Default buffer size

[Chris Robinson-5]

Lately I've been wondering if the default buffer size for OpenAL Soft
<http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html> should be reduced. Currently the
default is 8192 frames, which I more or less haphazardly chose as it didn't
seem to have a noticeable lag to me and didn't have problems with skipping,
but I've been getting more reports, mainly in Windows/DSound for some odd
reason, that there is a noticeable delay. Setting the value to 4096 seems to
solve it.

I've played around with the setting a bit, and 4096 doesn't seem to cause me
any problems (but then, I have an AMD Athlon X2 4200+). My main hesitation
about lowering the default buffer size to 4096, or lower, comes from the
effects on low-end systems, which I obviously don't have. I want to make sure
that turning it down like that won't reintroduce skipping or noise that was
prevelant in the SI.

So, this is pretty much a callout to anyone with an older system (1GHz single
core, or lesser, would be ideal). If anyone can test OpenAL Soft on it with
various buffer sizes and backends (and in the case of ALSA, mmap on and off),
with a real-world app, I'd be most appreciative. Free, hopefully
low-requirement, games that use OpenAL include:
Warsow <http://www.warsow.net>
Tremulous <http://www.tremulous.net/>
Thunder & Lightning <http://tnlgame.net/>
SuperTuxKart <http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/>
plus more listed at <http://openal.org/titles.html>.

If anyone tests it out, please make sure you have the latest OpenAL Soft
version (at least 1.4, preferably GIT/SVN) and remember to say what CPU and
OS you have, as well as the actual settings. You can use the OpenAL Soft
configuration utility <http://www.anduin.net/~angasule/> or simply look in
the source archive for alsoftrc.sample which has information on how to set
it.

Note that if you have PulseAudio, I strongly recommend turning it off. The
extra software mixing, volume control, and bugs it has, can likely increase
the lag and hide potential skipping.

Thanks!
_______________________________________________
Openal mailing list
Openal@...
http://opensource.creative.com/mailman/listinfo/openal