Whither OpenAL? 103
delYsid asks: "About a year ago, Slashdot had a story about the OpenAL project by Loki and Creative. There was much hype around it. But if you check their website now, the last changelog entry appears to be from December of 1999! Does anyone know of a good (preferable platform independent) library for 3D audio? The only answer I get when I ask professionals in this field is DirectX. I'd love to have my app under Linux instead of having to move to Win again. Any pointer or hints about the current status of OpenAL? Are there any alternatives?" Update: 09/18 15:33 PM GMT by C :Corrected the link which referred to Slashdot's previous story on OpenAL.
I forwarded this question on to Loki, and here's the response from Scott Draeker, president of Loki Games:
As you can imagine, everyone is pretty busy right now, especially as we had some folks out on vacation the last couple of weeks. So I'm sorry about the slow response.
In answer to your question, work on OpenAL continues. Creative has already added EAX and hardware acceleration to the Mac and Windows versions, and are working on adding both to the Linux implementation as well. Work is also continuing on an OS X port as well as other OSes. OpenAL continues to be the sound API which Loki uses in all of its products, and many other companies are either using or evaluating OpenAL for their products as well.
Hope that helps.
So there you have it, straight from the source. Development is progressing, although it's likely to be a bit slow at present. Here's hoping we'll hear more updates on the progress of OpenAL, over the next 6 months. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to answer, Scott!
Java NOT always a good "gaming tech" (Score:3, Insightful)
Uncorrect. The real answer is "It depends on the game!"
Anytime someone says "X is a silver bullet", I'm critical of what disadvantes they are overlooking.
We tried, and successfully used Java in one of games. It dropped in, in about a week (of course the game logic took months to write.) Having to use 2 IDE's was a pain, but workable, for debugging. (We made the C++ code into a DLL) There were TWO big problems -- the OVERHEAD from calling Java from C/C++ (or vice versa) *completely* bogged down the game. The other issue was the garbage collector - the game froze while it was doing it's thing, which is unacceptable. (We were doing a single player strategy-sim hybrid, that unfortunately got cancelled, due to other issues.)
Will we use Java again? Maybe. But the scripting language used is only one of the issues regarding gaming tech! One must look at the "pros" AND the "cons." The designers were able to get up to speed quickly with it, appreciated the ton of books on Java programming, and it freed it up one of our programmers of having to maintain a in-house properietary language. However, the designers also lacked the many years of formal training and experience that programmers normally have to go thru, of using a "real language" compared to our easy-to-use previous in-house language. These two things (very bad C/C++ integration, & requiring designers to be programmers) will most likely determine whether we use Java in the future.
I'm the graphics programmer, and personally think Java is not the best tech for game scripting. HOWEVER, I do see its advantages and elegance in using it for game scripting and game logic. It's the old trade-off of "slow & flexible (interpreted) OR "fast and hard-coded (compiled)." Java definately has some advantages - and some disadvantes - like all languages.
I'm sure you can search Carmack's old plans for why he didn't use Java - his reasons were different from ours.
Is Java a viable option? Wild Tangent has clearly shown that a Java-based game works. They have some pretty cool tech.
You might want to read the Gamasutra Post Mortem article on "Vampire" -- That's the only other game developer I know that used Java in a commercial game.
> Too bad most game developers seem to think that a game can't be any good if it
How many game developers do you personally know? That's a pretty broad statement with no basis in fact.
> doesn't spew out 3D graphics at a rate of 500 fps or,
> if it is a strategy game, doesn't have at least have a 3D isometric view in true color.
Game developers are well aware of raising the technical requirements so high, that you loose a lot of customers that don't have the "latest and greatest" video card.
They are also quite aware of Graphics != gameplay.
However, if you DON'T have some of the best graphics, your game is criticized as having "dated graphics." Is that an excuse? No, it's what the consumer wants. Pretty graphics are (usually) what catch the gamers attention, but gameplay is what keeps him/her playing.
It's interesting to note that most of the top selling games are all 2D. i.e. Sims, Diablo, RollerCoaster Tycoon.
If you want a good insight to how the games industry really works, read this Derek Smart's rant on Gaming Industry - Where We Are [3000ad.com] which dicusses what really happens with the marketing.
Also Avault's series on PC Gaming As An Industry [avault.com]
Bringing this long thread. back on topic -- OpenAL is a good thing, and I'm glad it is progressing. I'll be sure to mention it to our engine architect, next time we do a Mac Port. If we do a Linux port, it will definately make things easier for us. It's a REAL shame OpenGL is completely ignored by so many developers -- using one cross platform API is very cool. Now if only consoles supported it better
Then again, I'm just a game developer, and this is my opinion.