 | | | performance/sound issue (opinions on DirectSound Xtra?) | performance/sound issue (opinions on DirectSound Xtra?) 2004-02-15 - By Paul Fortier
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Roman wrote:
"...director might not already have loaded all the shaders it needs to
display the room you're about to enter, which causes a delay - nothing
invoked by sound load here..."
Thanks, Roman.
I don't think that shader loading is an issue here because it happens
when I am not calling putting any new meshes in front of the camera too.
Here is an opinion from someone on another list:
"There is a stutter problem with Director's sound system on PC when
Director is busy (probably a threading issue, or an undersized sound
buffer). If it's not a shockwave project, you can use DirectXtras
DirectSound Xtra, which does a much better job. /Jonas"
There seems to be no way I can test this xtra (can't use the demo in a
projector). It costs $183. Can anyone confirm what Jonas is saying?
Thanks,
Paul
>> I don't think framerate is the issue because I am getting a better
>> framerate with the PIII that the 'sound skip' is happening on than
>> with other machines that have no sound skipping going on. And... It
>> seems, although I haven't done extensive testing on this, that the
>> third time I get the sound file to play and the swap to take place
>> (it happens each time I enter a room in my 3d world...so I just exit
>> and enter again 2 more times) I usually don't hear the skip.
>
>
> 2 issues come to my mind here:
>
> 1.: Maybe it would help to give the PIII-computer a faster graphics
> card - 3d scenes are quite an effort, and on PCs - as far as I believe
> - sound and 3d graphics are both handled by directX, so it could be of
> use to reduce the directX-load by outsourcing some work to the
> graphics card...
My concern is that this needs to play on school computer lab machines
that will come with a variety of cards.
>
>
> 2.: From your last sentence I get the impression that director might
> not already have loaded all the shaders it needs to display the room
> you're about to enter, which causes a delay - nothing invoked by sound
> load here. We know this issue from working with quite huge 3d scenes
> and have a workaround: Before the game/program/whatever starts, we use
> a special camera: place one camera on top of your scene ("in the
> sky"), giving you a view on the whole scene at once - since this looks
> odd to the user, you still can put some plane directly in front of the
> camera, thus hiding the scene (the effect is still the same, whether
> you actually can _see_ the scene or not - only the camera should show
> the whole scene at once if there were no plane in front). This is only
> needed once at the start of your movie and causes director to load all
> the stuff it needs to display any part of your scene from any perspective.
> This _could_ stop your sound break.
>
>
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Roman wrote:<br>
"...director might not already have loaded all the shaders it needs to display
the room you're about to enter, which causes a delay - nothing invoked by
sound load here..."<br>
<br>
Thanks, Roman.<br>
I don't think that shader loading is an issue here because it happens when
I am not calling putting any new meshes in front of the camera too.<br>
<br>
Here is an opinion from someone on another list:<br>
<!---->"There is a stutter problem with Director's sound system on PC when
Director is busy (probably a threading issue, or an undersized sound buffer).
If it's not a shockwave project, you can use DirectXtras DirectSound Xtra,
which does a much better job. /Jonas"<br>
<pre wrap="">There seems to be no way I can test this xtra (can't use the demo
in a projector). It costs $183. Can anyone confirm what Jonas is saying?
Thanks,
Paul
</pre>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid402EB41C.3080400@(protected)">
<blockquote type="cite">I don't think framerate is the issue because I
am getting a better framerate with the PIII that the 'sound skip' is happening
on than with other machines that have no sound skipping going on. And...
It seems, although I haven't done extensive testing on this, that the
third
time I get the sound file to play and the swap to take place (it happens
each time I enter a room in my 3d world...so I just exit and enter again
2 more times) I usually don't hear the skip.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
2 issues come to my mind here:<br>
<br>
1.: Maybe it would help to give the PIII-computer a faster graphics card
- 3d scenes are quite an effort, and on PCs - as far as I believe - sound
and 3d graphics are both handled by directX, so it could be of use to reduce
the directX-load by outsourcing some work to the graphics card...</blockquote>
My concern is that this needs to play on school computer lab machines that
will come with a variety of cards.<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid402EB41C.3080400@(protected)"><br>
<br>
2.: From your last sentence I get the impression that director might not
already have loaded all the shaders it needs to display the room you're about
to enter, which causes a delay - nothing invoked by sound load here. We know
this issue from working with quite huge 3d scenes and have a workaround:
Before the game/program/whatever starts, we use a special camera: place one
camera on top of your scene ("in the sky"), giving you a view on the whole
scene at once - since this looks odd to the user, you still can put some
plane directly in front of the camera, thus hiding the scene (the effect
is still the same, whether you actually can _see_ the scene or not - only
the camera should show the whole scene at once if there were no plane in
front). This is only needed once at the start of your movie and causes director
to load all the stuff it needs to display any part of your scene from any
perspective.<br>
This _could_ stop your sound break.<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>
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