sound lagging

[Larry]

It's a simple situation, but I can find no way to code it.

In my game (MMF II dev, 243) your guy is on a motorcycle. The rumble of the motorcycle loops.

When you hold the right arrow pressed, the motorcycle speeds up. I also want the sound to speed up, 'cause the bike's going faster.

This has given me the devil of a time.

I can manage to code it so that it does what I want: when the right arrow key is held down, the rumble gets higher. There are two ways to do this: you can either re-record the audio sample at a higher frequency, or have MMF kick up the frequency for you.

It works well and I'm proud of it. When you stop pressing the right arrow key, the sample goes back down to normal, and so does the speed of the bike.

There's just one thing that's bothering me.

Whenever you code in "play this sample whenever this key is held down," MMF takes a slight delay before playing the sample -- no matter how you code it.

In other words, the bike goes faster for about a second before the "faster" sound kicks in.

It's strange, but there is no delay going the other way: when you go from fast back to normal, the normal sound kicks in immediately.

The one-second lag makes the game feel all wrong.

Yet I can't understand it. MMF suffers no analogous delay if you are changing an animation or creating an object.

Only if you hold a key down to play a sample.

So I guess my question is: is there a way to code this? Can I somehow lodge a sample in the "running memory" so it's always ready to go? I've coded this motorcycle thing about five different ways, but all with the same result.

Thanks to any who help.

[Jeff]

Any chance you could upload an example file of the problem?

[Larry]

Done and done.

[TDA]

Hope they find a solution for this, I was wrestling with this one awhile back with a car game I was working on... I'd LOVE to see the fix for the delay!

One thing, perhaps when you are holding that key down it is playing it a million gazillion times? (mine had the "DO once per..." tossed in there)

[DavidN]

It's because you have an "Every 00-62" condition in the event that raises the frequency of the sound, making the event only trigger when the timer is a multiple of that value. I'm not sure what it was doing there.

[Larry]

The reason the every .62 condition is in there is because otherwise it would play the same "a million gazillion times," as TDA says, and you can't work your way around it with the "if the sample is not playing" command.

[Larry]

62" being the length of the slow sample.

[DavidN]

Right, I see. You're better off using "Restrict actions for 00-62" in that case.

[Larry]

Gadzooks, DavidN. You fixed it!

I guess that "62 must have been vestigial -- left over from a previous failed approach.

Gracias.