On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Jonatan Magnusson wrote:
>I'm trying to use OpenAL with my current project. I have sounds playing
>but I get a very low volume compared to playing the wav files with a
>player like esdplay. I can't find any global openal volume settings and
>I've tried with different gains, both on listener and sources. When I
>set gain to below 1.0 it's more quiet, but setting it to more than 1.0
>(i've tried with 2.0 and 100.0) doesn't play it any louder!
I don't know for sure - but perhaps OpenAL is keeping some volume
"in reserve" for when multiple sounds are playing together.
Also, aren't OpenAL's sounds range-attenuated? Can you move your
virtual 'ear' closer to the sound source?
They are, but IIRC the exact attenuation behaviour can be defined for
each source. I'm not *that* sure now, but this sure is in the specs.
>And I am a little confused about the state of OpenAL. Do you think it's
>here to stay or should I some other sound library?
I sure hope it's here to stay. It's OpenSourced - so in a sense,
it'll never "go away" - but OTOH, it's biggest proponent (and
contributor) was Loki - and they are long-gone. However, it's
also backed by Creative Labs - and they appear to be going strong.
In fact, Creative Labs ships an own binary OpenAL.dll with it's Windows
drivers for its newer sound cards. And nVidia has an own OpenAL
implementation for its nForce chipsets, too. The open source Loki
implementation is still maintained. UT2003, for example, heavily relies
on OpenAL (both on Windows and on Linux IIRC). So OpenAL will stay
around for quite a while. I even believe that its will spread a lot in
the nearer future. Maybe Doom 3 will have OpenAL support, too? ;)