what music files can RnD play?

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Martijn
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what music files can RnD play?

Post by Martijn »

I was wondering which music formats are supported by Rocks 'n' Diamonds. I know they are at least the following:

.wav, .mp3, .mod, .s3m, .xm

I'm asking this because I am creating a level collection with some background music. The WAV file is simply too big and if I convert it to MP3 it doesn't play smoothly when you start moving. So I need another format which deduces the file size. Since it failed to load the wave file in Modplug Tracker, to convert it to .mod, I was wondering: are there any other formats that are supported?

Thanks!
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Holger
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Post by Holger »

> I was wondering which music formats are supported by Rocks 'n' Diamonds.

When using the SDL version of R'n'D, all music formats supported by SDL_mixer are also supported by R'n'D. However, there is a limitation of music file formats automatically detected by filename extension if they are not used in a music configuration file, but being autodetected in a music directory; in this case, the following file formats are detected by file suffix:

- wav (uncompressed music samples)
- mod (also allowed as a _prefix_, as an older convention of MOD file naming)
- s3m (different MOD format)
- it (different MOD format)
- xm (different MOD format)
- midi, mid (MIDI music; used by BD2K3, for example)
- mp3 (we all know this :) )
- ogg (alternative music and sound format)

As a summary, R'n'D supports four general types of music: plain WAV files, MOD style music, MIDI music (requiring your system to have decent MIDI instruments available to play them) and compressed music formats.

> Since it failed to load the wave file in Modplug Tracker, to convert it to .mod

Well, you cannot really convert a WAV file to a MOD file (well, technically spoken, you can) -- a MOD file is a file containing voices that are made of WAV style data buffers played at certain positions in time (so, a conversion would be a MOD file with your WAV file buffer as one single voice, played only once at the very beginning of the tune, and you won't get a smaller file from that).
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Martijn
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Post by Martijn »

OK thanks. But .ogg, the only logical alternative, really doesn't work! It is just silent then... Or do I have to specify something?
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Post by Holger »

This depends on how SDL_mixer was compiled. On Windows, I think you need a separate ogg.dll. (I've removed some DLLs for file formats not needed for the main R'n'D package.) Have a look at the standard SDL_mixer binary distribution for Windows (see www.libsdl.org), and if it contains a ogg.dll, just put it into the R'n'D main install directory (where also SDL_mixer.dll is stored).

Then it should work...
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