Hi Bob,

> Must this be done in real time or is it possible to analyze
> the sound produced by each game as it is installed, for
> example? If the latter, you can do the root mean square
> calculation to determine an average level for each such
> game, save it somewhere, and apply a fixed gain (numerical
> multiplication factor) to each sample at play time that is a
> the ratio of the desired average level to the predetermined
> level of the game.

Yes, someone elses approach was similar to this (they didn't use RMS, but
rather just rather just peaks to determine if the volume was too loud).
They started out at 10 times normal volume and reduced the volume if
necessary to make it fit within the 16 bit integer. Then they stored the
multiplication factor so the game would start out next at the already
reduced factor. So, one time the game was run, sounds at first might be
louder than they should be until the loudest sounds of the game were
encountered, but then they would be leveled out. The problem is that their
idea of looking at the peaks only resulted in wide variations between games.
I think that is the part of their logic that is flawed.

I agree with the store multiplication factor, but the technique for using
the peaks to determine volume doesn't work well. That is what I'm trying to
improve.

Thanks!

SA Dev