Feature request: Increase (or remove) song length cap... by a lot

[masterzora]

Okay, I know I'm about to sound very insane, but a friend and I would love to have an increased cap.  And I don't mean by a little bit.  I mean, yeah, we have a lot of music in the 1-2 hour range that would be nice to surf, but we have something bigger in mind.

To put it concisely, we're looking to surf Der Ring des Nibelungen.  In one sitting. On DVE Ironmode.  Clearly, this is going to require the cap to go up a bit.  By about 15 hours or so.

Yes, I realize that we sound insane, but this would be an amazing event if you could make it possible.

[Saeda88]

It's not possible, because after an hour, the music would go out of sync with the game as far as I know. Maybe it will be possible at a future Version of AS, but right now, even more than an hour would be too much for the game to handle, that's not a restriction to limit you, it's the limit the game can handle.

[Passerby]

ya i would love the cap removed too but it is there becuase the game and the audio can get out of sych on longs songs.

how long it takes to lose sync and how bad it gets is dependent on the computer but 15 hours will difiantl take it out even on a beast quad core with 8+gb ram.

[blue_h3x]

On lower power machines it can get out of Sync in as short as 15mins

[masterzora]

On lower power machines it can get out of Sync in as short as 15mins

Trust me, we're not talking lower power machine.  We're talking quad-core, 8GB ram dual video card monstrosity that generally runs audiosurf with a different game in the background (Dragon Age right now) because alt-tab is easier than quitting, and even hour-long songs don't have any sync issues.

I acknowledge that I may run into some sync issues, but that seems like the sort of thing that should be my concern, done at my own risk.  In principle, he doesn't know that I don't have a monstrosity built just for the express purpose of never having sync issues.

[blue_h3x]

There was a thread a while ago talking about this, and having a message box telling the user that sync issues may occur and continue at their own risk.

I'll see if I can find it

http://www.audio-surf.com/forum/index.php/topic,5004.0.html

http://www.audio-surf.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.0.html

[Mincus]

I suspect not. It would cause too many problems with lower powered machines. Shame, I know, as there's a request every couple of months for this.

I would suggest splitting the track into sections just short of an hour and using a playlist program like YAAP or SPS to play through. You'll get 30 second breaks every hour for processing the next part and it won't sound as cool, but it's the closest Audiosurf is currently capable of.

[masterzora]

The thing with Der Ring des Nibelungen is that it does have logical splits, i.e. the acts of each opera.  Unfortunately, these go up to an hour and a half or so each, and while splitting at the acts works, splitting elsewhere simply does not.

And, again, while we have plenty of >1 hour songs that would be fun, part of the point of this is to do the entire thing in one Ironmode sitting.  That gets a bit diminished if there are separate tracks.

[blue_h3x]

As of the moment, the game engine just can't handle that length of time, even if the limit was removed, you would still get separation between the audio and the visual.

[Melodia]

I don't see why you'd need to surf the whole thing in one sitting (can anyone really sit for 14 hours without moving, I mean really?). Seperating into acts, I could see (though the majority of CDs having plenty of track seperations), but anything more just seems excessive and I can't imagine how anyone could manage to do it...but what do I know.

83 minutes seems like a reasonable amount, so any full CD can be played.

[Laserrobotics]

The biggest problem with removing the limit, even if a warning is put in it's place, is that then we'll have at least one thread a week started by someone else who can't read or search asking why Audiosurf crashes when they play a 6 hour long song.  For the relatively small amount of songs that actually are over an hour, I don't really think it's worth it.

[masterzora]

I don't see why you'd need to surf the whole thing in one sitting (can anyone really sit for 14 hours without moving, I mean really?). Seperating into acts, I could see (though the majority of CDs having plenty of track seperations), but anything more just seems excessive and I can't imagine how anyone could manage to do it...but what do I know.

The idea is to make it into an event.  Get a decent sized party of people around for it, get a live feed or two for the internet.  Yes, it is insane and most people could not do it, but that's the entire point.

83 minutes seems like a reasonable amount, so any full CD can be played.

That's still a bit low for separating into acts.  And the fact no one can really agree on what's reasonable is exactly why there should be no cap and there should just be a disclaimer saying "surf at your own risk".

The biggest problem with removing the limit, even if a warning is put in it's place, is that then we'll have at least one thread a week started by someone else who can't read or search asking why Audiosurf crashes when they play a 6 hour long song.  For the relatively small amount of songs that actually are over an hour, I don't really think it's worth it.

Now we're weighing being able to maximize fun by actually being able to play certain songs vs. dealing with idiots who will probably be posting something stupid no matter what.  It seems silly to side against maximizing fun.

You say "relatively small amount of songs", I say "I've got thousands that would be excellent to play, but I can't".

I honestly don't see how we could go wrong with no cap, but having long songs pop up a warning "Songs over [length X] have been known to cause problems.  Play at your own risk."  Presumably length X could go up as he figured out how to resolve these issues.

[blue_h3x]

I honestly don't see how we could go wrong with no cap, but having long songs pop up a warning "Songs over [length X] have been known to cause problems.  Play at your own risk."  Presumably length X could go up as he figured out how to resolve these issues.

Length X is hardware dependant, so it wouldn't be a set amount. Also when the blocks are out of sync with the music by a few seconds it's not nearly as fun

[masterzora]

I honestly don't see how we could go wrong with no cap, but having long songs pop up a warning "Songs over [length X] have been known to cause problems.  Play at your own risk."  Presumably length X could go up as he figured out how to resolve these issues.

Length X is hardware dependant, so it wouldn't be a set amount. Also when the blocks are out of sync with the music by a few seconds it's not nearly as fun

He's currently defined a length X, and made it a hard limit rather than a warning.  That wouldn't have to change without a cap.  It's not "your machine will fail above this", it's "has been known to cause problems".  And I think I should get to define what I think is fun rather than being told what I find fun.

[blue_h3x]

I honestly don't see how we could go wrong with no cap, but having long songs pop up a warning "Songs over [length X] have been known to cause problems.  Play at your own risk."  Presumably length X could go up as he figured out how to resolve these issues.

Length X is hardware dependant, so it wouldn't be a set amount. Also when the blocks are out of sync with the music by a few seconds it's not nearly as fun

He's currently defined a length X, and made it a hard limit rather than a warning.  That wouldn't have to change without a cap.  It's not "your machine will fail above this", it's "has been known to cause problems".  And I think I should get to define what I think is fun rather than being told what I find fun.

On an older machine I have, I would see sync issues at 20 mintues, so it's not after 1 hour it's known to cause issues.

I have also played Audiosurf with sync issues, so I know from experience what it's like.