Audio Resource Management

Interactive audio draws on limited resources. Their usage needs to be anticipated and pre-planned. This chapter considers the dimensions of audio in terms of RAM, CPU and bandwidth and the phases in which it is loaded, used and discarded. George Lucas says that sound is half the picture, but games typically allocate only 10% of their memory and processing resources to audio. Even so, audio is updated more frequently, and interruptions are more obvious. Exceptions like Dance Factory on PS2 and DiRT2 on Xbox 360 are noted and justified. Other comparisons encompass Windows, macOS, Linux, all PlayStation and Xbox models, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS hardware.

Topics

Thread and core affinity.
Reverb overhead and partitioning.
Bug diagnosis and reporting.
Finding and fixing leaks.
DMA and processor configuration bugs and fixes.
Hard disc installation implications.
Audio and video update frequencies.
Power and bandwidth limitations.

Breakdowns of soundbank allocations are provided for recent mobile, PC and console games with memory footprints ranging from 14 to 371 megabytes, also noting the streams and codecs used.

Soundfield waveform detail from the cover of the book

The four-part B-format soundfield waveform above captures in 3D sound and space a Texan thunderstorm, recorded in 2009 using an experimental Ambisonic microphone hand-made by Dan Hemingson. Soundfields are complementary to positional audio objects, concisely representing the ambient background against which nearer sounds are found and tracked.

Audio Resource Management

Topics

Further reading