External sounds and a few other queries

[timcclayton]

Hello all.
I have a few minor (I hope!) queries with my game engine:

1. I have a 25MB (45-minute) OGG file which will be the background music in the game - should I load this externally or is internal OK for that sort of size?

2. I can write to the INI++ object but can't seem to retrieve values from it as easily as I thought I would be able to - I have been using a "Start of Frame" event to load the value in an INI++ file to the Global Value that handles whether sound is OFF or ON. I am using the "GetItemValue" options to read the data from the INI++ file:

GetItemValue( "Ini++ v1.5 Object", > Enter string here <, > Enter string here <, > Enter value here <)

but can't understand what those strings and values are for and therefore can't seem to retrieve the data in the INI++ file.

3. Is anyone willing to beta test a 5-room demo? And if so, do I upload the EXE file here somewhere or link it from my website?

Thanks,
Tim.

[keokeo]

As far as question 2 goes, in the first string you input the name of the group of the value you want to retrieve, in the second the name of the item and in the third a value to use if the item is empty.

[timcclayton]

Ah thanks, I couldn't work out what that last "value" was for!

[Stephen]

1. This doesn't really matter either way. It's more a matter of preference.
3. You can upload your file to an external site (or your website) and link to it in the Open Topic Community Forum.

[timcclayton]

Thanks both - I will just tidy up a few things first then post it.

[Pixelthief]

When an external file is loaded, the game will stutter during the first loading of it. IE, when you say "play sample xxxx"- further uses are fast because it is cached.

So if you have a loading screen to your game or levels, you can preload all the resources you'll use so they are cached for faster access. In my project, I have a loop that loads all sound files into memory when you load the game, but I'm not sure what sort of caps might exist for amount of cached files