# How about to share experiences in optimization **URL:** \ **Category:** FMOD Studio\ **Created:** [November 4, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204 "2013-11-04T01:11:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gdkid1412](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gdkid1412](https://qa.fmod.com/u/gdkid1412)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204/1 "2013-11-04T01:11:55Z")
I’m trying to embed fmod in our engine.I currently use only the lowlevel api. But I find it’s pretty slow when playing a sound. I just think How about to share experiences in optimization? ---
**Author:** ![gdkid1412](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gdkid1412](https://qa.fmod.com/u/gdkid1412)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204/2 "2013-11-06T01:46:52Z")
In fact I do not have any experience,I just hope to discuss it with others. For 3D sound I just use a list to manage the FMOD::Sound\*, put the most common one in front. How to decide the size of the list? I mean a appropriate number. But I still feel it’s a little slow when loading a new sound.I just use the default configuration such as FMOD\_INIT\_NORMAL and my file callbacks.Is there a settings or parameters something can make it faster? ---
**Author:** ![brett](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/brett/32/261_2.png) [@brett](https://qa.fmod.com/u/brett)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204/3 "2013-11-11T23:42:23Z")
Hi , What do you mean by ‘slow’? FMOD is used in many commercial games because it is low overhead, playing 1 sound is basically negligible. Are you doing something like accidently loading the same sound every single frame? What metrics are you using to test performance? Playing 1 sound would execute about 3 DSP nodes which would add up to less than 0.05% of a current cpu including base overhead. ---
**Author:** ![gdkid1412](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gdkid1412](https://qa.fmod.com/u/gdkid1412)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204/4 "2013-11-12T01:47:49Z")
I do not mean play a sound is cost a lot. I mean the first time I play a sound, I read the sound file into memory by my IO and register the sound resource. Then call createSound to create a FMOD::Sound. This process is a little slow. Such as the first time triggering a effect animation, we load a lot of stuff like particle,testure, mesh except sound.So I want as far as possilbe to shorten the loading time. That’s I mean Is there a settings or parameters something can make it faster? I think about using FMOD\_FILE\_ASYNCREADCALLBACK once,just want to have a try.But I don’t find the asyncio example. ---
**Author:** ![brett](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/brett/32/261_2.png) [@brett](https://qa.fmod.com/u/brett)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/how-about-to-share-experiences-in-optimization/11204/5 "2013-11-12T01:52:47Z")
That is not what the asyncio example is for, that is for deferred file read callbacks which are a different topic all together. It should probably be called job\_based\_io or deferred\_io or something to avoid confusion. Simply add FMOD\_NONBLOCKING to your createStream/Sound call, to make the loading operation happen in the background. Sound::getState can be used to determine when it is ready, or you can just keep calling System::playSound until it succeeds with FMOD\_OK (instead of FMOD\_ERR\_NOTREADY). Next, to reduce load time you can do 2 things. Turn off file seeking to the end of the file, with FMOD\_IGNORETAGS flag. Turn off formats you don’t want to query, and just tell fmod what file format you are using, use FMOD\_CREATESOUNDEXINFO::suggestedsoundtype for that, this will be your biggest speedup. There will always be a delay between calling createSound/Stream and hearing it with playsound, but if you preload your sounds or streams, you won’t get a delay.