AGS 3.2 Final 5 - Recession-busting edition

[Pumaman]

Can you upload something that demonstrates this problem, because I still can't replicate it myself?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Sorry, but after I went through and removed all the PlayMusic calls in the game it stopped happening and I can't seem to get it to happen by adding new ones, now.  It might just have been a glitch with the intial importing of the game.  Also, so far I have not been able to make AGS stop responding again by switching songs quickly in the editor, so maybe that was tied to the same problem (songs playing over each other) and saving and re-opening the game fixed it?

[GrogGames]

Well, i've been testing my Imuse sistem. This time, to improve the  synchronization i tried putting all instruments from the beginning and leaving a high volume only to the ones that have to be played.

However, with both methods (this one and the last one) the synchronization of the instruments has improved with the new beta, but it still needs to improve a bit more.

I ran the demo on a pentium 4 of 3.3 ghz and about 90% of the times they were synchronized but i also ran it on a pentium 4 of 1.8 ghz and the result is different. In this case, in most of the times they weren't synchronized.

I'm sending you this game as a demonstration, I used the new sistem I told you about on it. Because of being only 2 instruments there shouldn't be any problem. Just like the last time I repeated the same instrument to notice if they are synchronized. If you press F9 you'll notice that sometimes it loads more synchronized and other times less.

Demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmjwm2jmrg2/imuse bug new.rar

Well, I hope you can fix it, greetings and thank you very much.
Nahuel 36

[abstauber]

I have exactly the same problem. I thought it was because of my crappy
Celeron-M 1000 MHz

So yes, nearly every 5th time, my two soundfiles start out of sync.

[GarageGothic]

I DO know this thread isn't for feature requests, and that audio is your main concern for the current beta version. But now that the "additive opacity" render mode was introduced for GUIs in version 3.1.2 (and GUIs afaik use temporary DynamicSprites for rendering) I was wondering if there's even a tiny little chance that this functionality might be extended to ordinary DrawingSurface functions?

[monkey0506]

For the record I would still find it useful for something like this to be implemented. As has been noted this version is leaning more toward revamping the audio system (which is great) of course a gentle reminder of "CJ we'd reaaawwy reaawwy reaawwy wike to see this....pweeease?" can't do too much harm... :

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hell, I'd rather have dynamic sprites support a z-order option so they can draw behind characters/objects instead of always being drawn last (on top of everything else).  To me that would be far more useful at the moment.

[GarageGothic]

Not sure what you mean, ProgZ. Can't you just assign your DynamicSprite to the Graphic/ViewFrame of an Object or Character positioned behind the others, or even draw it straight to the background? Are you talking about z-order for Overlays?

[Gilbert]

As GG mentioned, there should not be z-order associated with any sprites. Their priorities depends on how you use them, be they images for GUI buttons, overlays, characters, objects or drawn onto background. For them to be placed more freely you may just assign dynamic sprites to objects or characters and mess with their baselines appropriately.

[Pumaman]

I ran the demo on a pentium 4 of 3.3 ghz and about 90% of the times they were synchronized but i also ran it on a pentium 4 of 1.8 ghz and the result is different. In this case, in most of the times they weren't synchronized.

I'm sending you this game as a demonstration, I used the new sistem I told you about on it. Because of being only 2 instruments there shouldn't be any problem. Just like the last time I repeated the same instrument to notice if they are synchronized. If you press F9 you'll notice that sometimes it loads more synchronized and other times less.

I downloaded and ran your demo but I'm not really sure what the problem is.

Can you post what lines of script you're using, and what you're trying to accomplish? As it is I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be listening out for.

[abstauber]

*cough* as I might have the same problem, you could also take a look at my sources

I also try to play 2 OGGs simultaneously - if you comment out the Wait(1) in line 183 (room1 script), the chances are high, that they start to play out off sync.
It's also possible that they loose sync during the game.


(I've send you a PM with the url)

[Pumaman]

The Play() command has to load the audio file from the disk and then start playing it, which takes a bit of time.

Have you tried Seeking both the tracks to 0 after loading them, eg:

chanSync1 = aSynctrack1.Play();
chanSync2 = aSynctrack2.Play();
chanSync1.Seek(0);
chanSync2.Seek(0);

that should ensure that the first track gets rewound to start again once the second track has loaded.

[abstauber]

Well, I've tried after I've read it
Unfortunately Wait(1) after the play commands is still much more    reliable.

If you've downloaded my code, there's also an autoplay option so it's easier for you to see the problem.
It's in line 102 in the roomscript. You just have to set it to true.

[Pumaman]

Hmm, I still don't see the problem. I put in two Seek calls after the two Play lines and the tracks seemed to be synced fine... with autoplay enabled it sounded fine to me.

Can you describe exactly what the problem is?

[abstauber]

It does  :o ?
Wow.. you own a well configured computer   Kaputtnik's, Ben's and my own machine had syncing troubles nearly every second game start. The only thing that helped so far, is the Wait(1).
Have you tried it a couple of times? E.g please try Song 4 on the hardest level and test it 4 times. And maybe you could keep some programs open in the background. If you don't lose the sync then... well, then this problem stays mysterious

btw. thanks for downloading and crawling through my code

[Pumaman]

Ahh, I think I might know why I wasn't seeing the problem.

I wasn't actually testing against Beta 2, I was testing with my latest work-in-progress build which already includes some fixes to the Seek command.

Here's the latest version of the engine (let's call it Beta 2.5!), try this out and see if it helps:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acwin.zip

[abstauber]

Hey... .seek is suddently accurate as hell Overall it seems like there've been some improvements on the sound part, since the OGGs doesn't seem to loose sync anymore at all.

Thanks a lot

[subspark]

Marvelous work CJ. You impress us with just 1% of your new WIP. 

Sparky.

[Dualnames]

Haven't checked the new version but the old if you use Run-AGS Game command and have a loading pcx and have a video playing on game start it won't show.

http://ledzepforever.googlepages.com/SecureFileTestV1_2.rar

Download this and use serial 4556-5555-6666-6666 to see what I'm talking about. Execute SecureFile and not copy of HHGTG. If you hear a sound while you see the loading  screen it means that an .ogv intro movie is playing whilst the loading screen appears.

This only happens via the RunAGSGame command.

[subspark]

Okay how on earth did you create a secure AGS environment? I've thought about copy protection, but this is elaborate!

Just one question, wouldn't all this be feasible in the game exe? And if not, how did you get AGS to read/write to those three strange files?
In any case, I've never been this impressed with an AGS game before and I haven't even played the damn thing!

Bravo.