Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Nix on November 08, 2006, 03:45:14 pm
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For the new Freespace music I've posted, I'd like to know what format you would like the music to be in. Feel free to post other suggestions, but I have a feeling I'm either going to do this in FLAC or OGG. The files inside the new VP are going to be OGG, but if people want a higher quality version of OGG, or FLAC instead, you all need to let me know. So vote away and suggest away!
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Well, depends what format they arrived in really, FLAC is a better format quality-wise but bigger file-wise. If they arrived as .oggs though, you won't get any benefit from converting them to FLAC.
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Think I read that he had them in wav:P so flac would be great...
But I think it depends on the engine, does the scp engine support flac? what is easier for the pc to play, what uses the least ammount of RAM? I think OGG would be enough for a game, as you can hear too many sounds mixed together to hear any quality dofference between a good ogg and a flac file...
and... with all the recent mods and mediavps the game already uses a big part of my hdd, so the smaller the better..
but that is my opinion ;)
I use ogg to encode my cd's on a quality setting of 8 and I'm quite happy with it:)
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The source files are mostly in 44K WAV format, uncompressed.
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Yup, FLAC would give a better result in that case :)
However, I'm going to throw my lot in with high-res .ogg because I always have a devil of a time with FLAC codecs ;)
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Since the VPs are going to have .ogg anyway I say we give Nix more work to do and ask for FLAC as well :p
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I've found Musepack to be an excellent codec for compressing uncompressed CD-quality audio.
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Lame MP£ :p
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LAME= "Lame Aint (an) Mp3 Encoder". ;) Open source'd MP3 format. I COULD use MainConcept but I tend to steer clear of commercialized versions of MP3 encoders.
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Thing is, MP3, whilst being the smallest format, is the most most lossy compression, you'd probably fid that a high quality MP3 won't be that much better than the .oggs in the vp file. FLAC is one of the better lossless compression styles, though some people claim that .ogg is lossless, but in my experience, that's not true.
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I think that OGG would be pretty good for most everyone (when made with a quality/compression level of about 7, ~250kbps) and would sound very close to a lossless FLAC or WAV version. File size would be high, but I don't think it would be too bad (depends on the sound itself). I wouldn't use a quality level of less than 6 though. Anything more than 5 could be considered rather high for a game to use. But with a game like this one I think that going with a bit better quality while sacrificing some CPU time and disk space would be worth it, since unlike most games, there will be far more opportunities to actually sit there and listen to the music while you play. That's my opinion anyway.
For storage purposes I would say to leave it as WAV and/or convert to FLAC. You obviously want it lossless so that it could be easily edited or converted into a different lossy format without dealing with even more quality loss. I know that I would like one of these formats for myself (don't really care which), that could later be converted to OGG for use in the game as well.
FLAC is one of the better lossless compression styles, though some people claim that .ogg is lossless, but in my experience, that's not true.
OGG is most certainly lossy, it was designed that way. Those people who claim otherwise just don't know anything about the format.
Though, this entire thread has been done by people who don't know the format all that well either it would seem. OGG is a container, it has nothing to do with audio. Vorbis is the audio format used in OGG files, hence why they call it "OGG Vorbis". I think that's being a bit nitpicky to really complain about though. :)
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That's why I always put the full stop before .ogg, to denote it's an extension, not a brand :p
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I'd go for OGG or MP3, whichever is less CPU intensive to decode.
FLAC seems a bit overkill.. the quality of originals is going to be the limiting factor anyways.
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Well, they came as CD-Quality waves, I'm really not a big fan of MP3 unless size is an issue, they make a good 'notepad' format for moving music around, but if it's tonal quality and good reproduction you need, then it is pretty poor compared to other types.
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Looks like when they get posted individually, they'll be FLAC files. I agree with the benefits Lossless can give, in case they do need to be converted to WAV. For me though they'll stay on the DVD in WAV format.. hehe. Ogg Vorbis would be good, but you lose quality just like MP3. I agree too that Vorbis audio is much better than MP3, I can hear a significant difference in cymbal crashes for example.
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Different OGG encoders can also produce significantly different quality, that's why I voted for FLAC. Some encoders are good or bad for different instrument noises. Also, even with OGG, the difference in quality is heard most significantly when you use a high quality speaker system and turn it up --- pure uncompressed sound tends to stay crisp. :) I don't have a high quality speaker system NOW, but I plan to get one, and when I do, I want to be able to blast my FS2 Cinema music, shake the windows, and have hardly any distortion ;) e.g.FLAC.
Besides, if you REALLY want to play an action space sim, it must be LOUD. :p
Highest quality OGGs are fine by me too, though.
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I vote high quality .ogg for mv_music.vp, lossless FLAC for mv_advmusic.vp
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Ok, hang on guys. I need to get something straight here. Does the engine support FLAC or not? To my knowledge, it only supports OGG...?? :confused:
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I certainly wasn't aware of it supporting FLAC in game.
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AFAIK, the FLAC decoder is LGPL, so that shouldn't cause any problems.
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I suppose it's possible, if the Audio decoder works like the video decoder, but I've no idea if it does or not.
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Seems like an awful waste of space to have FLAC files in-game, especially because you're always going to be hearing voices/weapons/engine noise over them.
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OGG Vorbis.
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I certainly wasn't aware of it supporting FLAC in game.
Silly, I want the FLAC for my Winamp, not for ingame. ;7
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The VP will be made in Vorbis. No question about that because the engine supports it. I have never ever heard any news saying that the engine supports FLAC, and to be perfectly honest, I doubt it'd be even worth it to put FLAC support in the engine. FLAC is good for posting them outside of a VP, which will most likely happen.
Listening to the tracks through my DT770's (I haven't been able to find a better, more defined set of headphones, EVER, Thanks CP5670!) and I hear very very little difference between the level 7 OGG files and the level 2 FLAC files. FLAC does sound better, and has the ability to be decoded without loss, but the OGG format still sounds very very good. So honestly, I think that's probably how it's going to be. FLAC for the web archive, and OGG in the VP.
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AFAIK, the FLAC decoder is LGPL, so that shouldn't cause any problems.
Except that Taylor probably has better things to do than add FLAC to the engine given that vorbis is high enough quality for even commercial games. :)
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To be honest, medically speaking, I'm unlikely to tell the difference between a high quality .ogg and a .flac, since once you are in your twenties, the frequency sensitivity of your ears starts to drop.
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Go for the .ogg...
:)
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I love .ogg... The only thing is, I don't know how to make .ogg files :ick:
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There are many programs you can use... I use the KDE program SoundKonverter, but I'm sure there are command line and GUI converters for Windoze.
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For windows, I use Foobar2000 for my OGG encoder frontend. You still have to get the commandline-based encoder from Rarewares, and rename the executable to what Foobar wants, after that, it encodes quite nicely.
For FLAC, I used the provided frontend with the codec. Works great as well!
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Try Goldwave for encoding your .Oggs, it's free(-ish, as long as you only do the encoding in Goldwave and do the editing in something else ;)), fast and the GUI works in Windows without having to jump to a command prompt.
http://www.goldwave.com/
I'll add that even Soundforge complains at re-encoding my 24Bit 48Khz stuff to a 44.1, 16Bit .ogg, but Goldwave doesn't. Ironic huh?
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Thanks to you all. I'll try all of them and find out which suites me more
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I would much prefer OGG's in-game but FLAC when listening to the original uncut masters, please. :)