Crossfire Client Sound

The Crossfire client has abilities to play sounds, when the server sends sound commands.
The sound command at older clients / servers was named sound ,
newer versions of Crossfire use music and sound2 as commands.
These command definitions are to be found in client/common/client.c inside struct CmdMapping commands[] = { .

 { "sound", SoundCmd, MIXED /* int8, int8, int16, int8 */},

and

    { "music",          (CmdProc)MusicCmd, ASCII },
    { "sound2",          Sound2Cmd, MIXED      /* int8, int8, int8,  int8,
                                                * int8, int8, chars, int8,
                                                * chars
                                                */},

When the client understands the sound commands it receives from the server, then it has the ability to play at least sounds for events,
as the sounds folder of the Crossfire SVN repository contains around 30 or 40 .raw sound files.
These sound.raw files are named like Teeswing.raw .

The Crossfire client uses a helper binary to play sounds.
When the client compiles, it usually creates two different sound server binaries named cfsndserv and cfsndserv_alsa9 . By default, the client uses the cfsndserv , the cfsndserv_alsa9 can be switched on by the commandline parameter -sound_server <path> </absolute/path/to/cfsndserv> .
The default cfsndserv server can be divided into several sound systems. These sound systems are switched on when the client is getting compiled. Either :

1. very legacy alsa 0.5
2. legacy OSS
3. SGI
4. SUN
5. SDL since v1.60.0 , needs SDL_mixer later than at least v1.2.9

Most people will very likely have the OSS version of the cfsndserv, since the legacy ALSA code does not compile with recent 1.x ASLA libraries and their headers, and the SDL music is not enabled by default while configuring the client before compiling it:

–enable-sdl_mixer Enable use of the SDL_mixer library, default is not to use it

For recent 1.71+ versions of the client, see Configuration File sounds.conf .

To make these event sounds working inside the client, the client has to know, where these event files are located on the system .
When the client starts, it checks for two sound related configuration files in the HOME directory .crossfire : sndconfig and sounds .

From the client/sound-src/common.c :

   int init_sounds(void)
    sprintf(path,"%s/.crossfire/sounds", getenv("HOME"));
    i=0;
    if (!(fp=fopen(path,"r"))) {
    fprintf(stderr,"Unable to open %s - will use built in defaults\n", path);

The file sounds should be a simple copy of the client/common/soundsdef.h file,
without the compiling related lines.
I am running a root Linux distribution named Puppy Linux, so my HOME is /root , and have put the files from the sounds package into the folder myself named “cf_sounds” inside the .crossfire/ folder :
Note: I have shortened the entries of that file to not overload this page.

# Since the client has to load the sounds on its own, full path names
# are needed.
#
# There are two sections - one for normal sounds, and one for spell
# sounds.  They are differentiated by the header 'Standard Sounds:' and
# 'Spell Sounds:'
#
# Empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored.
#
# Format of the file:  pathname to sound, default volume (what volume gets
# played if it is centered on the player), symbolic name (not currently
# used for anything, but may be in the future for the server to communicated
# to the client), and sound number..  Symbolic name and sound number may
# be ommitted.  If sound number is missing, the sound will be assigned one
# higher than the last sound read in.
#
# the symbolic name can be DEFAULT, in which case all sounds for that section
# which are otherwise not set will be set to that value.  This can be
# especially useful for that magic section, since new spells get added
# fairly often.
#
# The volume of 100 means max volume.  Anything higher may break the sound
# handling.
#
# The server currently communicates what sound to play via the sound
# number - you should not change those.  However, you can change most
# of the other sounds without problem.
#
# If a copy of this file is in ~/.crossfire/, it will be loaded
#
Standard Sounds:
 
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/su-fanf.raw      30 SOUND_NEW_PLAYER         0
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/Teeswing.raw     80 SOUND_FIRE_ARROW         1
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/chord.raw        100 SOUND_LEARN_SPELL       2
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/Missed.raw       70 SOUND_FUMBLE_SPELL       3
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/Missed.raw       70 SOUND_WAND_POOF          4
 
Spell Sounds:
 
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/magic.raw        100 DEFAULT
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/swish.raw         70 "magic bullet"          /* 0 */
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/swish.raw         60 "small fireball"
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/first_try.raw    100 "dimension door"
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/magic.raw        100 "create earth wall"
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/Tear.raw         100 "paralyze"
/root/.crossfire/cf_sounds/Missle1.raw       80 "icestorm"

Since version 1.71.0 of the client, the above sounds file name has changed to sounds.conf.
A look inside the Debian package crossfire-client-sounds_1.71.0-3_all.deb revealed, that it may be located inside the usr/share/games/crossfire-client/sounds directory among the various now .wav and since version 1.72 also .ogg files.
The header has not changed, but the syntax it seems :

# Normal Sounds
 
SOUND_CLOCK:130:TowerClock
SOUND_DRINK_POISON:130:Puke
SOUND_FALL_HOLE:200:MetalCrash
SOUND_FIRE_ARROW:80:Teeswing
 
# Spells
 
aggravation:100:bugle_charge
alchemy:100:magic
antimagic rune:100:magic
armour:100:magic
ball lightning:110:lightning1

TODO