Prefer Chuggy Or Skippy?

[skeezix]

Given a game (not an emulator) ..

Would you prefer if it occasionally

o chugged a little (animations slow down for a couple seconds), or
o music skipped for a quarter second

both are noticeable, but which is more forgivable?

ie: I've got a background music system written up for doing some cool stuff, but it eats up a lot of CPU; so I can either have it skip once in awhile as it refills all its bufders, or I can have it keep up in backgrond but it sometimes slows things down a touch.

jeff

 

[DaveC]

Occasional slowdown would be more tolerable for me. Music that skips or stops is kind of bothersome and more noticeable to me.

 

[greenmikey]

Choosy Moms Choose Jif...not skippy

I guess ill have to go with chuggy then..good wording

 

[Alex.]

If music isn't a very important part of the game, then let it be skippy and with the option to turn it off

 

[skeezix]

*g* In my opinion, skipping music is more noticable than chuggy animations. Maybe I can tune it more, but with think-ahead AI and rendering music in background (and on the other CPU), its busy enough to deserve it I say

hmm..

I think I'll add a music-mute option later; for now the vol buttons work

jeff

 

[A_SN]

Given a game (not an emulator) ..

Would you prefer if it occasionally

o chugged a little (animations slow down for a couple seconds), or
o music skipped for a quarter second

both are noticeable, but which is more forgivable?

ie: I've got a background music system written up for doing some cool stuff, but it eats up a lot of CPU; so I can either have it skip once in awhile as it refills all its bufders, or I can have it keep up in backgrond but it sometimes slows things down a touch.

jeff

Why do you *have* to choose?

 

[Dr_Ian]

Skippy music seems really amateur and is really annoying. Chuggyness (?) is quite common and very forgivable and slightly romantic.

 

[andyB911]

Skippy music seems really amateur and is really annoying. Chuggyness (?) is quite common and very forgivable and slightly romantic.

Romantic eh?? My wife always says I'm not romantic enough.... She is in for a surprise tonight

 

[Null]

Would you prefer if it occasionally

o chugged a little (animations slow down for a couple seconds), or
o music skipped for a quarter second

both are noticeable, but which is more forgivable?

Animation slowdown is more forgivable than skipping music, because it doesn't drive people (me) nuts (as much)

 

[mth411]

Any chance you could use the ogg940 libs and have the music on the second core, no loss on the first core? Or are we talking wave music.

 

[skeezix]

I've got a custom new music engine (MIDI rendering among other things). I'm already running my AI on the second core. This game is the most work I've put into a project in a long time, and it beats up the poor gp2x

jeff

 

[Shadowsithe]

Even today's games chug. Odin Sphere for example, and I find it completely tolerable.

 

[skeezix]

I may turn down the number of voices simulteneously rendered, and perhaps drop to 22khz instead of 44khz. But I like having everythign maxxed up, but we'll see.. without music, my engine runs full speed (throttled), but when theres a lot going on and full music and AI it does hit a bit, but I'm still tweaking.

Spent the last 2-3 weeks on tweaking.. little details no one will ever notice, but spending hours a night. Bloody hell

jeff

 

[mrsnature]

chuggy, I agree with others, skippy sound is really annoying.

 

[skeezix]

OKee, thanks guys

We're all in agreement; if I have to allow that stuff to occur at all, I'll keep the audio clean. Its not too often anyway.

jeff

 

[rememberthe8bit]

Occasional slowdown would be more tolerable for me. Music that skips or stops is kind of bothersome and more noticeable to me.

Seconded, I'd rather play games at 60 f/s and have minor slowdowns, than have the music skip around.

 

[Ravnos]

Choosy Moms Choose Jif...not skippy

I guess ill have to go with chuggy then..good wording

Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch
Cause he always puts Skippy in my lunch

I'd go with chuggy as well. It takes me back to the old days when slowdown allowed you to pull off some impressive moves in shmups and the like.

 

[Squidge]

ie: I've got a background music system written up for doing some cool stuff, but it eats up a lot of CPU; so I can either have it skip once in awhile as it refills all its bufders, or I can have it keep up in backgrond but it sometimes slows things down a touch.

or, you can optimise your code so neither happen

If you overclock, does it still occur?

 

[skeezix]

For those who care, I think I've licked it.Hit the right balance between number of voices, number of sprites/pixels, amount of AI pre-calc, and optimized it all a bit... no more chugging, and no skipping audio

jeff

Squidge -- I'm going with defalut device, no o/c etc. I'm actually depending on some goofy timings, so altering the clock might speed up or slow down some parts of it .. I've not had time to look. The _entire_ game (minus a few minor things) has been coded 3am to 5am, after the baby chills out a bit. No time for 'extras'