Re: OpenAL- ALSA advanced features hardware support update.

[Manuel Jander <manuel.jander@mat.utfsm.cl>]

On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 22:38, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2003 at 11:24:00PM -0400, Manuel Jander wrote:
> > The same as for the first iteration of this proposal, please take some
> > minutes and give some comments/suggestions back. I need feedback.
> 
> I'll give some higher level feedback:  Why OpenAL?  

Do you know about any other alternative ?? I don't.

> I looked at it about a year ago, while rewriting the sound system for
> a game with relatively strict sound demands. (StepMania; we wanted
> hardware mixing, when possible, and sound-to-gameplay sync to be as
> tight as possible, within a couple ms).
> 
> I couldn't find any active mailing lists.  I couldn't even find any
> indication that anyone was working on it at all.  I read some of the
> Windows source code, and saw what is--without exaggeration--some of
> the most heinous, seizure-inducing code I've ever seen.  (There were
> conditionals and loops nested something like 12 levels deep.  I don't
> think the programmer understood the concept of the "return" keyword.)
> 
> And although the API was decent to look at, it had no way of getting an
> accurate hardware play cursor, or any other mechanism to get a good idea
> of the currently-playing sample (for eg. graphical sync).  We couldn't
> reliably sync sound with any smaller resolution than a whole buffer.
> 
> I don't think OpenAL has a future.  Do you really want to invest your time
> in it?

I agree that the implementation isn't the best. But its not about the
particular implementation. Its about standards. If you look at OpenAL,
its mostly a imitation of Aureals A3D. Some name changed, but in essence
just like A3D, most of its look and feel (of the API) has been borrowed
from OpenGL.

For know i don't have the time to write a new library and pretend it to
be adopted widespread by others. If we support OpenAL, the
implementation may be improved, once it is working.

Best Regards.

Manuel Jander




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