[Openal-devel] Broad soundscapes - repost

[Chris Robinson]

On Tuesday 11 November 2008 01:07:50 am you wrote:
> We have been avoiding EFX - since the game is developed in Java, it is
> truly cross platform and I cant seem what is the take up of EFX in the
> industry - so I don't want people relying on it. Let me know if I am
> getting this wrong - I don't want to be missing out on something!

EFX is basically just a more OpenAL-styled EAX. I'd agree that you shouldn't 
require it, but I think it could make a nice enhancement for when it is 
available. It should be possible to detect if the EFX extension is present 
and use the appropriate functionality when it's there, while just skipping it 
if not.

Creative supports EFX in the software driver, and I believe in the hardware 
driver/dsound3d wrapper if the hardware has EAX (which I believe most 
accelerated audio hardware supports at least EAX2), so Windows should 
generally have it. OpenAL Soft supports EFX, so modern Linux/Unix systems 
should have it (its "reverb" leaves something to be desired, though I'm 
getting help on improving it). Unfortunately, I don't believe Apple supports 
EFX, so OSX won't have it. However, I don't think this is really much of a 
problem as long as it remains an optional, check-at-run-time approach. 
Systems that have EFX will get additional effects, and those that don't will 
still work.

> I will be producing certain sounds that have some built in reflections
> and are treated in a more filmic way to help give perspective as well as
> direction.

EFX also lets you apply the effect to select sources, so if you have a sound 
that has built-in reverb, or that you don't want reverb/filters applied, you 
can just not set EFX reverb on the sources that use those sounds.