At the start of my app I load GameMusic and MenuMusic, 2 mp3 files both around 1.6mb’s. It takes a lot longer to load these files then apps currently on the app store take to load files at the start of games. Is there something I am missing? A file type that makes the audio files smaller or a more efficient way to loud bigger audio files?
There are a couple of things to consider. A 1.6mb sound file is pretty big. If you are doing:
audio.loadSound()
It has to read the whole file in and decode it. This is time consuming. This is why we offer:
audio.loadStream()
which is just like loadSound() except that it can start playing while it’s still loading and in theory your app can go on doing other things. The second point is back to the size. I don’t know much about your sound, but if I were a betting man, I’m guessing its a 44Khz stereo track. These file take time to load and decode and take up a lot of memory and CPU time. If you try to port your app to older and underpowered devices like the iPad 1, the 1gen Kindle Fire and the Nook Color you’re going to probably find audio playback performance problems.
Most people are going to hear your sound out of the devices little bitty speakers. There are very few situations where you need 44khz stereo when 11khz mono does just fine and they load considerable faster. Of course we all want good quality, but you have to strike a balance between quality and performance.
Thank you very much Rob! audio.loadStream() worked like a charm. As for the 44Khz issue, you were correct in what it was and I have now fixed that. Thank you again.
There are a couple of things to consider. A 1.6mb sound file is pretty big. If you are doing:
audio.loadSound()
It has to read the whole file in and decode it. This is time consuming. This is why we offer:
audio.loadStream()
which is just like loadSound() except that it can start playing while it’s still loading and in theory your app can go on doing other things. The second point is back to the size. I don’t know much about your sound, but if I were a betting man, I’m guessing its a 44Khz stereo track. These file take time to load and decode and take up a lot of memory and CPU time. If you try to port your app to older and underpowered devices like the iPad 1, the 1gen Kindle Fire and the Nook Color you’re going to probably find audio playback performance problems.
Most people are going to hear your sound out of the devices little bitty speakers. There are very few situations where you need 44khz stereo when 11khz mono does just fine and they load considerable faster. Of course we all want good quality, but you have to strike a balance between quality and performance.
Thank you very much Rob! audio.loadStream() worked like a charm. As for the 44Khz issue, you were correct in what it was and I have now fixed that. Thank you again.