ABSTRACT
Video game options screens included a wealth of settings and controls for audio. Traditionally, games have put volume sliders for each of the major buses in a game: master, sound effects, music, voice, and one or two others such as UI or ambiences. It is relatively cheap to add to the settings panel, and it is technologically easy to hook up to the appropriate buses in the middleware. Writing proper volume controls is not difficult, but it requires some understanding of what's going on. Instead of trusting the player to control their own volume, the proper thing to do is to mix the entire game properly. A good starting point is 40dB, but a little bit of experimentation helps to zero in on the appropriate value. A properly mixed game does not need anything more than a single master volume slider and a mute music checkbox.
