Re: OpenAL- ALSA advanced features hardware support update.

[Glenn Maynard <g_sf@zewt.org>]

(Oops.  Sent privately unintentionally; resending to the list.)

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?  

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?

-- 
Glenn Maynard


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