Ability to hear other planes.

[Student_Pilot_Noob]

Wouldn't be neat if you're flying next to a helicopter or jet and be able to actually hear the noise of their engines? Does the audio system allow for more than one sound at the same time?

[erik]

Off course, you'll hear multiple sounds all the time (engine sound, propeller wash, wind noise) but what you actually want is hearing sounds from AI or mulitplayer aircraft. To be honnest, I have no idea if that is implemented correctly at this time.

Erik

[AndersG]

Off course, you'll hear multiple sounds all the time (engine sound, propeller wash, wind noise) but what you actually want is hearing sounds from AI or mulitplayer aircraft. To be honnest, I have no idea if that is implemented correctly at this time.

As far as I know it (AI sounds) is not implemented at all at this time. I suppose it could be done similar to how the animations of AI models are done, that is reading in the main model's sound configuration and drive it from the AI/MP subtree - some of the more important properties are already sent over MP.

OTOH from what I've seen here it is not that uncommon for some sound drivers to run into problems if too many sounds are played at the same time (typically you see posts about sound errors with 4 engined aircraft - some of those have several sounds per engine) and for these the problems will only become greater when nearby AI aircraft add to tne number of concurrent sounds. I'm not sure if OpenAL specifies (or let the implementor specify) an upper limit for the number of concurrent sounds supported.

Cheers,

Anders

[erik]

It is possible to quere the number of available sources by grabbing them one by one until OpenAL returns an error. at startup. But that's only part of the problem, once you know the number of supported sources it is necessary to develop a mechanism to stop particular sources if a new source is required and you've reaced the limit. So you might end up stopping sources that are the furthes away and/or the lowest in volume to free up resources for a new audio event.

Erik

[Haegemon]

Sounds should be attached to the model and volumes adjusted based on the distance between the sound emiter and the CAM (player).

[someguy]

When we all have 50 GHz CPUs, we'll be able to model stereo Doppler shifts, and the directionality of propwash and jet exhausts...

[Haegemon]

Not really, all simulators nowdays do it. It all about programming, but don't implies a CPU requisites problem.