Advanced Loading Mode?

I’ve tried checking the FMOD Studio user manual and can’t find any explanation about the Advanced Loading Mode in the Audio Bin. Could someone please explain to me what it relates to and what the different settings are and what they’re suitable for?

Thanks.

Hello Chris,

Thanks for getting in contact.

When you build banks for an FMOD Studio project, this compresses all assets. When you load a bank into a game, all of the asset metadata is loaded but not the actual sample data. The behavior for each asset when the banks are loaded is determined by the Advance Loading Mode.

The Advance Loading Mode allows for three modes:

  • Compressed - Assets are loaded into memory as-is and played. The amount of compression and encoder used is determined by the settings in the Encoding Settings (to the left of the Advanced Loading Mode). It is recommended to have all sound effects compressed.

  • Decompressed - At runtime, this allows for assets to be decompressed into PCM data when the banks are loaded, rather than being decoded as they are played. The ‘Decompressed’ loading mode can only be applied per asset. It is not recommended to decompress assets unless you have a specific need for it (for example: low spec mobile devices where CPU usage must be low).

  • Streaming - Assets are loaded into memory in chunks as it is needed and not loaded in its entirety. Streaming is good for long background music that isn’t time-dependant.

I hope that helps.

Thanks,
Richard

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Hi

When the Advance Loading Mode isn’t active,

the default mode is Compressed with the dim “STREAM”.

And it’s in Streaming mode when “STREAM” lights up,

right?

I asked because these two sentences in manual seems to conflict.

https://fmod.com/resources/documentation-studio?version=1.10&page=managing-assets.html#compression-and-platform-encoding

“By default, assets ten seconds or longer are automatically set to use streaming loading mode. Other assets default to compressed loading mode. You can change this behavior in the assets tab of the preferences dialog.”

“You can change the loading mode of an asset that does not have custom platform encoding settings by clicking on the “Stream” button. This toggles between decompressed and streaming loading modes.”

Thank you!

When the advance loading mode isn’t active, whether an asset is streaming or not depends on the preferences and the length of the asset. It is streaming mode when the Stream button is lit up.

Sorry if it seems confusing. What that doc is saying is:

  1. by default assets over 10 seconds are automatically set to Streaming. You can change the default length before imported assets are automatically set to Streaming in the preferences dialog.
  2. you can change whether an asset is set to Streaming by clicking the “Stream” button when the asset is selected.