Re: Here it is!

[Sam Lantinga <slouken@devolution.com>]

>  It should provide most of the sound services that would be needed in
> games. Games generally contain music & sound effects, so we need:
> -a midi interface, and probably some capability for streaming music,
>  such as mpeg or other types of compressed music. While I think of it,
>  some way of interfacing to the CD-ROM driver to play audio tracks off
>  a CD would be useful, as some games may use this.
>  We also need suport for MOD/S3M/XM types of music. Peter Burns can
>  contribute here (-:
> -a software mixer, capable of mixing multiple sound effects, each with
>  different frequencies, volumes & panning in realtime. Hardware mixing
>  where available (eg GUS) should be used, but ideally the game writer
>  shouldn't need to worry about this as penguinsound should take advantage
>  of this kind of thing automatically (if this is feasable). This introduces
>  problems like sample caching & so on, but I digress..

>  Support for most common types of compressed audio should be included,
> such as a-law/u-law, ADPCM, and mpeg audio layers 1-3. Whether these are
> decoded in realtime or decompressed to raw PCM while loading (or a
> combination) is something to think about. I can forsee music being
> decoded (mp3/ADPCM) or mixed (MOD, S3M) in realtime, and game effects
> being decoded when loaded so as to not overload the cpu when they are
> played.
>  Most of this stuff is pretty obvious, and has probably been said before,
> but it never hurts to bring it up again...
>  If the above is a bunch of hogwash, feel free to say so (-:

BTW, I don't know if this is useful for you, but the mixer library in the
SDL example archive supports ADPCM WAV, MOD, S3M, XM, midi via timidity, 
real-time volume, and so forth.  It might be something to start from
if you like. :)

The latest CVS snapshot fixes some bugs and has separate sample and
channel volumes and is available for download at:
	http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/download.html

	-Sam Lantinga				(slouken@devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software
--
Author of Simple DirectMedia Layer -
	http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/
--