OK I've heard a lot of people on here commending the new sound , so maybe this isn't a very common thing but on my system every sound effect is followed by a horrible little clicking kinda noise , this happens in the shell , in the game , everywhere . I've messed about with all the various audio options but to no avail , anyone else encountering this at all ?
system specs :
AMD athlon XP 2100+
Geforce 3
512 mb pc133 ram
Sound Blaster Live value
win XP pro
From changelog.txt
Quote- Added commandline switch, /slowaudio for systems that seem to
stutter for up to seconds when sfx are played. Specifically, this code
disables the duplication of audio header info added in 51f, and just
makes copies as needed. This is vastly less efficient, which is why I
called it /slowaudio. Thanks to GH for reporting it and testing out an
old build that seemed to work. [NM]
I recommend giving the command line /slowaudio a try. If that doesn't work, I have no idea what the problem is.
Tried the /slowaudio commandline switch?
-- GSH
ok , I've just tried /slowaudio and it does seem to have improved things a little , however it still doesn't sound quite right I still get the odd pop and click while ingame although the frequency of them occuring does seem to be greatly reduced .
Thanks for the heads up , things are a great deal more bearable now . :)
Lizard, do you have the latest sound drivers?
I know that's usually a given but like "is it plugged in?" I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask...
-Av-
I have some fairly recent sound drivers , not sure if they are the latest or not , downoaded them a month or 2 back .
I just did a quick comparison between 1.2 and 1.3 and sound is definately far more crackly/clicky in 1.3 , even with the /slowaudio switch enabled .
I've seen such issues with ESS SOLO based sound cards and Windows XP prior to the sound driver upgrade Windows Update provided about a month ago. After that the crackling went away.
-Av-
If you have a VIA chipset on your mainboard update the chipset drivers, too.
You can always replace the wav file used with something more exceptable.
or just copy a blank wav recording of like 2 or 3 sec. made with good ol windows sound recorder.
end of problem
Quote from: deadscionYou can always replace the wav file used with something more exceptable.
or just copy a blank wav recording of like 2 or 3 sec. made with good ol windows sound recorder.
end of problem
It's not one particular .wav file that I'm having problems with , it's all sounds in general , the whole thing sounds terrible , I've also noticed that sounds seem kinda tinny now aswell .
I have the latest 4 in 1 drivers for my mother board installed aswell .
Lots of people have problems when putting Creative sound cards on boards with VIA chipsets. In many cases even updating drivers doesnt help. I myself finally purchased a new main board with Nforce2 chipset and my Audigy2 doesnt make problems anymore. Go to a Creative or VIA support forum and find other bit you might try with your case.
http://www.viahardware.com/
My board does actually have an onboard sound card , I think my first move will be to give that a try , although I have a feeling I've had problems with it in the past .
Heh, I tried that wiith my old VIA board, too, but the onboard sound was incredibly low quality. Nforce2 is the first chipset that offers decent onboard sound.
I haven't had any problems with my main rig's integrated audio and I've been using it for 2+ years. It's a Crystal WDM at current driver release (or close). Playback's hardware accel is at Full and sampling rate is at Good, if that helps.
Ok well I've enabled the onboard sound card and removed my SB live card , it seems to have cured the problem will have to test a bit more and see for sure though, I only fired up the game and checked the sound in the shell .
My mainboard is a Chaintech CT-7AJA2 and the onboard sound chip is a Cmedia 8738/6CH .
I have little cracky sound too, little annoying for I tend to forget about it while playing... I'have a SBLIVE Value on Windows XP, VIA KT266A system. Latest Creative drivers (from october 2003), latest VIA 4in1 drivers.
Yet more problems , whilst the sound is much better , I still experienced several pops and crackles within the game , additionally after around 5 minutes of play I recieved a hard lockup , I was unable to get back into windows to see if there was any kind of AV .
This was in IA on the map chill with default options .
OK I've been doing some more experiments with the audio options , and it seems that changing the 2d and 3d audio buffer locations can aleviate the problem , but it isn't consistent . I found that setting the 2d audio buffer location to software and the 3d audio buffer location to auto would cure the problem , but upon quiting and restarting the game the popping and crackling would return .
EDIT : I haven't been able to replicate the hard lockup again , I've been running the game in windowed mode to try and catch any AV messages .
Hard lockups occured everytime I tried to run BZ2 full screen with my onboard sound card ( both in 1.2 and 1.3 ) , so I'm now back to my SB live value again , and Square 1 , ie. awful popping and crackling , I'm gonna see if there are any newer SB live drivers but after reading Artighel's post I don't hold out a lot of hope for that working .
One thing to note , turning off audio acceleration in DXdiag cured the popping and crackling but introduced a whole load more sound oddities , such as a really wierd echo effect .
Ok I've done a fresh install of windows on a brand new hard drive with all the latest drivers etc. and this has greatly improved things , it's still not 100% perfect but it is a vast improvement . I still get the odd audio glitch a kind of pop sound and the sound from my thrusters seems to cut off rather abruptly every now and then , but overall it's a great deal better and I don't really notice it all that much .
How many IRQ's does your sound card share?
Also, try putting your sound card in the first slot and last slot.
Also, this link is a bit old, but has a *lot* of links to pertinent info:
Popping (http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=956906dc660ccbbe5d4428f781b5ae60&threadid=114394&highlight=creative+popping)
It's not an IRQ issue , my sound card only uses one IRQ , IRQ 12 , and it's not shared with anything .
Cheers for the link checking it now .
I too have experince problems with Audio.
I was just playing so my memory is bit fresh. It seemed as if the audio track for various buildings once activate, kept playing over and over again regardless my distance from it (it does eventually stop once i get far enough). But the audio doesn't start until i am very close to the building. Something i guess to do with Sphere of influnce for ambients audio.
Another thing was, if i face the object, then i don't hear the ambient audio from that object. and when i face away i do hear it. (at 1st i thought this had to do with 3d Audio, but the results don't seem to match with speakers and my orientation)
System Spec.
p4 3.0ghz
1.5gb ram
nvidia geforce fx 5950
Creative SB Audigy 2
Quad Speakers (Front and back, left and right, a square)
And i am running BZ2 at max possible settings (all audio setting are at 100%, save for music, channels are set at 62)
I have check all my drivers and they are the latest that are avaible from the vendor//manufacturer.
And thanks for spending time making this patch, i really appreciate it.
OK now this is odd I went back into the game and my audio problems had returned , I was experimenting with the audio settings when I turned up the music volume ( which I normally have set to zero) and it seemed to fix the problem with the shell sounds , I turned the volume down again and the sounds were all ok , I exited the game and launched it again and the sounds were back to broken , so again I turned up the music volume and again the sounds were ok after that . Leaving the music on (shell music that is ) seems to cure the problem , but if I turn it down to zero and exit the game then re-enter the sounds sound broken again until I turn the music volume up .
Is someone trying to force me to listen to the shell music ? ;)
You will hear the shell music... You will hear the shell music... You will hear the shell music...
Try putting the shell music at 1%. Won't drive you nuts until you know it's there and strain real hard to listen to it in the background. :)
I'm starting to suspect some drivers may be unhappy with all sounds going away. I could put in a bit where when music = 0, it plays a looping silence.wav instead.
-- GSH
Having the music volume set to 1% works perfectly , I can't even hear it , having the CD music enabled at that volume also gets rid of any ingame problems . :)
Just curious, you have Ingame Music From CD: turned on perchance?
as I said in my previous post having the CD music enabled but with the volume set to 1% cures the problems I've experienced with ingame sounds .
So I'm happy now ( until I find something else that annoys me , I haven't tried the editor yet ;) )
LOL. Sorry, I misinterpreted what you said there. I was confusing the Shell Effects Volume: with the Music Volume:.
Thanks for posting this thread, guys--
I too have been having problems with 1.3's sound (at least, I hope that's what the trouble is). I've played through EDF03 with no problems other than the occasional click and stuff, which is tolerable, but in EDF04 (the take-out-the-megagun mission), I got a couple of hard lockups coupled with a click-click-click-click sound. Thought maybe it was my HD or the mission itself, so did a cheat to get to EDF05, but ended up with the same problem eventually. Seems like it might be more likely to happen when there's a bunch of sounds coming simultaneously--either a lot of buildings or a big battle scene.
Like lots of the other folks with this problem, I also have a Soundblaster Audigy 2 with the latest drivers (and music turned down to nil). Going to try the solutions described here, including the 1% music and the /slowaudio switch, and we'll see. But it's a definite relief to hear that it's probably not what I had feared--namely, my hard drive! :-)
(BTW, nice to see you guys again! Been through a lot of changes lately; the Manatee Family has moved to Tallahassee (lots closer to the real thing than Cleveland was! ), but we're catching up on BZ and modding again.
:cool:
Specs:
P4 2800 HT enabled
1024 MB Corsair TwinX RAM
ABIT IC7 MAX3 mobo
SB Audigy 2 (not platinum or anything outrageous)
MSI GF4 Ti4600
Plus lots of cool windows and lights that don't have anything to do with anything... :P
do you really need the /slowaudio now that you have the music turned down?
If you play FE and on version 1.3, expect a few AVs causec by the flame mine. I'm not sure why, but that mine exploding will cause 1.3 to AV. I'm assuming you figured out how to extract all of 1.3's shell files if you got FE working in 1.3.
I also figured out how to get FE to work in multiplayer HOWEVER fempi is broken completely, strat and dm works though. Also fe complains about alot of missing odfs and what not anyways. Oh and the Krahanos is broken in 1.3 as well. Oh and the xerrakies...... Well, you get the picture. :D