Audio not working correctly

Audio and Graphics
#1

My audio file gets loaded like this in the main section of my program:

hitSound = audio.loadStream("audio/hit\_target.mp3")

The sound should get played when a target gets hit, so my Runtime onEnterEvent fuction looks like this:

local function onEnterFrame(event)
    if(targetsHit > 0) then
        local hitSoundChannel = audio.play(hitSound)
        print(hitSoundChannel)
    end
end

The print statement was added for debugging. When multiple targets get hit in short succession, I would expect multiple audio channels to be opened, i.e. the sounds should overlap. However, the output of the print statement shows that only ever one channel is opened (#1) and unless that channel has finished playing the sound, audio.play returns 0 as an error code:

23:28:36.395  1
23:28:36.457  0
23:28:36.552  0
23:28:36.661  0
23:28:36.802  0
23:28:37.786  1
23:28:37.848  0
23:28:37.895  0
23:28:37.942  0
23:28:37.973  0
23:28:38.020  0
23:28:38.255  1
23:28:38.380  0
23:28:38.426  0

Why wouldn’t it allocate the next available channel as per the documentation instead?

#2

Perhaps thiswill help

#3

Also, I’d be careful about staring and sounds in an enterFrame listener the way you are doing.  

That code looks like it will start a new sound playing every frame that targetHit is > 0, without limit or safety.

Better to play a sound as a result of a game event like a collision or death/damage of a player.

#4

Thank you for your replies.

@roaminggamer: that’s good advice, I have lots more logic in the listener to take care of that, I just didn’t want to post unnecessary code on the forum

@JonPM: I wasn’t aware of that, so I added it to my code. Something very unexpected happened then, instead of the 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 … I would now get 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1… so no more error return value, but still not the desired result.

I played some more around with it and finally resolved it by changing from audio.loadStream to audio.loadSound. Not sure why that made a difference, but now it works perfectly fine.

#5

Perhaps thiswill help

#6

Also, I’d be careful about staring and sounds in an enterFrame listener the way you are doing.  

That code looks like it will start a new sound playing every frame that targetHit is > 0, without limit or safety.

Better to play a sound as a result of a game event like a collision or death/damage of a player.

#7

Thank you for your replies.

@roaminggamer: that’s good advice, I have lots more logic in the listener to take care of that, I just didn’t want to post unnecessary code on the forum

@JonPM: I wasn’t aware of that, so I added it to my code. Something very unexpected happened then, instead of the 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 … I would now get 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1… so no more error return value, but still not the desired result.

I played some more around with it and finally resolved it by changing from audio.loadStream to audio.loadSound. Not sure why that made a difference, but now it works perfectly fine.