FMOD Thread - Half-Rats: Parasomnia mod for Half-Life

I think it was bad idea to link fmod.dll to the main game folder. Reasons:
1. Some people don't quite understand what they should do with this file and miss it therefore.
2. This file can be potentially overwrited or overwrite fmod.dll of another version, because some HL mods also make this mistake and link their fmod.dll to the main game folder. And because your mod is linked to fmod.dll of specific version, then your mod or another mod may become unworkable.

So I highly recommend to link fmod.dll in the v1.1 to hrp/cl_dlls folder, as it was embodied, for example, in Paranoia, custom builds of SoHL and in other mods.

The second question, is it really was necessary to use latest build of FMOD? In fact, it's one of the reasons why the mod can't work properly with current version of Xash3D (the game crashes when it try to play an mp3-track). There is a stable old build of FMOD v3.7.5.0 which is used by many HL mods and they still work properly with it on actual Windows versions. Of course, maybe there is a way to fix the compatibility of new FMOD with Xash3D, or it's possible to bypass the using of MP3 at all, but maybe the implementing of FMOD v3.7.5.0 can be simplier decision.

1. Some people don't quite understand what they should do with this file and miss it therefore.

I agree this was a mistake on my part, I thought the way HR:P was packaged would make obvious on how to install the game but it seems that I was wrong. For 1.1 we'll move the README to the archive's root and I'll ask Half-Rats to update the download's description to contain clear download instructions (or I'll post an image).

2. This file can be potentially overwrited or overwrite fmod.dll of another version, because some HL mods also make this mistake and link their fmod.dll to the main game folder. And because your mod is linked to fmod.dll of specific version, then your mod or another mod may become unworkable.

I know that too, either you rename the old one or you move it temporarily.

So I highly recommend to link fmod.dll in the v1.1 to hrp/cl_dlls folder, as it was embodied, for example, in Paranoia, custom builds of SoHL and in other mods.

The huge risk of doing that is that it can create more bugs/problems than it solves because instead of letting the OS handle the loading and such, I'll have to write the code that do everything manually, I'll investigate that.

The second question, is it really was necessary to use latest build of FMOD?

2 reasons for that: the first one is that FMOD 3 and FMOD Ex (4) are considered legacy and no longer updated and I am a guy that hate implementing third party "no longer updated" stuff. Second reason would be to have the game working for Linux (Mac and modern versions of Windows could have been impacted too), if you take for example the native Linux port of Unreal Tournament 1999, you can't run it anymore because the versions used of third-party librairies (Mesa OpenGL, OpenAL...) are way too old for the recent kernels. In other words, putting aside emulators, compatibility layers and such, would you downgrade to Windows 95 to start a 16 bits application ?

In fact, it's one of the reasons why the mod can't work properly with current version of Xash3D (the game crashes when it try to play an mp3-track).

I'll investigate that when I'll be working on the WON/Xash3D version (which means once 1.1 is done).

There is a stable old build of FMOD v3.7.5.0 which is used by many HL mods and they still work properly with it on actual Windows versions.

Like I said earlier, FMOD 3 is a legacy and unsupported version of FMOD that will likely not work under Linux and Mac and possibly modern Windows (like 10). Tell me why should I have taken the risk to implement a potentially broken third party library in Parasomnia ?

Of course, maybe there is a way to fix the compatibility of new FMOD with Xash3D, or it's possible to bypass the using of MP3 at all, but maybe the implementing of FMOD v3.7.5.0 can be simplier decision.

Downgrading to FMOD 3 means to rewrite the whole audio engine due to API differences so that's a no.

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