Wartbed:Architecture/Audio

From Dark Omen Wiki

Evaluation of audio libraries for WARTBED

Library	Notes	Platforms	Supported formats	Licence	Latest update
libsndfile	Low-level sound file I/O. Bare metal C-interface. No playback, only file parsing.	Win/OSX/Linux, probably compilable to others	OGG, WAV, AIFF / AIFC, AU / SND, RAW, PAF, IFF / SVX, WAV, SF, VOC, W64, MAT4, MAT5, PVF, XI, HTK, CAF, SD2 , FLAC. Not MP3.	LGPL	Dec 2009
OpenAL	Cross-platform 3D audio API OpenGL-inspired C-interface. Commercially initiated but open source. Surprisingly frequently used in AAA titles. Paradox: Heavyweight yet low-level. Seems to be hairy with much low-level drudgery and buffer manipulation.	Win/MacOS/OSX/Linux/BSD/IRIX/Solaris/XBox	Buffers only - ignorant of file formats	Basically LGPL	Active
BASS	Low footprint (100kb) high-level library. Seems sleek and attractive. Will cost money for commercial releases.	Officially Win & OSX. Also ported to Linux & iPhone.	MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, WAV, AIFF (+ extra thru add-ons); MOD (XM, IT, S3M, MOD, MTM, UMX) + compressed MOD; recording.	Free/Commercial	Active forum
Audiere	High-level audio API. Not very frequently maintained?	Windows/Linux/Cygwin/IRIX. OSX?	Ogg, MP3, FLAC, uncompressed WAV, AIFF, MOD, S3M, XM, and IT files.	LGPL	Stable: Feb 2006 (before that July 2003). Current repo pathces.
PortAudio	Low-level C-interface audio playback-from-raw-buffer library. Seems like smoother to work with than AL.	Win/Mac/OSX/ASIO/UNIX/IRIX/BeOS/Linux ALSA & Jack	Buffers only - ignorant of file formats	MIT	Repo trunk Feb 2010
SDL audio layer	SDL_Mixer is a C-interface for playing samples and music.	Linux, Windows, Windows CE, BeOS, MacOS, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, IRIX, and QNX, and some unofficially supported OS:s.	Seems to support WAV, AIFF and OGG, and MP# if compiled with a special flag. No native recording.	LGPL	SVN trunk active
irrKlang	cross platform sound library for C++, C# and all .NET languages. Seems very easy to code for. Affiliated with Irrlicht?	Win, *nix (ALSA), OSX	wav, ogg, mp3, flac, mod, it, s3d, xm	Free for non-commercial, unlimited hobbyist = €65; unlimited indie = €290.	Unknown
cAudio	"Advanced C++ wrapper for OpenAL"; seems like a very competent and powerful system, only drawback after a fast gander seems to be the pseudo-Hungarian notation used.	Source for Win, Linux. Since it is a wrapper, it should have the same compatibility as OpenAL.	Ogg, MP3, raw, WAV	zlib	SVN active now, latest stable 2.0.0 Feb 20th, 2010

Current top dogs (no testing has been done yet):

• cAudio, perhaps fed by libsndfile
• Audiere

More projects to check out

• SoX is a program for converting between sound file formats.
• Wavplay started out as a minimal WAV file player under Linux and has mutated into Gnuwave, a client/server application for more general multimedia and games sound playback.
• Audiofile (libaudiofile) is a library similar to libsndfile but with a different programming interface. The author Michael Pruett has set out to clone (and fix some bugs in) the libaudiofile library which ships with SGI's IRIX OS.
• sndlib is another library written by Bill Schottstaedt of CCRMA.
• FMOD/FMOD Ex: Very wide range of target platforms. Free for non-commericial, and expensive for commerical ($100, $3000 and $6000, plus additional per-platform fees)

Striking Gold

The ideal would be if I could find a library wrapping AL and formatted file I/O. Perhaps cAudio?