Crackling in mp3 background music

[Tage]

I doubt this is fixable. Whenever I use fullscreen or switch to another window while the game is in window mode, the music starts to crackle. When I turn music off and then back on, it is still crackling. When I switch it back to window mode from fullscreen mode, it still crackles forcing me to reopen the game.

And if it helps...my computer specs are:
Windows XP Pro: SP2
1.1GHz processor
1GB of RAM
NVidia GeForce DDR 32MB
ESS AudioDrive (don't know what specs to list with audio card, if any o.o;)
DirectX 9.0c (if it's important)

I know the probability of this being fixed on your end is low, but hey, doesn't hurt to ask huh? lol

[RedSlash]

Happens to me too but I think SDL_mixer is at fault (don't take my word on this one). My own game uses SDL_mixer and it does the same thing as well but only on the Windows platform.

[Tage]

Ah, thought so P= At least it doesn't crackle in window mode under normal circumstances.

[PyTom]

More and more, I'm starting to think SDL_mixer isn't my favorite library. It's behind many of the problems Ren'Py has. OTOH, I've yet to find another cross-platform music library. But I'll look again.



If people could look at the CPU graph and let me know if that's associated with the crackling, I'd appreciate it. Also, if you could try using vorbis music too, then that would be nice as well.

[Tage]

I'm not sure what you meant by graph, but I'll assume you meant the CPU usage percent? Well, I checked it in window mode and fullscreen mode and they both didn't use more than 7% of the CPU. And for vorbis...that's .ogg format right? If it is, it crackles as well. =/

[PyTom]

I tried repeating this on my real windows box, and couldn't.

If you set the screen preferences to fullscreen, quit out, and start the program up again (so that it starts up fullscreen), does it still crackle?

Also, did you replace the SDL_music dll, like I mentioned in the other thread?

[Tage]

If you set the screen preferences to fullscreen, quit out, and start the program up again (so that it starts up fullscreen), does it still crackle?

Also, did you replace the SDL_music dll, like I mentioned in the other thread?

Yes to both =/

[RedSlash]

PyTom:
It happens usually when there is a sudden peak of CPU usage, usually switching windows or other stuff. Sometimes it happens on startup. It is also possible that the audio buffer size needs to be increased. AFAIK, PyGame defaults the buffer size to 1024, but it is recommended to use a buffer size of 4096 for music playing according to SDL_mixer docs.

Tage:
Not using the direct sound driver seemed to help for me (though it didn't solve all the problems). Try this:

Create run_game_test.bat with this code:

Code: Select all

set SDL_AUDIODRIVER=waveout
run_game.exe

Run run_game_test.bat to see if there's any difference.

[PyTom]

Okay, I will increase the size of the SDL_mixer buffer, in order to try to stop this problem.

I'm now considering cutting a test release of Ren'Py a day or two before my game goes to beta testing, with a final release at the same time, more or less.

[metalica]

yep, I have the same problem, though its not that bad, you can still listen to the music pretty well

[PyTom]

Does the pre-release found at:

http://www.bishoujo.us/tmp/renpy-4.4.1.zip

help?

[Tage]

I can hear it without crackling! Works well so far.

Edit: Testing with different music formats now...

Edit2: Drat, well...good news, it works very well with .ogg format. Bad news...can't hear mp3's at all.

Edit3: console.exe says this when it tries to play mp3's

Code: Select all

Error while trying to play music: Module format not recognized

[PyTom]

Grr... I wonder if the SDL_music library I used is linked with mp3 support at all. Well, there's always ogg, and the midi playback should also be superior. Hopefully, this can hold us over until I can get around to making a proper release.

At least this one doesn't crackle as much... I'm getting closer, hopefully.

[Tage]

Definitely, the crackling music was my only problem with your engine! And it's almost completely fixed! (fixed for me, since I'm fine with with using .ogg format, lol) Thanks! I appreciate all your hard work!

[metalica]

.ogg format? What tool can I use to convert wav,mp3, etc to that format? Thanx