Use FMod Studio API or FMod Ex?

Hi. I’m an indie game developer. I previously licensed FMod Ex but my game never went commercial. Now I’m rebooting it with a new name. In order to use FMod for free as an indie, do I need to switch to FMod Studio? Is this a major task? Is the Studio API stable and fully featured? Thanks.

Our “Free for indies” license only applies to FMOD Studio. If your current license does not cover commercial release, you will need to switch to Studio or buy a new license for FMOD Ex. Not knowing the details of your project, I can’t say for sure which option is best for you.

The Studio API is definitely full-featured and stable, and we’ll happily help with any problem you encounter while switching across if you send the details of the specific issue to support@fmod.org.

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Thanks. Is the API very different from Ex to Studio? I’m trying to avoid additional work at this time.
My previous license was commercial, but I’ve changed the name of the game since then and added another year of development. Am I OK to continue with the previous license?

Cheers

Tom

If you’re using FMOD Ex which is the low level API (createSound/playSound) that API is very similar in FMOD Studio Low Level and it should be relatively easy to convert. If you’re using FMOD Designer (load/getEvent) then there is a bit more work involved - the project will have to be migrated, and on the code side Studio API is quite different to Designer API.

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Thanks Peter.
I’ve now migrated to FMOD Studio Low Level. Thanks for supporting Indies!
The migration was easy but I notice that setDefaults no longer includes volume. Was this dropped or did it move somewhere? I now need to create a channel just so that I can adjust the volume?

Cheers

Tom, out of curiosity why are you using Low Level? I’m currently going through the transition of FMOD Designer to Studio. It actually does a pretty good job converting besides the music system. Saved me lots of time. According to our devs, the transition was quite painless also.

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I haven’t used designer or studio. I was using FMOD Ex; low level is a small change from that. I’ve no idea if studio would be appropriate for me or would provide any benefits. My game is entirely procedural, not sure if that has any impact.

One thing I can tell you is that Studio has opened up so many more creative avenues. Now there’s more than one way to skin a cat. What our devs and I have noticed is that programmer resource has been reduced significantly due to the amount of flexibility on creative end. Now that I’m doing alot of the logic and complex routing, all I need is the dev to plug it in and we’re done.

I think the fact that your game is procedural is probably more reason to use Studio for the audio routing alone.

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Thanks for the tip. I’ll investigate, when I get time. Right now all my audio configuration is done in my own json file, perhaps Studio would obviate that.