Capturing Data from the Sound Engine

After connecting to a machine, you can begin to profile the audio and motion in your game by capturing data directly from the sound engine. All the information coming from the sound engine is displayed in the Capture Log. An entry is recorded in the Capture Log for the following types of information:

Notifications
Markers
Events
Actions
Properties
States
Switches
SoundBanks
Events Preparation
Errors
Messages
MIDI Events
API Calls

You can monitor each of these entries using the Performance Monitor and the Advanced Profiler. These views contain detailed information about memory, voice, and effect usage, as well as on streaming, SoundBanks, plug-ins, and so on. For more information on monitoring performance, refer to Monitoring and Troubleshooting with the Performance Monitor. You can also get Wwise to parse the data captured and provide you with some statistics on certain audio elements in your game or project. For more information on gathering statistics, refer to Gathering Statistical Information from a Capture Session.

Wwise uses the following special indicators and color to help you quickly sort through the many entries that can appear in the Capture Log.

Interface Element

Description

Indicators

White/gray circles

The white/gray circles indicate which items in the Capture Log were captured within 100 ms of the Performance Monitor time cursor position. The whiter the indicator, the closer the entry is to the time cursor's position. You can force the cursor to the timestamp of a specific log entry by shift-clicking on the entry.

Blue circles

The blue circles indicate which items in the Capture Log are related to each other. The blue circles are displayed when you select an entry in the log.

Colors

Selected Entry

The entry that is selected in the Capture Log is highlighted in blue.

All entries that are related to the selected entry are highlighted in teal blue.

Errors

All errors that occur during the capture process are highlighted in yellow.

The Voice Starvation error message occurs when the sound engine cannot provide audio data to the platform hardware buffer in a timely manner. This type of problem occurs when there is excessive use of the host CPU, where the audio thread CPU is near 100%. For example, it can occur when the platform CPU is trying to mix too many sources that are using too many audio effects simultaneously.

The Source Starvation error message occurs when the input stream starves most likely because the throughput obtained from the stream manager is insufficient for some reason. For example, it can occur when there are long seek times on the DVD.

Messages

All messages are highlighted in green.

The following illustration shows how the different indicators and colors are used in the Capture Log.

You can also profile some of your ideas or prototypes even before they have been integrated in the game by capturing directly from the Soundcaster in Wwise. For more information on using the Soundcaster, refer to Chapter 32, Creating Simulations.

	Note
	Before profiling your game, you should load all unloaded Work Units back into the project. When Work Units are unloaded, the profiling information may be incomplete and possibly misleading.

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