SF2 24-bit samples with 16-bit renderer?

[superfury]

My renderer uses 16-bit samples (short). The soundfont might use 24-bit samples or 16-bit samples. If 24-bit samples are used, is it worth downsampling the 24-bit samples to 16-bit for quality? Or should I ignore the SM24 block?

[dhayden]

It seems simple to downsample from 24 bit to 16 bit as along as the sampling rate is the same, so I'd say go for it.

[Duthomhas]

You can effectively use a bitshift to downsample, which is very fast and has no effect on output quality (assuming a linear sample range).

[superfury]

@Duoas: So it's just shifting every sample right by 8?
e.g.

int_32 sample = sample24[n]; //Load the sample!
sample >>= 8; //Downsample!
sample16[n] = sample; //Load the actual sample to use! 

Where sample24 are the 24-bit samples, sample16 is a 16-bit sample to generate. Is this correct?

[Duthomhas]

Assuming that isn't an RGB triplet, yes.