›

mp3 Royalties, OGG Vorbis and FMOD

retroFutureretroFuture
edited in General
I learned quite recently that using mp3 encoded audio in your game is in fact not royalty free. OGG Vorbis was recommended as a good, open-source royalty free alternative, but alas, Game Maker Pro (v8) did not support it. I was referred to a great audio framework called FMOD which supports OGG and greatly improves Game Makers audio capabilities. I can now overlap multiple layers of background music and ambient environmental audio, which was impossible to do with Game Makers limited mp3 support.

Just a heads up for those of you making commercial games who are unaware of mp3 royalties. It is also my understanding that FMOD is not limited to Game Maker, here is their homepage.

Better add this here too... Use Supersound.dll instead, it's free for both free and commercial games.

Comments

  • FengolFengol
    MP3 also seem to have terrible loading and buffering times, so it's often always better to switch to OGG or WAV
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    Agreed @Fengol, although I thought I could initially solve my overlapping problem by simply switching to using WAVs for the background audio, unfortunately, as several audio fx were triggered, the background audio cut out and only restarted after reaching its loop point. The mp3 audio also looped quite poorly, with a distinct gap when cycling back to the beginning. The OGG playback isn't perfect, but it is greatly improved.
  • FengolFengol
    don't get me wrong; definitely use FMOD. It's a professional tool and used by a lot of developers on a variety of platforms, not just GameMaker
    Thanked by 1retroFuture
  • TuismTuism
    Just on Game Maker, I've found that they ONLY take MP3 for music and ONLY take WAV for sound effects, or there might be some bugs I'm not understanding because doing it another way around causes... silence.
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    @Tuism, that's right, Game Maker only takes wavs & mp3's, that's why if you want to use OGG Vorbis you need to integrate the FMOD sound system in your projects.
    http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=120034
    Note: Sounds are loaded externally.
  • TuismTuism
    Oooooh thanks for that link, it looks awesome :D

    I assume it works in GM Studio still?
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    Unsure about studio... hope so.
  • GibboGibbo
    Hectic, wasn't aware of the mp3 royalties issue - thanks for the heads up!
  • TheFuntasticTheFuntastic
    FMOD has a hefty licence for commercial games though. Unless it's baked into your engine in some way.
    Thanked by 1retroFuture
  • ThaumaturgeThaumaturge
    Even if it is baked in, I strongly recommend checking whether a licence is called for if you're planning on using it in a commercial game.

    I'm tempted to recommend OpenAL, but I think that I've read that it may still have issues on some platforms. (According to Wikipedia it also has a few other limitations, the importance of which would likely depend on the application.)
    Thanked by 1retroFuture
  • benny_behemothbenny_behemoth
    edited
    I'm not too clued up on the programming side in this discussion nor was I really aware of the royalty issue regarding MP3's in games (thanks for that). I do know as a muso, that WAV is in any case a better quality for sound. Unlike MP3 it is an uncompressed audio format or a "raw" format (I refer to them as "RAWR!" formats :P ), so it naturally would sound better.
  • RigormortisRigormortis
    Wait, so the encoding method is not royalty free...regardless of what the music/sound is? That seems really weird(to me at least) 0_0
  • ThaumaturgeThaumaturge
    I think that the idea is that the method of encoding is a process covered by a patent, and therefore subject to royalties (should the patent-holder so desire).

    As to wav, they do have the advantage of not being lossy -- but one pays for it in file-size, I fear (much as with bitmaps).

    To those who have an aptitude for sound, how does the ogg format compare to mp3 in terms of quality and loss? I doubt that it preserves as much as wav, but does it lose as much as mp3?
  • GibboGibbo
    @Thaumaturge

    I haven't actually tried using the Ogg Vorbis format, always default to mp3 when encoding out of habit, but prevailing theory seems to be that Ogg sound quality is better than mp3 from 192kbps upwards or at very low kbps rates (64 and below)
  • bigbadwoflbigbadwofl
    Very much unrelated, but when working with the new HTML5 Audio tag, not all browsers support MP3 yet so OGG is usually what I use there as well.
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    @TheFuntastic Oh shit, I'd better look into the licencing thing for FMOD immediately! Thanks for the heads up on that.
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    Haven't read this in any detail yet, but here are some of the details regarding licencing:
    http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=333705&page=23#entry3495950
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    Heads up all Game Maker users. Rather use supersound.dll, it is free to use for both free and commercial games.
  • TheFuntasticTheFuntastic
    @retrofuture do you have a source on the mp3 and needing to pay royalties? Not something I'm super familiar with, I know the world of licence codecs is quite murky. H.264 for instance had "free to use" clause till some date in the future, after which there would be licence fee for one of the most widely used video formats. They have thankfully reversed this position as far as I'm aware.

    I know software vendors making mp3 authoring software and hardware with mp3 decoders need to pay licence fees, but I've never heard of anyone having to pay licence fees for including mp3 as a file resource in a multimedia package. In fact if you're using Unity mp3s are your only option on iOS.

    Have the feeling this really isn't something you need to worry about unless you're actually writing your own mp3 decoder?
  • LexAquilliaLexAquillia
    I'll get on my lawyer hat and dig into the licences. Will report back with findings
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    edited
    @TheFuntastic I just heard about it on the Game Maker forums, I'll see if I can find a more reputable source.
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    ... and here we go, with a bit of confusion thrown in for good measure
  • retroFutureretroFuture
    edited
    Game Makers default sound engine is extremely limited for anything except wav-based sound fx. Background music in wav form (using the default engine) cuts out when many sounds are triggered, so using Supersound.dll was the right thing to do, regardless of potential mp3 royalties.
    In other words, use Supersound.dll and OGG Vorbis, even if mp3 was free.
    Thanked by 1TheFuntastic
  • tbulfordtbulford
    As a not of interest we used ogg for Toxic Bunny when it was in java.

    We used http://www.j-ogg.de/core/main?/download-libraries.html

    There is also an lgpl alternative I have not tried

    http://www.jcraft.com/jorbis/
  • TheFuntasticTheFuntastic
    Just found this in the FMOD documentation:
    http://www.fmod.org/mp3license/

    Interesting - wonder how browser games work in terms of number of copies. And anything with more established middleware, like unity, almost certainly would not have to worry about this. Though I can this being an issue for game maker. But the chances of enforcement of this license is incredibly low anyway.
  • TheFuntasticTheFuntastic
    PS there is now FMOD integration for unity. Whoop!
Sign In or Register to comment.