i.e. the system-wide
> speaker setup). I don't see a sensible way of overcoming this without
> either ripping half of FMOD apart, or the game itself (it's quite deeply
> integrated). Neither of the latter is an option.

Like I mentioned, I would consider adding a "best fit" format query, 
which would give a format that best matches the output.

Alternatively, I could add enums for individual speaker names, a query 
for the number of device speakers, and a query for the speaker info 
(which would require an array size based on the number of speakers). 
This could be a lot of enums though, and it'd be more difficult for apps 
to work out what would be best, but it would also give the most info.

Richard, I'm curious what you think since you have an OpenAL driver too 
(though I don't know if it's still being developed). Do you think the 
output configuration should be exposed to the app, and if so, what would 
be the best way to do it?


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