Hi,

This is not a criticism or anything....but I seem to recall that OS4 final was going to include some sort of surround sound support, 5.1 or something perhaps, based on the audio capabilities of the uA1-C and soundcards...in fact there was even going to be a fancy "boot" jingle song/sound.
When Update 4 was released as the "virtual" OS4 final release, I did not see anything to indicate that this new audio system was present. Did I miss something? Will it become available soon? Is Hyperion still working on this?

Just curious.....

Scott

By the way...OS4 Update 4 is GREAT even without surround sound!

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@scabit

Are you referring to the sound system that Davy Wentzler spoke about long ago?
(DaveAE)

#6

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@scabit

I don't think anyone said that OS4 final was going to include surround sound. AHI contains a 7.1 mode though which can be used for video players to have decoded surround sound playing through 8 speakers. It's not really useful for having surround sound in games though, as there is no surround sound positioning API.

Currently, the emu10kx driver(written by Martin Blom, ported by me) supports this 7.1 mode. The CMI8738 AHI driver (by me) does not support it though. I'm not working on it to have surround support either, because I think we need a sound system that has true surround or simply multi-channel support.

I have been working on a new sound system called eXtream that already has a multi-channel Envy24HT driver. However, this won't come for OS4 final, nor in a foreseeable time (at least not this year).

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@scabit

Quote:

there was even going to be a fancy "boot" jingle song/sound.

Do we really need a boot jingle.

@Rob

I have one, very useful for debugging purposes...

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@Rob

Quote:

Do we really need a boot jingle.

Don't worry: with Amiga's reputed boot times this jingle won't take long

OldFart

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@Rob

Quote:

Do we really need a boot jingle.

*Turn on machine* Onlyyyy aaammiiiigggaaaa! Makes it possible!

And by the time that's done the OS would have booted and loaded everything it needs.. lol

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@DaveAE

You wrote "I have been working on a new sound system called eXtream that
already has a multi-channel Envy24HT driver. However, this won't come for OS4
final, nor in a foreseeable time (at least not this year)."

Yes, eXtream is what I was thinking of! Can you tell us more about it? Will
it support surround sound for movie players such as DV Player or mplayer? Will
it have an API that games can code for?
I had thought in some older posts that it seemed like eXtream would be coming
with OS4 final....but that was likely speculation on someone's part.

Scott

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@scabit

Problem is that I'm now focusing on a port of AE4 to wxWidgets for releasing it on Windows and Linux. In order to be competitive, I have to add features like multi-channel support. I'll also need my own mixing and routing routines etc. which I already wrote for eXtream. Basically, I'll have a new AE5 version then. What I'm trying to say is that this takes at least until the end of the year and I won't be working on eXtream during that time. I hope that wxWidgets will be ported to OS4 (without needing an X-server), so I can release AE5 for OS4 too. In that case I really need to have eXtream released since AHI won't be sufficient then.

eXtream currently has surround support including surround panners. You can also easily mix mono, stereo and surround streams and route them to any output. And ofcourse direct AC-3 streams will be supported, although that's not implemented yet. Same for the game API.

Quote:

but that was likely speculation on someone's part

Yeah, that was Helgis...

Oh, just like to add this: I would have preferred to work on eXtream now, but I have to make choices unfortunately.

Last edited by DaveAE on 09-Jun-2006 at 10:49 AM.

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@DaveAE

Oh. Surround sound for AE5, eh? So, in addition to being able to play AC-3 streams you will also need to have an AC-3 and a CD-DTS encoder, as well. I can't wait!

Regards
Roy Leith

@royleith

Well, most important thing for AE5 would be multi-channel recording. Multi-channel PCM playback won't be a problem either and mastering to a multi-channel PCM (AIFF/WAV) file. It's then upto the user to convert it to AC-3/DTS, since that would require an expensive license.

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@DaveAE

Quote:

It's then upto the user to convert it to AC-3/DTS, since that would require an expensive license.

You're no fun, any more. I have looked everywhere for a reasonably priced surround encoder. The best offer was for CD DTS which would have been perfect for what I had in mind, but the $99 price was topped with a $35 international shipping charge. Going by prices of anything from $500 to $1000 just for encoding software I suppose the licence fee must be quite something.

Still, I did not know that greater than two channels could be saved in an AIFF or WAV file. Are there cross-platform conventions for playback of such files? For instance, if such a file was played with Windows Media Player on a computer with 5.1 sound, would the six streams play back through the appropriate speaker channel (e.g. a convention for one channel to always play back through the woofer)?

Regards
Roy Leith

@royleith

Yes, it's a standard IIRC.

There are some free GNU/GPL apps that convert it. But obviously I can't use them in AE.

Last edited by DaveAE on 10-Jun-2006 at 10:37 AM.

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