[Openal] Typical settings for streaming sources

[Nolan Darilek]

I'm writing an Ogg Vorbis streamer and am noticing some odd behavior.  
My sources would mysteriously stop, despite the fact that data should  
have been continuously buffered. I scaled up the buffer size from  
4096*4 to 4096*32, but that only seemed to postpone the inevitable  
stoppage. I added code to my buffer update routines, and saw that the  
buffers were getting cycled in order. The streamed source is never  
assigned to without using alQueueBuffers(), and nothing in my code  
should be stopping it. I noticed that when I placed an AL_STOPPED  
check in the code, the source would be restarted once and would then  
be fine. Similarly, if I removed this check, then did something in my  
game to make the source start again (I.e. pausing gameplay then  
resuming, which stops/restarts game music) then it would continue  
cycling the queue as normal. I added debug printlns to display the  
interval in seconds since the last update, and this didn't reveal any  
particularly longer update times, all at around 0.03 seconds. I also  
inserted checks around areas in my code that stop sounds for whatever  
reason, but nothing was triggered. I also ensured that reads from the  
file were getting a full load on each buffer queue, and they were.

First and foremost, are there any "well, duh" factors that I might be  
missing? :) I think I've checked everything, but I may not habe.

Second, what streaming settings are typical for a 3-D game, if such  
"typical" values can be said to exist? :) The various streaming  
examples I've seen seem to use two buffers of size 4096*4. I seem to  
have just gotten it to work by changing the number of buffers from 2  
to 3, even with the smallest size of 4096*4. It also seems as if the  
flow of data through the stream is more steady--that is, my debugging  
code always shows 1 buffer as needing filled at a time, whereas  
befire it'd show 1 needing filled, 0 for a couple more frames then 2  
as the source showed as being stopped. The jump from 0 to 2 without a  
significant time interval and even with a large buffer size seemed  
odd to me.

I suppose I should be happy about whatever works, but I'm wondering  
if this deviation from what I've read to be "normal" is indicative of  
a defect in my underlying streaming logic. Am I missing something? Or  
is it common to have to tack on more buffers/use buffers of 128K or  
more of PCM data when streaming Vorbis samples?