That won't work. Preferences register themselves on creation, so

PrefsMan can iterate over them (to load and save), so preferences
must be created on startup, not first use.

stepmania/src/Preference.h

@@ -89,26 +89,20 @@ template <class T>
 class Preference1D
 {
 	typedef Preference<T> PreferenceT;
-	typedef void (*pfn_t)(size_t, CString&, T&);
 	vector<PreferenceT*> m_v;
-	bool m_bInited;
-	pfn_t m_pFn;
-	size_t m_iNum;
 	
-	void Init()
+public:
+	Preference1D( void pfn(size_t i, CString &sNameOut, T &defaultValueOut ), size_t N )
 	{
-		for( size_t i=0; i<m_iNum; ++i )
+		for( size_t i=0; i<N; ++i )
 		{
 			CString sName;
 			T defaultValue;
-			m_pFn( i, sName, defaultValue );
+			pfn( i, sName, defaultValue );
 			m_v.push_back( new Preference<T>(sName, defaultValue) );
 		}
-		m_bInited = true;
 	}
 
-public:
-	Preference1D( pfn_t pfn, size_t N) : m_bInited( false ), m_pFn( pfn ), m_iNum( N ) { }
 	~Preference1D()
 	{
 		for( size_t i=0; i<m_v.size(); ++i )
@@ -116,14 +110,10 @@ public:
 	}
 	const Preference<T>& operator[]( size_t i ) const
 	{
-		if( !m_bInited )
-			Init();
 		return *m_v[i];
 	}
 	Preference<T>& operator[]( size_t i )
 	{
-		if( !m_bInited )
-			Init();
 		return *m_v[i];
 	}
 };