Wav Vs Ogg

[Domarius]

I THINK, not sure, but looking at the CVS update, seems that a lot of ogg sounds have been removed and replaced with wav versions. How come? I thought ogg would be a much better filesize?

[Gildoran]

OGG files are good for longer sounds, but for sounds that are often used (such as footsteps), WAVs require less CPU, because you don't need to decompress them. Also, OGGs supposedly cannot be used to control screen shaking.

[New Horizon]

Yup, I replaced all the footstep sounds with the T2X footstep files. They were in an uncompressed .wav format, so that's the way I kept them.

[Domarius]

Oh, that makes sense Those kinds of sounds can't be compressed much anyway.

[Schatten]

Bump!

 

I'd like to discuss this, because we need to be clear about it, if we want to make a technical guideline for file formats. If we're going to keep wavs for small files, we should at least be clear about the approximate filesize of sounds that use wav instead of ogg.

 

Ok, so in my opinion, we should stick with ogg. My reasoning is that both formats are streamed by the engine before they are processed (EAX), and the performance gain doesn't warrant the increasing mod size - I'm not an expert on OpenAL, but I can't really see it. Gildoran, if I'm terribly wrong, please correct me.

[New Horizon]

For footsteps, and minor impact sounds, it's definitely better to use wavs. When I converted the T2X footsteps to ogg, they were more glitchy for some reason and didn't always play as quickly as they should.

 

I think the general rule of thumb should be, oggs for ambient music and vocal sets...since they're usually longer. Wavs for SFX....as they are usually short snippets.

[Schatten]

Hmm, so the problem is the access time. If oggs lag, that's a valid reason to use wav files for time critical, short sounds.

 

Question: If I convert any given wav to an ogg, and don't rename it save the file expansion, would I have to change anything in the editor? If not, the problem wouldn't be that big, since we could easily swap filetypes for any sound.

[Ishtvan]

For footsteps, and minor impact sounds, it's definitely better to use wavs. When I converted the T2X footsteps to ogg, they were more glitchy for some reason and didn't always play as quickly as they should.

Are you sure they were precached properly? It should precache it if you use "snd_*" for the name in the key-value pair, but if you had some arbitrary name it might not have precached them and had to load them the first time.

[Crispy]

Are precached OGGs decoded to raw waveform data when they're loaded, or only when they're played? If the latter, that could account for a small delay while it does the OGG -> WAV conversion.

 

What I mean is, which set of data is cached? Just the contents of the OGG file, or the decoded waveform data? The former would be a pretty silly way to do it, but maybe that's just how it ended up being implemented.

[Dram]

OGGs supposedly cannot be used to control screen shaking.

 

Not true, I use an ogg in my mansion map (when the huge stone block moves back into the ceiling) and it shakes the camera just fine. I had to set it to shake though.

[Schatten]

I'm going to do some testing with the footstep sounds - Ishtvan, could you explain to me where I have to set the "snd_" prefix for pre-caching? Key-Value isn't telling me much atm...

[comp-music]

we should at least be clear about the approximate filesize of sounds that use wav instead of ogg.

 

hi,everybody

 

This was the thing that divides us"approximate file size"When we finish a voices of the game the matter will became evident.

[Schatten]

comp-music, I'm not sure if I understood that correctly - are you thinking of the total size of all sounds?

 

Anyways, I did some testing in test_footsteps and couldn't tell any difference between ogg and wav. I've converted all footsteps to ogg, changed the shader and I couldn't find any impact on performance, total loading time or access speed. I stress tested with mashing the forward button, which currently causes our Thief to perform a splendid tap-dance.

 

NH, maybe it's because of the encoder you used, or the effect only becomes appearant in a detail heavy environment?

[New Horizon]

NH, maybe it's because of the encoder you used, or the effect only becomes appearant in a detail heavy environment?

 

Quite possible. I would prefer to keep the footsteps as wav though, since they were already processed for T2X..they're not the raw files.

[Schatten]

Well, I don't have a problem with making an exception for them, since we're talking about a guideline for future additions. The loss in quality isn't very dramatic though, in fact, I didn't notice any.

 

Btw, if you didn't already, get the fish. Still does the best encoding, imo.

[pakmannen]

I noticed while playing the Bonehoard map that the footsteps seem to be reverbed. It sounded pretty bad in the outdoors section. I talked with Schatten about this and maybe it's got something to do with faulty EAX setup. I'm gonna do a few tests over the next few days.

[comp-music]

are you thinking of the total size of all sounds?

 

Yes.When we finish all of the sound of the game will be seen clear.

[Schatten]

Yes.When we finish all of the sound of the game will be seen clear.

 

Of course we can only guess the total size of all sounds while they are still in production. It's however one of our goals to minimize the total size of the mod, and oggs help with that a lot. Consider that even before a public release, the files will be moved a lot - and a small size decreases the traffic and shortens download times.

 

I'm not sure, what is your point? Are you opposed to using ogg files? Your opinion is certainly welcome!

[Ishtvan]

I noticed while playing the Bonehoard map that the footsteps seem to be reverbed. It sounded pretty bad in the outdoors section. I talked with Schatten about this and maybe it's got something to do with faulty EAX setup. I'm gonna do a few tests over the next few days.

Faulty EAX setup? It seemed like some of those T2X footsteps just have too much reverb in the sound files themselves. A few of us complained some months ago but apparently the T2X guys don't have the original un-processed ones.

 

@Schatten:

The "snd" value should be in the first of the key/value pair, so you'll see "snd_X" (the local name) and then the second part in separate quotes will be the soundshader name, but the first name needs to be "snd_*" for it to be precached.

[pakmannen]

Faulty EAX setup? It seemed like some of those T2X footsteps just have too much reverb in the sound files themselves. A few of us complained some months ago but apparently the T2X guys don't have the original un-processed ones.

Yes that is the most probably explanation of course, just forgot to mention it apparently. I'll check it out later today.

[comp-music]

Hi everybody,

 

On the contrary,Schatten

i am suggestion to use the Ogg files just to decrease the whole sound files and to maintain the sound quality also.

btw:Any release date yet?

[sparhawk]

Yes. That's why we would perfer to use ogg all the way, unless there are some reasons why WAV should be used, or maybe only in some cases. If there are no disadvantages, like performance issues because of decoding oggs, or some such, then I would say we should use consequently ogg format.

 

As a release date: When it's done.

[Schatten]

If nobody has any objections, I will update the sticky guideline thread that ogg should be used in general, together with the wiki info and some general basic advices about sound format.

 

Edit: Done so.