Re: Two more questions

On 11/16/2012 06:32 PM, Eric Wing wrote:
> Actually, this has been one of my long time gripes with OpenAL. I need
> both multiple contexts and I need both of them to render sound
> simultaneously. It isn't a major use, but it comes up enough for me.
>
> I want multiple contexts (listeners) for several different scenarios:
> - Multiple views (your split screen example, or think of a 1st person
> flight combat with a radar view). For compartmentalized/modular
> development, trying to not trample over different module's state is a
> pain.
> - Menu views: very similar to the above; everything emanating from the
> menu is probably not spatialized. But the main view may still be going
> and playing sounds. Again, the menu person/team shouldn't have to
> worry about the game person/team screwing with the listener position
> or vice-versa.
>
> - Multiple simulations: The Corona SDK is the best example of this
> problem. In the Corona SDK, we allow users to write apps/games for
> iOS/Android in Lua. Our Mac/Windows simulator product allows them to
> run their code as a regular Mac/Windows program. The OpenAL system
> only allows us have one active context at a time so we can't run two
> different user app/simulations at the same time (there are use cases
> for this; imagine a multiplayer game). In fact, our main application
> window is written in our own product which is left open at all times
> by some users and provides links to documentation and our RSS feeds
> and is just another simulation. We had to make a special hack to
> disable audio it would never interfere with the user's audio.


If I'm not mistaken, OpenAL-Soft allows you to have multiple contexts 
active (one per thread) using the alcSetThreadContext function.  This is 
part of the ALC_EXT_thread_local_context extension.  I'm not sure how 
well this feature is tested, though, and I believe it's only available 
in OpenAL-Soft right now.

--"J"

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