The settings described in the following sections only affect local audio playback in Wwise Authoring. They do not affect in-game audio playback or the game sound engine buffer size. And they do not affect playback when Wwise is connected to a remote platform.
Output latency is the time delay between the moment an Event is triggered and the moment the sound is played. When you are playing sounds in Wwise Authoring, the sound engine uses prefilled buffers to reduce latency. You can adjust the latency by changing the number of output buffers and the number of samples per buffer.
Lower latency shortens the delay but increases the risk of audio problems such as dropouts caused by voice starvation. Higher latency can prevent voice starvation, but increases playback delay. By default Wwise uses four buffers with 512 samples each. You can try changing this if you are experiencing audio problems.
Changing the Output Buffer Count resets the sound engine, so changes made to sound object property values through Events are lost. For example, if you are auditioning a sound that had its volume reduced through an Event, and then you change the Output Buffer Count, the sound returns to its original volume.
To set the output latency:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Authoring Audio Preferences.
In the Authoring Audio Preferences dialog, select an Output Buffer Count. Note, you cannot change this setting while sounds are being played back or when you are connected to a game.
Set the Samples Per Output Buffer.
Review the Output Latency field. It displays a value calculated from the Output Buffer Count and the Samples Per Output Buffer.
Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.
In Wwise Authoring, audio playback is always streamed. If you have enabled streaming for a Music Track in the Property Editor, the Look-ahead time (ms) property for that Music Track is used. If you have not enabled streaming, the Music Track look-ahead time (ms) defined in the Authoring User Preferences dialog is used. This setting can help you avoid desynchronization and voice starvation when playing music objects in Wwise Authoring.
To set the Music Track look-ahead time:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Authoring Audio Preferences to open the Authoring User Preferences dialog.
In the Music Track look-ahead time (ms) field, enter a time from 0 - 10,000 milliseconds.
Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.
Multi-core rendering uses multiple CPU cores for audio rendering.
To enable multi-core rendering:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Authoring Audio Preferences to open the Authoring User Preferences dialog.
Enable Multi-Core Rendering.
Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.
When Allow System Audio Objects is enabled, Wwise reserves system audio objects, preventing any game or application running alongside Wwise from acquiring them. We recommend you enable this if you are trying to audition System Audio Objects from within Wwise.
If you are trying to hear system audio objects from a game running alongside Wwise on the same PC, disabled this option. This prevents Wwise from reserving system objects, allowing your game to acquire them. The result is that any audio object that would normally have been sent from Wwise as a system audio object is instead mixed to the Main Mix.
![[Note]](/images/2024.1.0_8669/?source=Help&id=note.png) | Note |
|---|---|
On Windows, there is a limited number of Microsoft Spatial Sound objects that must be shared across all currently running processes, including games and applications. Some versions of Windows have a bug that prevents active Spatial Sound streams from acquiring objects after they are freed by another process. To acquire them, the stream must be restarted. To circumvent this bug, you might have to restart the sound engine. |
To reserve system audio objects:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Authoring Audio Preferences to open the Authoring User Preferences dialog.
Enable Allow System Audio Objects.
Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.
By default, all sound played in Wwise uses your system's default playback device. You can specify the Audio Device and Hardware Device associated with each top level bus.
To select the output devices:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Authoring Audio Preferences. This opens the Authoring User Preferences dialog where top level busses are listed in a table. See Using tables for details.
For each Top Level Bus, select an Audio Device and Hardware Device.
The list of devices contains all the devices supported by the currently active Audio Device plug-ins, so a hardware device can be present multiple times in the list if it is supported by multiple plug-ins.
When set to Default, the device is selected by the Audio Device plug-in used by the bus. If that Audio Device plug-in is not available, it uses the system's default audio device.
Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.
To set the main mix channel configuration:
From the menu bar, click Audio > Main Mix Channel Configuration.
Select an option from the following:
Use Audio Device: The speaker setup configuration for your system. On Windows this is defined in the Control Panel.
2.0 (Speaker Panning): A stereo setup optimized for speakers. See Speaker and headphone panning rules for details.
2.0 (Headphone Panning): A stereo setup optimized for headphones. See Speaker and headphone panning rules for details.
5.1: A surround speaker setup using L, R, C, SL, SR, and LFE channels. If selected while the Windows Control Panel is set to stereo, the audio system will probably downmix to stereo.
7.1: A surround speaker setup using L, R, C, SL, SR, BL, BR, and LFE channels. If selected while the Windows Control Panel is set to stereo, the audio system will probably downmix to stereo.
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