I always heard that .ogg files are better than mp3s, so I decided to start researching this.

I used Audacity to import a FLAC audio file, and export it to various file formats and various bitrate. I exported to mp3 with bitrates 64, 96, 112, 128 and 192. I exported .ogg with quality settings 0, 1, 2, 3.

For this 4 minute and 35 second song, filesizes are as follows:
mp3 64 kbps - 2,205,392 bytes
mp3 96 kbps - 3,307,970 bytes
mp3 112 kbps - 3,859,257 bytes
mp3 128 kbps - 4,410,545 bytes
mp3 192 kbps - 6,615,698 bytes
ogg 0 - 2,182,076 bytes
ogg 1 - 2,687,489 bytes
ogg 2 - 3,289,363 bytes
ogg 3 - 3,960,570 bytes

After this testing I was shocked.
There wasn't that much difference between different ogg files, just slight treble. But there were huge differences between different mp3 files. (I know 192 vs 128 there is a difference but I mean 128 vs 96 vs 64)

But how more efficient were .ogg files compared to mp3, file size wise? a lot. Even the lowest quality .ogg sounds much better than 64 and 96, slightly better than 112, and pretty comparable to 128 if not better or worse. This makes .ogg files twice as space efficient.

EDIT: I even tried to listen differences between flac vs ogg and flac vs mp3 and see how much details were lost. I used the align the music on timeline and invert trick. Ogg files had very little loss, compared mp3 files which had HUGE quality loss.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because, if you drop .ogg file in osu to create a beatmap, it just doesn't work, it just creates a folder in songs folder, drops the file there and doesn't open the editor. In the ranking criteria, it implies that mp3s have to be used and have to be 128-192 kbps. This makes me think that space is indeed a concern for those who keep this site up and running.

So why don't we use .ogg files? Here's the thing, while osu doesn't support .ogg file when dropping a file, it PERFECTLY supports it under the hood. If you edit the .osu file and select .ogg file there, it will play without a problem.


So anyway, why is using .ogg discouraged here? I mean it's a free / Open format as opposed to .mp3 which had some weird patents and licenses and recently became free.

welp somebody bring this up again because damn, 3 years ago it was a thing

iirc osu! has partial supports on ogg which why its unsupported due its codec or something, dunno.. i forgot why its not rankable to use ogg though
all i know it affects on DT / HT mods, and some bug/delay stuff in osu!mania editor (mostly for keysounding like in BMS / O2Jam stuff)

wonder if osu!next will support ogg or not :S

Arzenvald wrote:

all i know it affects on DT / HT mods, and some bug/delay stuff in osu!mania editor (mostly for keysounding like in BMS / O2Jam stuff)

Just tested DT and HT mods, worked fine and works fine in mania editor as well.
I haven't tested .ogg formatted hitsounds though and It's not like I was asking for that.

Oh well.

To be fair, I don't know why it's the way it is currently (except due to heavy client modifications over the past few years) but back in 2010 it wasn't a problem at all it seems
Maps with songs in .ogg format were generally pretty rare, especially considering that rog-limitation is the only example I do know of that is ranked, yet I do not think, except there are some obvious technical issues I do not know of that prevent flawless usage, dropping support for those is not something I'm generally happy about

I think it's just because peppy doesn't like them?

.ogg hitsounds have been used in the past. same with .mp3 hitsounds, i remember when they were allowed or weren't explicitly disallowed in RC... but i can't give a map for example off the top of my head xp

It is incredibly stupid indeed.
.ogg is unsupported by a lot of software but I wouldn't know why this would keep osu! from using it, as it is an open format afaik and osu! can just ship along the codec.

As we are already on topic it is also worth mentioning this feature request that suggests using the .opus file format: p/5060122

marshallracer wrote:

To be fair, I don't know why it's the way it is currently (except due to heavy client modifications over the past few years) but back in 2010 it wasn't a problem at all it seems
Maps with songs in .ogg format were generally pretty rare, especially considering that rog-limitation is the only example I do know of that is ranked, yet I do not think, except there are some obvious technical issues I do not know of that prevent flawless usage, dropping support for those is not something I'm generally happy about

Yeah, they are rare. Here are some more examples
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/107763
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/58093
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/96375

I think people still used mp3s because it's really common and it's like they haven't given .ogg a thought or are unaware how much more efficient it is.

Monstrata wrote:

I think it's just because peppy doesn't like them?

.ogg hitsounds have been used in the past. same with .mp3 hitsounds, i remember when they were allowed or weren't explicitly disallowed in RC... but i can't give a map for example off the top of my head xp

I'm fine with wav hitsounds tbh they are very small files anyway. But the main song is what I want to be allowed in ogg. If I were to map a song, and had a choice, i would definitely go for .ogg.

I wonder what peppy's reasons are...

Endaris wrote:

It is incredibly stupid indeed.
.ogg is unsupported by a lot of software but I wouldn't know why this would keep osu! from using it, as it is an open format afaik and osu! can just ship along the codec.

As we are already on topic it is also worth mentioning this feature request that suggests using the .opus file format: p/5060122

I personally haven't tried comparing .opus to mp3, mainly because I can't really export to .opus using audacity.

try to convert .bme (bms file and its keysound) in editor, after imported, you'll find out that when you pause the playback, some keysound note doesn't pausing up and keeps playing until it ends

Kyuunex wrote:

https://osu.ppy.sh/b/96375

Now I'm actually surprised, never knew this came with an .ogg file, really liked this one

Arzenvald wrote:

try to convert .bme (bms file and its keysound) in editor, after imported, you'll find out that when you pause the playback, some keysound note doesn't pausing up and keeps playing until it ends

I mean it's certainly a fixable bug I assume (had I never stopped bothering with coding I'd even take a look at it myself)
Still, of course mp3s are more widely spread but if there are no (or very small) issues there's no reason to drop support and rankability for the future

Endaris wrote:

As we are already on topic it is also worth mentioning this feature request that suggests using the .opus file format: p/5060122

I like the idea, though I'm generally a fan of having alternatives at hand (which we're presently not given any)

I was curious enough about this to go out on a hunt to find out why. After searching through the ruins of G&R, GD, and Dev subforums as well as peppy's blog I've found - almost nothing. Seems like it's a common feature request but that doesn't go much far beyond suggestion. Perhaps one of the devs or peppy himself can explain why not support it. I went to check out maps with *.ogg hitsounds, and they are just fine. I speculate it has to do with people ripping off sounds from other games, so this requires them to convert to *.wav or *.mp3 beforehand.

abraker wrote:

I was curious enough about this to go out on a hunt to find out why. After searching through the ruins of G&R, GD, and Dev subforums as well as peppy's blog I've found - almost nothing.

same tbh, just some wording that its not officially supported, with no official reasoning why :thinking:

I vaguely recall issues with accurate timing at a software level and the difficulty of finding an adequate codec for the format being the main reason behind it becoming unsupported.

That and mp3 is 99.9% of all use cases anyway.

Ephemeral wrote:

I vaguely recall issues with accurate timing at a software level and the difficulty of finding an adequate codec for the format being the main reason behind it becoming unsupported.

That and mp3 is 99.9% of all use cases anyway.

is it possible to use ogg for hs? like in mania it just feel weird to have those huge wav (300k per piano hs). i reall do not get the idea that ogg hs is banned

I made 5 full-keysounded maps (from o2jam) that consist of only ogg hitsounds (everything, including the background music). Go into the editor and see out all the oddities with the editor playback:

-When a long storyboard hitsound was initiated and playback was paused before that hitsound finished, on resuming of playback that long sound will continue to play, even when playback resumed at a different place.
-sometimes the sounds will get completely stuck (multiple stack) and have to restart the editor.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/414685
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/423422
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/430868
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/445031
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/460855

Also, a commercial DDR clone, known as In The Groove (ITG), based on the stepmania engine, uses .ogg for all of their audios.

Oh. yea, we don't use .mp3 for hitsounds because there is a 5ms delay before .mp3 hitsounds actually play. It's an internal issue so I don't know why, but I think peppy or someone said not to use .mp3 because there is a delay in play-back. I don't know if this applies to .ogg though

Monstrata wrote:

Oh. yea, we don't use .mp3 for hitsounds because there is a 5ms delay before .mp3 hitsounds actually play. It's an internal issue so I don't know why, but I think peppy or someone said not to use .mp3 because there is a delay in play-back. I don't know if this applies to .ogg though

no, while mp3 encoder itself has an about 0.05s(50ms) massive delay, ogg encoder does not have any delay, 0ms.

mp3 (50ms)
ogg (0ms)

I think it's the encoder adding delays to mp3s. In audacity, when I wanted to compare mp3s with flacs, I had to align mp3s after dropping them on timeline, as opposed to oggs which didn't needed aligning.




BTW, I have more suggestions for saving lots of space by using just one .ogg for multiple mapsets that have the same song (Maybe same with videos?). (Imagine not having to waste space for every Harumachi Clover xD). This way we can deal with, "if ogg will be allowed, people will mostly still not use it" by having just one audio file per song everyone will use it and map around it, with one click download. (I'm sure something like this was suggested a long ago and never went anywhere, so why not just implement it alongside with related things?). And I have ideas for how we can implement these exactly.

The audio format in the map should match the format in the source when possible.

1. FLAC, WAV or any other lossless format should be converted to either Opus or Vorbis in a .ogg container (osu! currently only supports Vorbis, unofficially).
2. Audio from Youtube is natively in Opus format for most videos (while a few use AAC format). If Opus format support is implemented in the game, it should be required to put the audio in a .ogg container (while converting to mp3 should be discouraged, to avoid transcoding quality loss).
3. Sources in .mp3 format with the appropriate bit-rate should be kept as they are in the map. If you need to transcode to reduce the bitrate, it should be converted to Opus or Vorbis in .ogg container.

Ephemeral wrote:

I vaguely recall issues with accurate timing at a software level and the difficulty of finding an adequate codec for the format being the main reason behind it becoming unsupported.

That and mp3 is 99.9% of all use cases anyway.

But it works perfectly fine ingame right now. All that needs to be done is to change the ranking criteria to allow it to be ranked. Am I missing something here?

It doesn't work perfectly fine at all as a previous post in this thread highlights very adequately.

Besides, there's almost no point in buckling down to fix the issues with .ogg when they may not even exist in lazer to begin with. Or there may be an entirely different set of issues, who knows. Regardless, there's technical basis behind the format being unsupported and while the exact reason escapes me for the moment, it isn't anything based on "preference" or a developer "not liking" it or whatever.

Well i hope lazer will support ogg :s

Max Period wrote:

I made 5 full-keysounded maps (from o2jam) that consist of only ogg hitsounds (everything, including the background music). Go into the editor and see out all the oddities with the editor playback:

-When a long storyboard hitsound was initiated and playback was paused before that hitsound finished, on resuming of playback that long sound will continue to play, even when playback resumed at a different place.
-sometimes the sounds will get completely stuck (multiple stack) and have to restart the editor.

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/414685
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/423422
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/430868
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/445031
https://osu.ppy.sh/s/460855

Also, a commercial DDR clone, known as In The Groove (ITG), based on the stepmania engine, uses .ogg for all of their audios.

The issue with long storyboard sounds also happens with .wav files. The issue is about long sound files in general, not .ogg files.

It's easy to convert .ogg to .mp3. In fact, you can convert the tutorial sound (in OGG Vorbis format) into the MP3 format by just changing the file extension.

file extension means nothing. Please do research before you post nonsense stuff. also reencoding ogg to mp3 is not acceptable because mp3 encoders will add delay to the encoded file and it is not rankable.