Open source alternative to FMOD

[turningwheel]

Open source alternative to FMOD

[addictgamer]

OpenAL support has been implemented in pull request #50.

[pwhelan]

I just submitted a PR which should at least help as a starting point.

[addictgamer]

Moving away from FMOD is something we've discussed -- in fact, I believe we're using OpenAL or thereabouts for future projects.

As for Barony, I don't plan on porting any of the sound code at this point, but I would be more than happy if somebody took it up.

[SheridanR]

We are indeed using OpenAL Soft (ie the free implementation of OpenAL) for our next project, partly because FMOD seems to be under a somewhat restricted license. At this stage it would be costly for me to dive back into Barony and rewrite the sound engine, but if anyone else is interested that is definitely the library I would recommend for that purpose.

[akien-mga]

Thanks for the feedback. As a first step I'll probably make a pull requests to add an optional argument that disables FMOD support (and thus the sound engine) until a replacement is contributed. I don't think many users will want to play the game without sound, but just for the sake of it :)

Regarding helping replace FMOD with OpenAL Soft or another libre alternative, I might have a look at the work it implies, though I'm probably not the best fit for the job (never implemented a sound library myself).

[akien-mga]

Looks like you not only need to register an account to download FMOD Ex, but you also need to then contact support to get your account enabled for downloading it... Don't think they'll want to enable my jdoe_onetime junk account, so let's start with implementing a way to disable it :D

[addictgamer]

Huh, that's new. It used to be you just needed an account to download FMOD Ex (even farther back, anybody could just come and download anything they wanted off of the website). Now you need to get your account "enabled"? Interesting.

[akien-mga]

Yep: http://www.fmod.org/download-previous-products/#FMODExAPIDownloads

Note: If you can’t see FMOD Ex, to get access for it for older titles, please contact FMOD Support mailto:[email protected]?subject=FMOD%20Ex%20Access (with your fmod.com username) and it will be enabled on your account

[lakp]

I've run into the FMOD stumbling block as well. Sent a request to their support email.
Edit: Support "enabled" my account. Still, what a PITA.

[addictgamer]

Pull request #22 has been accepted, you can now compile without FMOD by running cmake with cmake -DFMOD_ENABLED=OFF

If anybody wants to take this further and write an abstraction layer between the game and the sound implementation, I'm open to that as long as the sound implementation supports our platforms (Linux, Windows, OSX) and has the features we require (namely 3D sound).

[FreeLikeGNU]

I could not get the steam binary to work, but was able to compile using source and run the game! Thank you! Please port to OpenAL or a suitable libre substitute 👍