Streaming Audio in Video Games - Benefits and Drawbacks

Benefits and Drawbacks

Use of streaming audio lacks the limitations on sound quality, where sequenced music is limited by the number of synthesized voices available and the quality of the wavetable used by the sequencer. The instrumentation of streaming audio is limited only by a developer's capacity to record and master the audio. However, this complexity requires that audio streams be much larger in file size than sequences. Also, where sequenced audio can include dynamic shifts, such as additional orchestration during battle scenes, etc., streamed audio cannot. Some games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, work around this by synchronising sequenced and streaming audio so that additional effects can be added to the streamed music.