Sound Blocking Problem[SOLVED]

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hello guys,

i need help with playing sound effects in a game.

i have the following class for playing sound effects

SoundManager:



public class SoundManager implements Runnable
{
	private int soundID;
	
	public SoundManager(int soundID)
	{
		this.soundID = soundID;
	}

	@Override
	public void run() 	
	{	
		
		File file = new File (".\\Sounds\\sound" + soundID + ".wav");
		
		AudioInputStream audioStream = null;
		AudioFormat format = null;
		SourceDataLine sourceLine = null;
		int BUFFER_SIZE = 128000;
		
		try {
			audioStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(file);
		} catch (UnsupportedAudioFileException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (IOException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		format = audioStream.getFormat();
		
	       DataLine.Info info = new DataLine.Info(SourceDataLine.class, format);
	        try {
	            sourceLine = (SourceDataLine) AudioSystem.getLine(info);
	            sourceLine.open(format);
	        } catch (LineUnavailableException e) {
	            e.printStackTrace();
	            System.exit(1);
	        } catch (Exception e) {
	            e.printStackTrace();
	            System.exit(1);
	        }

	        sourceLine.start();

	        int nBytesRead = 0;
	        byte[] abData = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
	        while (nBytesRead != -1) {
	            try {
	                nBytesRead = audioStream.read(abData, 0, abData.length);
	            } catch (IOException e) {
	                e.printStackTrace();
	            }
	            if (nBytesRead >= 0) {
	                @SuppressWarnings("unused")
	                int nBytesWritten = sourceLine.write(abData, 0, nBytesRead);
	            }
	        }

	        sourceLine.drain();
	        sourceLine.close();
	}
}

And when there is a collision, i create enw instance of the sound manager and call .run() method:


SoundManager soundManager = new SoundManager(1);
soundManager.run();

but this is blocking the game rendering until the sound is played, i thought running a seperate thread for sound, fixes the problem but it did not.
What can i do for sounds not to block the game ?

#2

That’s not a thread. You’re just calling a method normally. To make it run in a thread replace

soundManager.run()

with

new Thread(soundManager).start();

That’s not an optimal solution though because you load sounds from a file everytime you play them, thus generating massive IO traffic. Instead you should cache SoundManagers beforehand and use single instances of them from the main logic thread. And if you for some reason (there are pretty much none) decide to go with threaded way, at least use thread pools.

#3

Thanks for your reply, it works well now. I know there is a io time also but my sound clips are small and short .wav files like laser ‘peow’ sound thus it works. Thanks for your help i appreciate it :slight_smile:

#4

Because fact that your peow sound clips are small means that you’ll call it rapidly. That’s the io problem.