Is it possible to remove dependency on Windows Media Player?

1

Hello,

I’ve tried a lot of googling and could not find a definitive answer to that question. I’m currently porting an XNA game that uses Song for music and SoundEffectInstance (XACT) for sound effects.

On windows, does Monogame still depend on Windows Media Player?

Does it still crash if Windows Media Player is not installed?

The windows media player crash is the biggest reliability issue on the current XNA game with a lot of gamers having trouble getting it to work.

If the dependency is still there, what are my easiest options for porting audio to something reliable ? (windows only)

And lastly, what is the best option if I’d like to support both Windows and Nintendo Switch?

2

I’m not sure if this solves your issue but I switched my song playing to DirectX per this blog post: http://hernblog.com/blogs/replacingMonogameSongsWithDirectX.html

3

Considering all the use cases I’d need to cover this might be too time consuming to refactor (media player queue, looping / non looping, 3D sound effect instances, variable volume…)

XACT / Media player API was orders of magnitude simpler to use than pure Direct X.

Also the switch is probably? running OpenGL so all of that work would not work there.