Audio making game lag? « Sparrow Forum

Audio making game lag?

(23 posts) (4 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Scerip
Latest reply from Daniel

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Scerip
Member

Hello there:)

im almost finished with my latest application but i am struggling with a problem that occours everytime i test the game....

in my app a sound is supposed to be played when i press a specific place on the screen but it makes the game lag for 1 sec or so and its damn annoying..

the sound file size aint big(not even 1mb) and ive tried different file types (mp3 mp4a1 caf) but all with same result?

heres the code i use:

[[SPSound soundWithContentsOfFile:@"name.mp3"] play];

whats the problem?

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather
Hi Scerip,

the code you wrote is the simplest form to play sound - however, it will have to load the sound from the disk every time you play it.

Load the sound once and then keep the SPSound object to create SPSoundChannel objects from it. Or, if you don't need to play the sound several times simultaneously, just keep the channel. (Don't forget to retain it.)

Here's sample code:
SPSound *sound = [SPSound soundWithContentsOfFile:@"sound.caf"]; SPSoundChannel *channel = [sound createChannel]; [channel play]; // if you want to keep the channel as a member variable (which is likely), // retain it. [channel retain];
Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

BTW, congrats for being so close to finishing =)

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

Wow thanks for the quick reply! thats service

ill post back to see if it works:D

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

okay i did it and my game just froze and crashed... then i tried to put the music file in instead(the background music file) and it worked fine even though that file is bigger!

so it must be something about my sound file but what??!

and btw is there a method to turn off all sound in a game if youre playing music on the ipod when you start app up?

Posted 1 year ago #
freerunnering
Moderator

I'd guess it's the music format the file is in that makes it crash?
Try reading through this post and following some of the suggestions there.
http://www.sparrow-framework.org/2010/06/sound-on-ios-best-practices/

About this though
"and btw is there a method to turn off all sound in a game if youre playing music on the ipod when you start app up?"

I did this by mistake once by simply including the MediaPlayer.framework to my, i think. (also that's not really how you should do it but i think it works).

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

To stop audio when the iPod music is running, you have to start the audio engine with a different session type.

Here is more information on that topic!

Edit: Hm, in principle the default session type (SoloAmbientSound) should already do it the way you like to. Have you tried it?

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

darn know i read all the guide and used an uncompressed sound and it got better however there is still a small framedrop:(

this is pretty damn annoying cause i cant figure out how to fix it

but thanks for the help:)

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

When does the framedrop happen? When you load the file, or on playback? If it's on load, you could just load it at the beginning of the game and keep it in memory. (But I guess you'll already have tried that.)

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

no i actually havent tried that:) im new at developing and this is more or less my first app so could you post a codeline or something to show how to load the audio file on startup?

i think its when the audiofile is loaded it starts lagging

cheers

btw where do i find the mediaplayer framework?

Posted 1 year ago #
enbr
Moderator
Place this in your AppDelegate.m in applicationDidFinishLaunching. Remember to import MediaPlayer.framework
MPMusicPlayerController *iPodMusicPlayer = [MPMusicPlayerController iPodMusicPlayer]; if (iPodMusicPlayer.playbackState != MPMusicPlaybackStatePlaying) { [SPAudioEngine start]; }
This is from evilliam in http://forum.sparrow-framework.org/topic/play-sound-effects-but-keep-ipod-app-music-playing#post-2402

Daniel beat me. Kind of.
Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather
OK, no problem!

What I mean is the following: create an instance variable with your sound, e.g. in your game class:
@interface Game : SPStage { SPSound *mSound; } // ...
Then load the sound right at the beginning of your (e.g. in the init-method of Game.m):
mSound = [[SPSound alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:@"sound.caf"];
The sound is now loaded and stays in memory. Now you can call
[mSound play];
wherever you want within the game class. (Ah, and don't forget to release the sound ([mSound release]) in the dealloc method.)

I hope that helps!

Concerning the media player framework: Freerunnering, what exactly do you mean? I can't remember having added it to a Sparrow game before!
Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

Ah, OK - thanks Brian, I totally overlooked that!

Posted 1 year ago #
enbr
Moderator

Except it doesn't work. Once I call [[SPSound soundWithContentsOfFile:@"sound.aifc"] play];
The audio engine starts.

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

Hm, yes, it starts automatically if you've not done so, that's right ...

You could save the state in a variable and simply not load your sounds in that case. When the sounds are 'nil', you can call [sound play] as often as you want, and nothing will happen =)

Posted 1 year ago #
enbr
Moderator

Yes, but that gets complicated. Or maybe I just don't understand what you mean. Could I modify the src to not start the audio engine when I call play on an SPSound?

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

Hm, I don't know how the libraries would react if you played a sound without the audio engine being started. You'd probably get a lot of errors.

In my games, I have the audio stuff all in one class. When the player turns off the sound, this class gets informed, and it will not play sounds any more. That's one way you could do it.

Posted 1 year ago #
freerunnering
Moderator

""Concerning the media player framework: Freerunnering, what exactly do you mean? I can't remember having added it to a Sparrow game before!""

I was trying to add the select music from iPod option and think i when you opened the app and it had that library added the music auto stopped when opening the app? I might be wrong as it was a while ago?

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel
Primary Feather

Ah, thanks, I understood what you meant when I saw the code Brian pasted. Yes, I think it's necessary to add that library in order for that code to compile.

Thanks!

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

well how do i import the media player framework?

Posted 1 year ago #
Scerip
Member

and right now i can play songs from my ipod while playing but the game sounds continues to play:(

Posted 1 year ago #

Use this code in your game manager class to get a bool that checks if the iPod is playing. I'm guessing you would want a singleton to do this.

- (BOOL)shouldPlaySounds {
  MPMusicPlayerController *iPodMusicPlayer = [MPMusicPlayerController iPodMusicPlayer];
  if (iPodMusicPlayer.playbackState != MPMusicPlaybackStatePlaying) {
    return NO;
  }
  else {
    return YES;
  }
}

Posted 1 year ago #

Daniel
Primary Feather
If you haven't worked with Singletons yet, just create a class with static methods, like this:
// Media.h: @interface Media : NSObject + (void)setSoundEnabled:(BOOL)value; + (BOOL)soundEnabled; @end // Media.m: @implementation Media static BOOL soundEnabled = YES; + (void)setSoundEnabled:(BOOL)value { soundEnabled = value; } + (BOOL)soundEnabled; { return soundEnabled; } // then use it like this: if (...) [Media setSoundEnabled:NO]; BOOL shouldPlaySounds = [Media soundEnabled];
You could then add other things to this class the same way - e.g. it could hold the texture atlas, so that it's available from anywhere. Or add a wrapper method 'playSound' that checks if the sound is enabled and plays it only when it is.

To import the media player framework, right-click on your target in the "Groups & Files"-Pane, enter the "General"-tab in the window that pops up and click on the "+" in the lower area. Find "MediaPlayer.framework" and add it to the list.

I hope that helps!
Posted 1 year ago #

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