Soundsystem of ET:QW

[airon]

Is Information on the sound system of ET:QW available yet ?

Having designed a bunch of stuff for Q3 engine games(and a bunch before that) I'm very interested in what this game can offer me.

Any docs available ? I'd like to start reading up on it, so I'm ready for doing work on a MOD or map that I'll be contributing to.

Airon
Truecombat/Team Terminator

[Loffy]

Good thread.
Will it be .wav files as usual? And mono?

[nUllSkillZ]

AFAIK D3 uses ogg.
But wav can be used too.

[matze]

AFAIK D3 uses ogg.
True (http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis), Quake 4 too.

[airon]

I was thinking whether or not first person sounds will be seperated from 3rd person sounds, what will be stereo(like 1st person breathing, impacts, shots and movement for example), how distance is used, how many distance zones for sounds there are, how weapon sounds are split up (reload steps, deploy, holster, ironsight aim, drop) ... and so on.

And how do ambiences work ? Are they stereo, scripts similar to HL2, transitions between zones, overlapping or just one enviroment at a time ?
How do vehicle sounds work ? Startup, shutdown, power levels, 1st person - 3rdperson sounds ?
Sound triggers, voice overs, DSP effects ...

All that jazz. Let's have it then. Pretty please :) .

Airon
Truecombat/Team Terminator

[ouroboro]

I just hope ET:QW doesn't require OpenAL-capable hardware for properly working directional audio, like Q4 does. That was a huge mistake, IMO.

[airon]

Bump.

Where's the dev info on the sound system ?

We love you. Give us some sugar here.

[Pytox]

Would mp3 also be usable? :)

[airon]

I wouldn't bet on it Pytox. Besides, OGG is superior in almost every way. It is sample accurate, as in you don't get that 1105 samples delay up front, and as a result you can also loop OGG files cleanly.

If I were to pick, I'd choose OGG over MP3 for any game sound.

[Shaderman]

http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gif
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifTapir Surround http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gif
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gifhttp://www.splashdamage.com/forums/images/smiles/tapir.gif

[Sauron|EFG]

I wouldn't bet on it Pytox. Besides, OGG is superior in almost every way. It is sample accurate, as in you don't get that 1105 samples delay up front, and as a result you can also loop OGG files cleanly.

If I were to pick, I'd choose OGG over MP3 for any game sound.
Not to mention it's patent-free.

[TNR360]

Call of duty 2 engine uses MP3

[BrightSoul]

I just hope ET:QW doesn't require OpenAL-capable hardware for properly working directional audio, like Q4 does. That was a huge mistake, IMO.

As you may know, Windows Vista has dropped the Hardware Abstraction Layer that XP has and, as a consequence, you will get no audio hardware acceleration for all those games that use EAX / DirectSound.

It would be a mistake not to use OpenAL, actually.
Vista allows 3rd party 3D audio APIs to access the hardware directly and that is why all those OpenAL games should still work fine with proper drivers installed.

On a side note, Creative is working on a solution called ALchemy project (http://preview.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx) to re-enable EAX support on Vista. For what I can understand, it's some kind of wrapper that remaps EAX instructions to OpenAL ones.

One way or the other, I think I should just get a Creative Audio Card. You know... just to be sure :roll:

[Graham]

Why can't MS not be wankers and just support the god dam EAX thing!

[ayatollah]

Why can't MS not be wankers and just support the god dam EAX thing!

Don't think its a case of them being wankers they just support the system that will bring the best results, from their point of view.

[ouroboro]

I just hope ET:QW doesn't require OpenAL-capable hardware for properly working directional audio, like Q4 does. That was a huge mistake, IMO.

As you may know, Windows Vista has dropped the Hardware Abstraction Layer that XP has and, as a consequence, you will get no audio hardware acceleration for all those games that use EAX / DirectSound.

It would be a mistake not to use OpenAL, actually.
Vista allows 3rd party 3D audio APIs to access the hardware directly and that is why all those OpenAL games should still work fine with proper drivers installed.

On a side note, Creative is working on a solution called ALchemy project (http://preview.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx) to re-enable EAX support on Vista. For what I can understand, it's some kind of wrapper that remaps EAX instructions to OpenAL ones.

One way or the other, I think I should just get a Creative Audio Card. You know... just to be sure :roll:

OpenAL [essentially] requires a Creative card (http://www.openal.org/platforms.html). I find this offensive.

[DG]

Why? :)

[airon]

Is any developer info on the sound system available yet ?

Have I missed it ? Splashdamage, what's the word ? Or when shall it be brought down upon us ?

[escapedturkey]

They should consider implementing Miles3D which covers all the standards. Or at least provide raw 5.1 channels like Quake 4 does.

What I miss in Doom 3 and Quake 4 are the Quake 3 doppler swoosh sounds. Those were more helpful than directional sounds when it came to understanding near-misses.

[SlippytheWeasel]

I don't think any Vista issues will mean much, since the devs decided AGAINST making the game to work primariliy in Vista.

From what I've been reading, Vista is a gamers nightmare. Sucks all the memory away, and games (if they work at all) are sluggish compared to XP.


Slippy

[Sebultura]

I was thinking whether or not first person sounds will be seperated from 3rd person sounds, what will be stereo(like 1st person breathing, impacts, shots and movement for example), how distance is used, how many distance zones for sounds there are, how weapon sounds are split up (reload steps, deploy, holster, ironsight aim, drop) ... and so on.

And how do ambiences work ? Are they stereo, scripts similar to HL2, transitions between zones, overlapping or just one enviroment at a time ?
How do vehicle sounds work ? Startup, shutdown, power levels, 1st person - 3rdperson sounds ?
Sound triggers, voice overs, DSP effects ...

All that jazz. Let's have it then. Pretty please :) .

Airon
Truecombat/Team Terminator

Ok, at this point, no one else than team members have the answers, anyway we can think that the system they'll use is probably the same as the Doom 3 one.

Here's what you may looking for:
- Doom 3 sound stuff (http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/sounds.php)
- Quake 4 sound stuff (http://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/Sounds)

[Sauron|EFG]

OpenAL [essentially] requires a Creative card (http://www.openal.org/platforms.html). I find this offensive.

"On the Windows platform there are 3 different types of OpenAL devices available. The Generic Software device runs on any soundcard, with or without Direct X support. This device is the fallback solution that will be used if no other devices are available. The Generic Hardware device provides an emulation of OpenAL on top of Direct Sound 3D, and provides hardware acceleration on any soundcard that has Direct Sound 3D drivers, and supports a minimum of 16 Hardware 3D Voices. Finally, there are Native OpenAL drivers available for soundcards such as the Sound Blaster Audigy and X-Fi series of cards. The native devices offer the best in terms of performance and features."

I'm not sure how that makes it more offensive than for example DirectSound3D.

[escapedturkey]

He might be referring to the fact that OpenAL in Quake 4 only works with Creative XF-I series.

[M8DNanite]

And NVIDIA nForce, if i remember correctly this propably means the old nvidia Sountstorm chip ie nForce2 and maybe 3.

http://www.openal.org/platforms.html

In BF2 OpenAL has more support with X-Fi. With only X-fi you can turn on Ultra High quality (128 3D sound sources).

With OpenAL and Vista you still have true HW accelerated sound as there is no more HW acceleration in DirectSound in Vista.

[Sauron|EFG]

He might be referring to the fact that OpenAL in Quake 4 only works with Creative XF-I series.
Do they use a whole other sound API for other sound cards, or do you mean that certain effects only works with X-Fi?

[TTK-Bandit]

He might be referring to the fact that OpenAL in Quake 4 only works with Creative XF-I series.
Do they use a whole other sound API for other sound cards, or do you mean that certain effects only works with X-Fi?
In D3/Q4, openal is completely disabled if the hardware is not perfect. I have a soundblaster live 1024 player, and it tells me I have no openal compatible card, altough all other games work fine with openal and EAX.
I think it is some kind of limited version that was included into the doom3 engine due to the copyright issue idsoftware had with creative's algorithm for shadow calculation (can't remember exactly so don't quote me on this)

I just hope SD has written a completely new sound engine or uses the q3 sound engine. even the old q3 sound engine was imho way better (for multiplayer) than what is used in the doom3 engine.
but from the sound of the trailers, I'd say it's probably an extended version of the doom3 sound engine.