Doom2 has 8 audio channels (8 sounds max can play at the same time), SC2 has 16 min and 128 max (you can change this in options, like in screenshot below):



But how many channels are in BW?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 23 2014, 11:57 pm by theleo_ua.

I assume it's built like this: a sound causing event occurs, BroodWar calls a sound method like "PlayTrigWav" or "PlayUnitSpeech" causing a call to a generic sound playing method (PlayBwSound, for example), PlayBwSound calls some method based on the operating system, (like PlaySound), with the SND_ASYNC flag).

With that kind of setup StarCraft wouldn't be dealing with sound channels (at least not directly); this matches the common knowledge that WAVs in maps cannot be stopped partway through and will just overlap, and fits with how a time strained team would want to write sound handling... though if BroodWar did indeed have say, 16 channels, playing 16 WAVs might hold the key to stopping WAVs mid-stream

I'm not basing this off any code/inside knowledge, someone else may have a better understanding.

Mesk or an affiliate of his reported 8 sound channels or thereabouts. It was low to the point of being noteworthy in any case. It's worth checking with the DirectX version BW uses, or asking Hercannic, he'd probably know.

edit: bw probably does a fair bit of sound handling of its own given its use of positional audio. idk, can't check atm.