Best audio compression option?

[hdarren]

Currently I have set all my music and sounds (which are ogg files) to the "Compress (Uncompress on load)" option. But I have had somebody play my game complain it takes a long time to launch the game.

The manual says that compressed sounds are uncompressed when the sound is played, but it doesn't say much about the different compression options.

Do any of the compressed audio options not uncompress the sound on game launch? Some of them for example describe the sound being streamed but the manual isn't very clear.

I am not sure what the best compression option is for music and sound effects.

 

[Bingdom]

There is no 'Best Audio compression option'. They all have benefits and cons. .

For the music, I normally go with compressed - Stream option. Reason ~ Music can use a lot of memory, so best stored. Takes a while to load when triggered, but I think it's good for a brief music break between music transactions.

For sound effects, I go for the uncompressed attribute. Reason ~ Sound effects are normally 2>second (less than 1mb), very little memory in RAM?

This is what I use and I seem to have no problems. I believe the audio loads only when called, then stays in memory or follows attribute behavior (Except the third one?). With the third attribute (Your one) it would likely be a reason for longer load times. (I think)

Another way how you can help decrease load times is by reducing the amount of sprites inside your Texture groups. (Glob Settings -> Texture Groups).
Use draw_texture_flush at the end of your match (and at the beginning) to keep video memory low and good transitions between rooms.

 

[hdarren]

I would not recommend uncompressed. GameMaker creates multiple copies of the file in different formats which potentially causes huge bloat. Also when you create the application as a zip it dumps all those sound files in the folder which isn't professional.

 

[Jihl]

Although leaving music files on the folder doesnt look proffesional, I use the itch.io webpage to update and work as a launcher for my game.

There no one sees the mp3 files, they just hit launch and play from the app