When comparing Cricket Audio vs FMOD Studio, the Slant community recommends FMOD Studio for most people. In the question“What are the best audio engines?” FMOD Studio is ranked 4th while Cricket Audio is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose FMOD Studio is:
Windows, Windows Phone, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Linux, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free license
Cricket Audio is available FREE in binary form for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, OS X, Windows, and Linux.
Pro Cross-platform
Windows, Windows Phone, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Linux, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U
Pro Studio interface presents a lot on one view really well
Compared to Wwise, for example, which splits the parameter curves that may be affecting your event into at least three different views, FMOD does a good job of flattening the hierarchy, simplifying details into nice UI gadgets, and presenting all this on one view. This may create a bit of a disconnect in understanding the hierarchy... but not really. Details may be hidden because of this but those probably aren't missed by your average developer. Showing the waveforms of the clips everywhere possible also helps. The contrast and readability of the UI is also nice.
Pro Unreal game engine integration fully supported
Pro Unity game engine integration fully supported
Well, fully supported except for parameterized one-shot events through FMOD's Unity components, and lack of good getting started documentation showing best practices for various needs.
Pro Autopitch modulator
Easy to automate pitch bending with an RPM parameter, for example. Far easier to use and understand than Wwise's Smart pitch curve command. No idea which is more efficient, however.
Pro Used in many high profile commercial games
Pro Free license for non-commercial/educational/indies (budget < $100k)
Pro Already integrated with many game engines
Cons
Con Not enough sensitivity in randomized playlists
The smallest chance of random play is 1%. This may be fine enough for most situations but if, for example, you have 20 clips to randomize and you want one of them to play 1:10 of the rest, you would need ~0.5%. And if you want an Easter-egg event at 1:100, you can't get even close to that. You'll have to do it in code instead of in the studio.
Con Unclear on how to handle parameterized one-shot events in Unity
The instructions on how to set up events in Unity work for all events except one-shot events that need to respond to a parameter. These events should be implemented through code instead of using the FMOD Unity components (like you can for all other events). This makes no sense from a design point and is not made clear in any documentation. You might as well implement all of FMOD through code in Unity and ignore the clumsy Unity components.