The blog
GODJonez's Workshop - Xfire: Sound Options
2009-10-16 12:24 PM PDT
To continue the "Xfire Options" series, this week you will have an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the Sound options of Xfire. In this context the Sound options mean options for event sounds such as receiving messages and knowing when friends log on. Options for voice chat and video recording will be later.
The first option is Send or receive a message. When this is enabled, you will hear a sound whenever someone sends you an instant message or when you send a message to someone. This option is for out-of-game situations.
The second option Receive a message while gaming controls whether you hear a sound for incoming messages while playing games. This sound is also different to that of the out-of-game message indicator.
The third option is Friend logs on or off. As you might guess from the label, enabling this option will make Xfire play a sound whenever any of your friends log on or go offline.
Next up is Someone joins or leaves a chat room. Enabling this option makes Xfire play a sound effect whenever someone joins or leaves a chat room (obviously). In large chat rooms this option along with the "Send or receive a message" will create quite the orchestral performance of sound effects so you might want to turn them off if you take part of such chat rooms.
Next up you will find the option Send or receive voice chat requests. Enabling this makes Xfire play a dialing tune or ringing sound (or whatever sound effects the selected sound pack has) when you try to call your friend or when you receive a voice chat call.
The last toggleable option is Take a screenshot while gaming. Enabling this makes Xfire play some kind of camera shutter sound when you take screenshots so you know that the screenshot was taken.
All of the above options are saved in your Xfire user profile, so they are retained across systems as long as you log in with the same Xfire username. They are all enabled when you create the Xfire account but can then be disabled and enabled by will from the Options menu.
Under these checkboxes there exists a drop-down box to choose the sound pack to use in Xfire. Sound packs are ZIP files with the sound files as WAV files and some metadata in XML files. Xfire comes with two sound packs on basic installation. The Default sound pack is the one that's selected automatically when Xfire is installed. The Classic sound pack contains sound files that were used in earlier Xfire versions before the sound pack system was in place. Users can create their own sound packs and distribute them, but there isn't a central place where the sound packs could be shared in, at least for now.
You can find out more information about the Sound packs by reading one of my first technical posts on the blog: http://www.xfire.com/blog/theblog/492066/
By the way, have you checked out the Xfire Game Store yet? It would be nice to hear any comments you might have of that service with the blue sphere sparky shopping cart with an X -logo. There are some big plans about what to make of the Game Store so your feedback now could have an effect of what the game store will become in the future!
Next week the Xfire version 1.116 will go live for everyone, so see you again then. Have a nice weekend!
Joonas
views: 1209
The first option is Send or receive a message. When this is enabled, you will hear a sound whenever someone sends you an instant message or when you send a message to someone. This option is for out-of-game situations.
The second option Receive a message while gaming controls whether you hear a sound for incoming messages while playing games. This sound is also different to that of the out-of-game message indicator.
The third option is Friend logs on or off. As you might guess from the label, enabling this option will make Xfire play a sound whenever any of your friends log on or go offline.
Next up is Someone joins or leaves a chat room. Enabling this option makes Xfire play a sound effect whenever someone joins or leaves a chat room (obviously). In large chat rooms this option along with the "Send or receive a message" will create quite the orchestral performance of sound effects so you might want to turn them off if you take part of such chat rooms.
Next up you will find the option Send or receive voice chat requests. Enabling this makes Xfire play a dialing tune or ringing sound (or whatever sound effects the selected sound pack has) when you try to call your friend or when you receive a voice chat call.
The last toggleable option is Take a screenshot while gaming. Enabling this makes Xfire play some kind of camera shutter sound when you take screenshots so you know that the screenshot was taken.
All of the above options are saved in your Xfire user profile, so they are retained across systems as long as you log in with the same Xfire username. They are all enabled when you create the Xfire account but can then be disabled and enabled by will from the Options menu.
Under these checkboxes there exists a drop-down box to choose the sound pack to use in Xfire. Sound packs are ZIP files with the sound files as WAV files and some metadata in XML files. Xfire comes with two sound packs on basic installation. The Default sound pack is the one that's selected automatically when Xfire is installed. The Classic sound pack contains sound files that were used in earlier Xfire versions before the sound pack system was in place. Users can create their own sound packs and distribute them, but there isn't a central place where the sound packs could be shared in, at least for now.
You can find out more information about the Sound packs by reading one of my first technical posts on the blog: http://www.xfire.com/blog/theblog/492066/
By the way, have you checked out the Xfire Game Store yet? It would be nice to hear any comments you might have of that service with the blue sphere sparky shopping cart with an X -logo. There are some big plans about what to make of the Game Store so your feedback now could have an effect of what the game store will become in the future!
Next week the Xfire version 1.116 will go live for everyone, so see you again then. Have a nice weekend!
Joonas
