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Author Topic: Why not to go on with FMOD?  (Read 6866 times)

metis

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Why not to go on with FMOD?
« on: March 08, 2012, 04:39:48 pm »
I just started with Lazarus some weeks ago (currently using v0.9.30), formerly
doing most of my projects with Delphi7.

First congratulations to all Lazarus developers:
It's really running well on my WinXP-PC, and switching over to Lazarus was no problem at all.

Only converting whole Delphi projects with the ConversionTool is not really satisfying.
It helps, but finally it's better to create new Lazarus projects, and then transfer the DelphiCode.


One of my Delphi projects is a multimedia-player/dj-Mixer, including:
- VideoPlayer, using  MPlayer v0.6.10
- AudioPlayer, using  FMOD-AudioEngine (FmodEx v4.30.02)
- SystemMixer, using  'TAudioMixer' (Windows only)

All the conversion to make the basic functions of the MPlayer-FrontEnd and the SystemMixer
run with Lazarus is done - next would be the AudioPart.

Looking for an AudioEngine, may be better than FmodEx, I also checked the 'Cactus Jukebox' v0.4.1 for Win32,
and I saw...
...in the settings to choose the Audio-BackEnd, that FMOD is "outdated", and
...in the LazarusWiki, that 'fpsound' is intended to be the future AudioPlayer instead of the 'MPlayer'.

Well, I was very happy with 'FMOD', now 'FmodEx', for years:
Beside of its great Sound, it's very powerful and fast, having lots of features for
SoundMixing and SoundEffects.


So, here my question:
Why is 'FMOD' "outdated", and why is it better to go on with 'fpsound' ?
Life could be so easy, if there weren't those f*** Details.
My FFmpeg4Lazarus = FFPlay4Laz + FFGrab4Laz + FFInfo4Laz

felipemdc

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2012, 06:33:54 pm »
fpsound is a generic way to handle backend sound libraries (besides also being able to modify files, read tags, etc), so it could have a FMod player backend for example. Right now it has only an OpenAL backend to play sounds. You are welcome if you want to write such a FMod backend for fpsound.

JuhaManninen

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2012, 08:56:32 pm »
The converter does only rather primitive replacement operations.
It is able to replace used units, replace some component types and remove their unknown properties.
It can also replace function calls including a different parameter signature.

It does not do any deeper code analysis. For that we will need a whole new converter with a different parser.

Anyway, if you have some Units / Types / Functions that clearly should be replaced, please create an issue report about it.
For other changes manual editing is the only way.

Juha
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

metis

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2012, 05:44:32 pm »
I've tried to get some more info about 'fpsound' to have a look at it,
but besides of the 'lazarus wiki', I couldn't find anything about it.

Even the 'lazarus wiki'-page has no link, p.e. for the sourcecode, etc.

So, where to get more info about 'fpsound' ?
Life could be so easy, if there weren't those f*** Details.
My FFmpeg4Lazarus = FFPlay4Laz + FFGrab4Laz + FFInfo4Laz

CaptBill

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2012, 06:02:45 pm »
The BASS library is the best thing going as far as sound processing goes. It is a really good and mature code library.
If you have GLScene (game engine component suite) installed you have some components for BASS there (BASS is a dll).

Excellent help in the BASS forum as well.

chris319

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2012, 07:46:47 pm »
I've had good luck with PortAudio.

www.PortAudio.com

metis

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2012, 02:20:35 pm »
Sorry for answering so late, but progging is finally only one of my hobbies, beside of my daily work.

Hi CaptBill,
BASS, I know for many years. I'm not too convinced about it, for it's poor sound
(lots of bass, few transparency and clarity) and slow DSP-Functions.
Therefore, I was always looking for something better than BASS.
In my opinion (or ears) best sound is provided by:
FmodEx (not Fmod3), irrklang, and Audiere (in this order).

'GLScene', like the 'Cactus Jukebox', only got wrapper for Fmod3.
But FmodEx, the follower of Fmod3, has improved a lot, p.e.:
- much better sound
- faster loading time (on bigger SoundFiles Fmod3 was quite slow) 
- Fmod3 sometimes didn't calculate the TotalTime correctly
- different and easier API (totaly rebuild)


Hi chris,
PortAudio, I don't know - I'll check that.

Meanwhile my FmodEx is also working with Lazarus.
(the wrapper itself for the moment only in DelphiMode, but it works)

altasam
Life could be so easy, if there weren't those f*** Details.
My FFmpeg4Lazarus = FFPlay4Laz + FFGrab4Laz + FFInfo4Laz

jwdietrich

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Re: Why not to go on with FMOD?
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2012, 10:02:54 am »
I've tried to get some more info about 'fpsound' to have a look at it,
but besides of the 'lazarus wiki', I couldn't find anything about it.

Even the 'lazarus wiki'-page has no link, p.e. for the sourcecode, etc.

So, where to get more info about 'fpsound' ?

Did anybody find some information on fpsound in the meanwhile? I would be very interested in this unit or library, too.
function GetRandomNumber: integer; // xkcd.com
begin
  GetRandomNumber := 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. Guaranteed to be random.
end;

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