CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netaudioxnaxna-4.0
ares_games
ares_games

Reputation: 1067

Properly end SoundEffectInstance

What I want to do is to Load() a sound effect in XNA using the Content Manager and automatically create a instance to control playback. When the sound is no longer needed, I was wondering how to properly Unload() it from memory?

Furthermore, I was wondering if Unload() is even needed. When I call Load() twice, does the second call properly free the memory of the first call? I would guess that the C# garbage collector automatically disposes the old effect and instance as they are being overwritten by the second call. Is this correct?

These are the parameters in my custom MySoundEffect class:

// Has sound effect been loaded?
bool loaded;

// Store our SoundEffect resource
SoundEffect effect;

// Instance of our SoundEffect to control playback
SoundEffectInstance instance;

This method is loading the sound.

public void Load(String location)
{
    effect = Content.Load<SoundEffect>(location);

    if (effect != null) loaded = true;
    else
    {
        Error.Happened("Loading of sound effect " + location + " failed.");
        return;
    }

    // Create instance
    instance = effect.CreateInstance();
}

This is called when the sound is no longer needed:

public void Unload()
{
    loaded = false;

    instance.Dispose();

    effect.Dispose();
}

Upvotes: 1

Views: 369

Answers (1)

pinckerman
pinckerman

Reputation: 4213

If you want to unload a single sound you can call Dispose method, but it's important that you never need it again, or you'll receive an excepion of disposed element.
You can create a second ContentManager where you can load the sounds that you use only one time, and then Unload it.

To answer to your second question, you are wrong:

Each instance of ContentManager will only load any given resource once. The second time you ask for a resource, it will return the same instance that it returned last time.

To do this, ContentManager maintains a list of all the content it has loaded internally. This list prevents the garbage collector from cleaning up those resources - even if you are not using them.

Upvotes: 1

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