[FMOD is better]Implement OpenAL?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:42

Just wondered... it is open sourced and there's a client driver that is usable for all sound cards.. I just wondered if there are any plans of doing so. It's probably not important, but it may be useful in the future.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 13:30

No chance. It may be open source and all but I don't think it's particularly good. I stick with FMOD. The code is already working and I see absolutely no reason to switch to something else.

The HavoX · Post by **The HavoX** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 16:47

I like FMOD anyway, and I'm sure it's better than OpenAL as well.

Jin · Post by **Jin** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 17:04

FMOD has a much richer set of features then OpenAL, plus, it's more matured.
I don't see this happening soon, I would stick with FMOD.

[Edit]
And speaking from personal experience, FMOD is easy as hell to use, I got it up and running in a small game I'm making in less then 20 minutes after sifting through the API reference and help.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 18:14

I like FMOD, too. In fact the company I work for has licensed it for one of our products because we all felt that getting something equivalent to run as well as FMOD would take long enough so that the cost would be higher than just purchasing an FMOD license.
OpenAL was never an issue because we couldn't get it to work on one of our computers. Somehow I have the bad feeling it is trying to circumvent Windows's native sound support as much as possible.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 19:39

Graf Zahl wrote:OpenAL was never an issue because we couldn't get it to work on one of our computers. Somehow I have the bad feeling it is trying to circumvent Windows's native sound support as much as possible.

It just about sounds right...

You see, I think Creative is the major player in the whole OpenAL development. If you looked at the driver development at the transition in Win98 (particularly Win98SE) to the WDM (Windows Driver Model).. then having Win2K.. then redeveloping the drivers again to support DirectMusic, and then having to redeveloping the drivers again for Windows Vista.. you would want an interface like OpenGL that would bypass that need. So, OpenAL was developed to access the hardware more directly and avoid the need to rearchitect the drivers for another Windows OS. This obviously won't slow their development for their Windows Vista driver, but it lets them become a little lazy in that they don't have to spend as much time in driver development. Creative probably has the most pull in OpenAL development so it stands to reason that they have much to gain from it all (avoiding MS and having control of OpenAL for the most part is very much beneficial for Creative).

I've seen FMOD deployed a lot. I'm not surprised the use of it nowadays.