[openal] Querying speaker configuration

Leszek Godlewski lg at inequation.org
Tue Oct 7 05:07:33 EDT 2014


Hi,

PortAudio is definitely an option. The problem is – as always – time and
engineering resources. :) Writing an FMOD backend for it is plan C or
perhaps D.

Regards,

Leszek

2014-10-07 11:00 GMT+02:00 Richard Furse <richard at blueripplesound.com>:

> Ah, okay - I've answered completely the wrong question! I think you're
> saying that OpenAL is basically being used as a wrapper for the operating
> system audio hardware layer.
>
> Trying to think of alternatives - how is PortAudio looking these days?
> Does it manage to identify multichannel layouts?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> --Richard
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: openal [mailto:openal-bounces at openal.org] On Behalf Of Chris
> > Robinson
> > Sent: 07 October 2014 09:45
> > To: Richard Furse; 'openal mailing list'
> > Subject: Re: [openal] Querying speaker configuration
> >
> > On 10/07/2014 01:00 AM, Richard Furse wrote:
> > > What's the issue here? Is this the case where there are pre-rendered
> > > surround assets and the upstream code wants to choose the right one
> > > for the speaker configuration?
> >
> > In this case, the game audio is being rendered internally in real-time
> > (using a customized version of FMOD's software renderer), and its OpenAL
> > backend is used to play the mix to avoid having to code for specific
> > sound systems. For this situation, the game would ideally render the
> > audio using the same configuration OpenAL is using for output, so it
> > acts as close to a pass-through device as it can (e.g. if OpenAL has 5.1
> > output, the game's audio would be internally rendered to a 5.1 stream
> > and played through a typical source buffer queue using
> > AL_FORMAT_51CHN16/32; each input channel would then go to a matching
> > output channel). If OpenAL's output configuration is not understood, it
> > could just pick a fallback format and let OpenAL up-/down-mix it as
> needed.
> >
> > In some cases there are secondary streams played which OpenAL will need
> > to mix too, but the majority of the audio is mixed and rendered
> internally.
> >
> > This is a non-ideal use-case for OpenAL, I know, but for cases like this
> > where that's not really possible (it'd be quite a bit of work to fully
> > replace FMOD), it can be useful to know the output configuration.
> >
> > > BTW, just an instinct, and without looking at the source, the
> > > conversation about 5.1 and stereo assets killing each other sounds
> > > like a classic "=" which should be a "+=" on a bus. I'm probably
> > > wrong, but thought I should mention it in case ;-)
> >
> > Yeah, I'm not sure where that could happen, though. The actual mixer
> > (where the samples are added together) is the same for all inputs, be it
> > mono, stereo, or whatever (each input channel is processed individually,
> > using a set of gains for corresponding output channels). That it works
> > with two stereo streams, but not a stereo stream and a 5.1 stream,
> > suggests to me it's something wrong with the input.
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>
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