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[Skaven]

I'm starting this post on a rather vague basis since I cannot provide any exact details, but here's the deal:

I've made tracker music for the titles of PopCap Games. In a couple of titles they used BASS.DLL to play the music, but they then switched to FMOD.DLL due to "stability issues". According to them, BASS.DLL has caused random crashes and lock-ups on some computers, even blue screens and instant reboots. As an interesting detail, many of these problems disappeared when the .IT file, originally composed in ModPlug Tracker, was loaded and re-saved with the old Impulse Tracker.

I'd muchly prefer they used BASS.DLL, firstly because it supports filters (which FMOD.DLL doesn't), and second, because we could then pack the song files even smaller using MO3. But they refuse to switch to it due to the problems they've been having.

I now wonder, how widely is BASS.DLL used in shareware games? Are they all having similar problems with its stability?

[Ian @ un4seen]

I've not heard anything from them. It seems strange that they would spend a few $1000s on a license and then not report it when they had a problem. Guess they must be loaded

But I'd be interested to know what the problems they had were. They could have been simple things like not calling BASS_Free before exiting (the most common thing I've found ), or calling BASS_MusicLoad and BASS_SampleLoad simultaneously (they share the same loading mechanism). I guess the 2nd of those is a possibility, as the games were all using MOD music?

Do you know if they've been upgrading to the latest BASS versions? That's always advisable too

If you still have them, you could upload - http://ftp://ftp.un4seen.com/incoming - the original IT files that appeared to trigger the problems. I'll check if there's anything in them that could cause a problem.

[Skaven]

But I'd be interested to know what the problems they had were. They could have been simple things like not calling BASS_Free before exiting (the most common thing I've found )

That could be it. You see, one of the problems was the fact that the games work perfectly the first time, but when the game is started the second time, it crashes. Does not calling BASS_Free cause this?  There were some other problems as well. However, they said that the problems have been very difficult to reproduce and pin down, so unfortunately they cannot provide very good bug reports.

All the games have indeed used tracker music, plus .ogg compressed sound effects (which I suppose are unpacked into memory before playing). The tracker songs have usually consisted of several songs put into one song file, by using the same samples and instruments with different pattern sequences.

[Ian @ un4seen]

You see, one of the problems was the fact that the games work perfectly the first time, but when the game is started the second time, it crashes. Does not calling BASS_Free cause this?

Failing to call BASS_Free can cause the program to crash on exitting, but is unlikely to cause the problem you describe here. But this...

All the games have indeed used tracker music, plus .ogg compressed sound effects

...could be it

There was a problem loading small OGG samples...
http://www.un4seen.com/music/YaBB.cgi?board=bass&action=display&num=1028635994

So I suggest they try BASS 1.6a

[Skaven]

OK, I've uploaded two songs in a ZIP file to the site you indicated, the file is called popcap_musicbug_songs.zip.

The songs are both Impulse Tracker songs, composed in ModPlug Tracker. The "Seven Seas" song was stable and didn't crash with BASS.DLL, while "Dynomite" did.

Maybe you can figure out what the difference between these two songs is?

[Ralesk]

*brrrrs and shudders at MPT then crawls off the BASS forum*

[Skaven]

  *brrrrs and shudders at MPT then crawls off the BASS forum*

Well then, what would you recommend instead?

[Ralesk]

LOL, you do resave in IT ;]  Sad that there is no decent windows tracker STILL.  MPT is anything but decent :-/

[Skaven]

Well, it's not like we have much choice.... and I don't find it that bad after I got used to it (plus it has some extra features IT doesn't). But hey, this is getting off topic. Shall we continue this elsewhere?

[Ralesk]

All of my IMs is open wide.  Also is IRC if you prefer and have time, I'm on both IRCnet and DALNet as Ralesk.