[bruce89]

I was thinking it would make sense to use Speex for the in-game voice message thingys. Speex is part of the Xiph (ogg) project, so it would complete the use of these formats (Vorbis and Theora being used already).

At the moment, the in-game messages are stored as rather low-quality WAVs (16000Hz, 4 bits per sample) which is rather rubbish. Speex would be better for this, resulting in smaller files, and better quality also.

AFAIK, Speex support is planned for the multiplayer voices anyway, so this seems logical.

[karajorma]

Are you offering to code it in?

Bear in mind we can use ogg vorbis for speech too. The only reason the in-game speech from FS2 is in .wav is cause no one could be bothered to deal with the hassle of converting it all to .ogg, updating all the missions to use .ogg and then repackaging it in a VP file.

[bruce89]

Are you offering to code it in?

No

Bear in mind we can use ogg vorbis for speech too. The only reason the in-game speech from FS2 is in .wav is cause no one could be bothered to deal with the hassle of converting it all to .ogg, updating all the missions to use .ogg and then repackaging it in a VP file.

There would be no advantage in converting the original campaigns into Speex stuff, there would be no quality improvement. Other campaigns in progress could take advantage though.

[taylor]

Speex isn't likely to get added until 3.7.  It's on my todo list, but since the main point of adding it (multiplayer chat) has to be rewritten to take advantage of the new audio format and be cross-platform, a rather minor task becomes a rather major one.  I didn't really think about adding Speex for regular voices though, so maybe there is some new incentive to add it for 3.6.11, or something.

Bear in mind we can use ogg vorbis for speech too.

That's my gut reaction too, but the fact is that Speex is specifically optimized for voices, and Vorbis isn't.  Those voice files would sound better with Speex than with Vorbis, and have a smaller file size and lower bitrate.  The only real question is what it would take to actually convert to Speex format under Windows (the ease of use question, for mod makers).

[karajorma]

I took a look at the website bruce linked to and I agreed that it was something that would be nice to have. I just wanted to point out that we weren't limited to .wav and that new mods are using ogg vorbis already. BtRL doesn't use a single .wav for any of our speech for instance. The only ones you'll find are in the freddocs folder

There would be no advantage in converting the original campaigns into Speex stuff, there would be no quality improvement. Other campaigns in progress could take advantage though.

Quality, no. Filesize, absolutely. That alone might make it worthwhile for some people.

[bruce89]

That's my gut reaction too, but the fact is that Speex is specifically optimized for voices, and Vorbis isn't.  Those voice files would sound better with Speex than with Vorbis, and have a smaller file size and lower bitrate.  The only real question is what it would take to actually convert to Speex format under Windows (the ease of use question, for mod makers).

Depends what quality settings are used. Speex should be better for voice than Vorbis with the same bitrate/size. It's just a question of finding the best settings for good quality at a minimum of space.

Rarewares has a program which is a frontend to Speex for Windows.

Quality, no. Filesize, absolutely. That alone might make it worthwhile for some people.

Fair enough.

[Turambar]

hooray! more stuff that can reduce the memory load and scp install sizes!