SomeOldDude wrote: "Q • Is there a limit on how many audio files can be playing at once. Yes, I can just experiment to find this out, but what I really want to ask is..."
A • Yes. Audio Processors have a finite number of Voices (Sound Samples) that can be played simultaneously.
This will typically be between 128 - 512 Voices.
Virtual Voices can extend what the Hardware is capable of by Virtually Processing and Pre-Mixing to a Hardware Voice for your Audio Processor., but keep in mind these are done via the CPU and the MORE of these you use; the less CPU Processor Time you have for the rest of your application / system.
SomeOldDude wrote: "2. Does anyone know, or has anyone experimented with the performance load something like this can have on an Android system? I've browsed the tutorials and the command library. Sometimes I'll see little tips on conserving resources on a mobile system. Things like how cutting down the frame rate and limiting the number of arrays will conserve battery life. But I don't think I've seen any tips regarding audio commands. Any ideas?"
A • In general Audio can be quite Memory and Processing Intensive.
Something you might be surprised at is, it's possible to simply have a Handle open to an Audio File., as well as having a Memblock that can hold say 1 Second of Audio Data; and do this in Real-Time, without a particularly big performance hit.
This results in the Memory Usage remaining VERY Low... at most say 1-2MB., but beyond this Streaming allows you to do something else; Seamless Transitioning.
If you were saying playing "Song 1" and then clicked to play "Song 2"... well, there is no need to create a new Buffer (Memblock); rather, all that is needed is to open a new File Handler to said next Song; then you're just switching which you're populating the Memblock from.
In this regard you're never "Loading" the Audio per se., so you don't have to wait for it to decompress, store and open a new voice for said Audio; instead, you always have a Voice Active that is populating from the data of the Open Files.