Question Should I use Audio Mixers to let the player change the voulme for SFX and Music seperately?

I haven't used Audio Mixers before, but as far as I can tell, it's the only (practical) way to allow the players to change the volume of the SFX and Music separately, by creating audio mixers for these 2, and assigning the correct to each audiosource.

But I'm wondering if this has any impact on performance, as these mixers can do a lot more than just change the audio volume, but I'm not interested in any of that.

So does anyone have any experience with this?


The only other way to do this, as far as I'm aware, is to make all of the audiosources have a script attached to them that multiplies the audiosource's volume with a sfx-volume-variable. (that can then be changed by the player)

Or does anyone know any other way?

 

There's no major performance disadvantage to using Audio Mixers for managing audio levels, particularly user-accessible controls. In fact, this is exactly what they're for.

While there are effects that you can add to mixers that have a big impact on performance, generally just running audio through the mixers and controlling the levels won't cause you any problems.

For a simple use-case, I'd make one Audio Mixer and run SFX and Music through two Audio Mixer Groups.

For a more complex setup, use multiple mixers that manage groups of sounds that in turn feed into other mixers. This might be useful for managing overall audio balance and allows mixers to auto-suspend if they're not being used (again, only really relevant if you're using effects).

In any case, probably keep user controls separate from controls that you use while making your game to balance audio. Which might mean a couple of mixers or groups.

But, put simply, don't worry about the performance impact of using mixers, they're generally very lightweight on their own.

Hope that helps.

 

Good to hear! Thanks for the help, I'll do it like that then!