XP Sound Problems - Try this out

[Mobhack]

Most of the reported sound problems seem to be coming from poorly written third party (non Microsoft) CODECS it would appear.

However one reported fix to the problem may well work.

Try this procedure if you are having problems with sound or crashes in Windows XP:

1) Right click on the desktop icon, select "properties" and then set the "compatibility" mode to Windows 98/ME in the compatibility mode section (you will first need to tick the check box item)
2) Now, navigate to the game main folder under \Program Files\Shrapnel Games\The Camo Workshop\WinSPMBT
3) Repeat the O/S compatibility procedure on
WinSPMBT.exe
GameOptions.exe

Now - try again, and see if the problems go away.

Any feedback on whether or not this is a valid work-around, please post in this thread.


Cheers
Andy

[Leslie]

With no specific alterations of my system's normal usage parameters ie I haven't touched anything yet.

I adjusted to both Win98/ME mode as well as Win95 mode. Additionally added run in 640 x 480 mode.

I get maybe 30 seconds of scenario running time, regardless of actions underway, and then a total lock up, and I need to open Task Manager to close program.

As has been mentioned earlier on the forums here, I mioght have other additional headaches not yet addressed, or capable of being altered ie hardware in usage.

I am planning to do a format at any rate (non related reasons though). And will be reporting in with a comment on usage successes with a vanilla Win XP install that has been SP2 and others updated.
That might even occur as early as later today (depends on how motivated I feel in this heat hehe).

As always guys, consult and investigate, have you installed other software or hardware recently that alters the operating environment on your specific machine?

There are a lot of programs out there that can be quite intrusive in their own way.

[JPYBasser]

I tried this fix. It fixes about 80% of the missing or delayed sounds or clicks. I have noticed that when a tank is hit by a weapon sometimes a message about the pen of the weapon appears. This message seems to delay the impact sound. The message seems to be new; can it be turned off?

[Alby]

I have about 80% fixed also...


How hard a job would it be to allow mobhack to let any sound be assigned to anything?

[Mobhack]

Alby said:
I have about 80% fixed also...still missing all sounds of 75-76MM weapons.
also M9 bazooka does not play..

Which sound files are these?
Mobhack just show a 0
and cannot be changed.
How hard a job would it be to allow mobhack to let any sound be assigned to anything?



O means "use the code default for this weapon" - the sound code shown in Mobhack is a sound override.

Cheers
Andy

[JaM]

Guys, i found that game has problems with any mmswitch codecs, Can you do something with it? mmswitch is important to play many sounds at once in video files. I had problems once, with WMP10+uncertified codecs they supplyed,last night i tryed install all in one codeck pack and my problems were back, so i deleted mmswitch.ax file from system32.

[WBWilder]

I don't know what the problem is exactly but my sounds are erratic. I fire an 84mm RR and sometimes it sounds like a crash, and the next time like a soft fart.

Strange...WB

[DRG]

WBWilder said:
I don't know what the problem is exactly but my sounds are erratic. I fire an 84mm RR and sometimes it sounds like a crash, and the next time like a soft fart.

Strange...WB



is that the only sound like that??

Don

[WBWilder]

For me yes, Don. Most of the MG sounds and rifle fire, including air strikes were okay. To date I've not encountered any others. I'll keep an ear open.

WB

[DRG]

WBWilder said:
For me yes, Don. Most of the MG sounds and rifle fire, including air strikes were okay. To date I've not encountered any others. I'll keep an ear open.

WB




I'll try some tests today with a 84mm RR . It may be picking up a "stock" sound at times that just doesn't quite sound right

Don

[RecruitMonty]

I have a similar problem to everyone else here I think. i deleted a load of extra media players (not winmedia) and managed to get an improvement on most of my sounds but the sounds still sometimes skip or play to late especially during air attacks and in a scenario with Denmark (modified correctly to be Nazi Germany) v Mujaheeden (native rebels in which the enemy DPlmg would not make a sound ever on its second shot. /threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Germany.gif

[DRG]

RecruitMonty said:
I have a similar problem to everyone else here I think. i deleted a load of extra media players (not winmedia) and managed to get an improvement on most of my sounds but the sounds still sometimes skip or play to late especially during air attacks and in a scenario with Denmark (modified correctly to be Nazi Germany) v Mujaheeden (native rebels in which the enemy DPlmg would not make a sound ever on its second shot. /threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Germany.gif



The delay has been corrected in the CD version and the patch we will issue soon will fix the delay for the DL version as well

Don

[RecruitMonty]

But it worked perfectly to start off with that is what is so weired about this problem. Sometimes the sounds don't play at all even when I move a helicopter it does not play the sound sometimes, or if I fire any weapon sometimes the weapon will make no sound either, this did not happen to start off with so i think it is a fresh problem of sorts.

[RecruitMonty]

I think it has something to do with the sounds stacking up on one another. For some reason the game now no longer wants to play sounds over one another anymore. This is strange since before I could move AFVs and heaven knows what else in quick succession and no sound would be lost. I) therefore think the solution in this case lies in finding a piece of software/hardware within the game or without that forces the game to play one sound and one only till it is complete before playing any others. Any ideas would be most helpful since I feel this is a problem that is effecting many people and since i feel that this idea could solve the problem. Please suggest especially what edits will be neccessary to deal with this problem


Thanks in advance! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Germany.gif

[RecruitMonty]

These are my Audio Codecs just incase they have something to do with this.

IMA ADPCM Audio CODEC
Microsoft ADPCM Audio CODEC
Microsoft CCITT G.711 Audio CODEC
Microsoft GSM 6.10 Audio CODEC
DSP Group True Speech (TM) Audio CODEC
msg723.acm
Windows Media Audio
sipro Lab Telecom Audio Codec
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec (Pro)
Microsoft PCM Converter
AC3 ACM Decompressor

[RecruitMonty]

I am using a c-media wave device apparently and I also have NVIDIA Ge-force FX 5600 version 61.77. I am using an Advent PC (3419)with 512 megabite ram and an AMD 64 Athlon processor I recently upgraded to Windows media player 10 if that helps aswell

[RecruitMonty]

If you use the method up top the game crashes bz the way.

[DRG]

RecruitMonty said:
But it worked perfectly to start off with that is what is so weired about this problem. Sometimes the sounds don't play at all even when I move a helicopter it does not play the sound sometimes, or if I fire any weapon sometimes the weapon will make no sound either, this did not happen to start off with so i think it is a fresh problem of sorts.




Please define "But it worked perfectly to start off with " Did you install the game, play for a week or so then this problem started? What version are you playing? CD or DL?

Don

[DRG]

RecruitMonty said:
<SNIP I recently upgraded to Windows media player 10 if that helps as well



Before or after installing the game?

Don

[RecruitMonty]

It worked fine for about a month during which I spent my time playing a few Vietnam games on it and making the refinements to the Danish OOB. These refinements had no effect on qaulity of sound neither did the extra ones I added in/replaced old ones with. Then something went wrong. The sounds did not play well at all. The version I have is DL (WINSPMBT) and I installed media player 10 after I installed the game.

[DRG]

RecruitMonty said:
It worked fine for about a month during which I spent my time playing a few Vietnam games on it and making the refinements to the Danish OOB. These refinements had no effect on qaulity of sound neither did the extra ones I added in/replaced old ones with. Then something went wrong. The sounds did not play well at all. The version I have is DL (WINSPMBT) and I installed media player 10 after I installed the game.



If it was working fine before you installed media player 10 then media player 10 is the problem. Try re-installing the game.

Don

[JaM]

Media Player 10 brings one unssuported codec that makes problems. mmswitch.ax, just delete it and it will work

[RecruitMonty]

Where can I find the codec?

[JaM]

Search everywhere(Search document and files function). I dont know where exactly Media player installl it, but you can delete it without any problems.

[DRG]

It should be in your windows system folder. If you "Google" mmswitch.ax you'll discover a lot of games have problems with it

Don

[RecruitMonty]

I cannot find it in the system folder. Is the name you gave me correct? What if I just get rid of Media player and then install an older version? Would that suffice? Reinstalling the thing (SPMBT) did not work by the way.

[JaM]

Do you have winXp? Try this. Run game. When game crashes, let windows send error report,look for a details and you will see witch file makes a problem. In my case, it was mmswitch.ax, but maybe in your case it is a different file.

[RecruitMonty]

The game does not crash though, the sounds are just choppy they do not stack properly anymore. I just got rid of mplayer version 10 and went back to 9. When I had ten I could not find this mmswitch thing nor can I find it now, yet the sound still is behaving crappy as I previously described. I have something called Xear 3D on as well. I deleted all of the other players bar real player so i really do not know what the problem is at the moment.

[JaM]

Try reinstall sound driver.

[RecruitMonty]

How do I do that?

[RecruitMonty]

Now when I start the game it trys to connect to the internet as well. I am going to pretty much uninstall everything now in terms of sound etc and start again.

[RecruitMonty]

I have narrowed the problem down to two possible culprits in my audio codecs department; the first is this:
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec (Pro)
and the second is this:
AC3 ACM Decompressor

I got shut a lot of the codecs down and the game sounds ran fine but they had to play from start to fininsh before I could move or fire or do anything else again. I then switched one codec after the other back on until I reached these two. the AC3 appears to be totally screwed i.e it has virtually dissapeared altogether so I removed it from the list of codecs for the time being, the Fraunhoffer seems to be the problem but I cannot just switch it off because otherwise the whole game slows down as I have just described earlier in this particular post.


The following message I will post up is what the menu looks like for the Fraunhofer codec.

[RecruitMonty]

warning

These settings affect the quality of encoding.

Make yourself familiar with their meaning before you change them.

Stereo modes

320kbps: Stereo
256kbps: Stereo
224kbps: Stereo
192kbps: Joint Stereo: MS
160kbps: Joint Stereo: MS
128kbps: Joint Stereo: MS
112kbps: Joint Stereo: MS
96kbps: Joint Stereo: MS


These are the settings I have at the moment in the Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec.

These are the options for each of the above:

Stereo
Joint Stereo: MS
Joint Stereo: IS
Joint Stereo: MS/IS

[RecruitMonty]

Any and all help with this editing will be appreciated since I think that this is cause of the problem.

[Mobhack]

RecruitMonty said:
I have narrowed the problem down to two possible culprits in my audio codecs department; the first is this:
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec (Pro)
and the second is this:
AC3 ACM Decompressor

I got shut a lot of the codecs down and the game sounds ran fine but they had to play from start to fininsh before I could move or fire or do anything else again. I then switched one codec after the other back on until I reached these two. the AC3 appears to be totally screwed i.e it has virtually dissapeared altogether so I removed it from the list of codecs for the time being, the Fraunhoffer seems to be the problem but I cannot just switch it off because otherwise the whole game slows down as I have just described earlier in this particular post.


The following message I will post up is what the menu looks like for the Fraunhofer codec.



The Fraunehofer is the default one supplied by Microsoft - however inmy XP system it is not the "pro" version, just the plain one I suppose?. There are no options as you list later - just "use this codec" and its priority (10). (this is in device manager nd video and game controllers - audio codecs properties - you may be coming in through another route ?)

PCM converter on my XP system is the Microsoft PCM converter - not an AC3.

My Windows media player is version 9. It insists on trying to connect to the internet when run, so I have it on the "blocked" list in ZoneAlarm (I run the free version of zone alarm as a firewall, the PCS all go through a hardware router, but that only deals with incoming packets - so I use ZA to screen anything trying to "phone home that I do not want to http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But that is probably your "the game tries to conect to the internet" problem - my bet is it is windows media player trying to update a codec, as the game itself has no internet stuff in it (bar the master control panel which uses your browser to launch the HTML help files, or to connect to external links via an embedded URL ).

Have you tried running any of the sound files outside the game? - go to game data/sounds and double click on any MP3 file - then see if media player tries to "phone home" - and what results it gives (it may want a codec).

If that all fails - Have you tried the suggested method of converting the sounds from MP3 to WAV using say GoldWave and editing the sounds.ini file, as mentioned (I think) somewhere else in this thread?. That method seems to work for low-end sound cards which cannot handle several MP3 streams simultaneously (but as yours did so before the "upgrade" of media player, it was OK with multiple streams then, weird http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ).

cheers
Andy

NB - the conversion to WAV is in the WAV sub-folder under sounds folder, if you have the CD edition, and will be in the patch for everyone else when we get that out the door. I have zipped up the 2 files that live there - it is a how-to in TXT and a new sounds.ini for the converted WAV files once done.

[DRG]

Here is the write up that was included with the CD version and will be included with the patch as well . The file is named SOUND_PROBLEMS.txt and is found ( in the CD version and patch ) in the \Game Data\Sounds\WAV folder ( which does not exist in the DL version ) If you do convert your sound files to WAV you then need to change your Sounds.ini file to look for .Wav rather than .Mp3. ( I have attached a "wav" verson to this posting

Don

================================================== =================

Some machines with integrated sound cards do not play multiple MP3's well

If you are having sound problems please follow this procedure

Download a sound program like Goldwave that allows you to batch convert sound files

www.goldwave.com (http://www.goldwave.com)

After starting up Goldwave find the Sound folder. If you installed the default location for the game look
in C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\The Camo Workshop\WinSPMBT\Game Data\Sounds.

When Goldwave is loaded click on the "File" tab and look for 'Batch Processing'. A new screen will
appear. Click on the 'Add files' button then add all the MP3 files in the Game Data\Sounds folder to Goldwave

Once you have done that you want to choose the "Save as Type" to .WAV and the 'Attributes' to
PCM signed 24 bit stereo on the "Convert" tab after checking off the "convert files to this format" box

Next. click on the Folder tab and check the " Store all files in their original folder" box

Then press the "begin" button and Goldwave will convert all the MP3 sound files and make copies as .WAV

Once this has been done copy the "sounds.ini" found in the WAV folder to the Game Data\Sounds folder and
overwrite the one in there now

This converts your game to run WAV sound files instead of MP3's and we have found the few people who have
reported sound problems have had success using this conversion method

We have not included WAV files with the DL or CD versions simply because the WAV format, with comparable
recording qualities as the MP3's, adds approx 144 megabytes to the files. It's much easier on everyone to convert
if necessary

[DRG]

WBWilder said:
I don't know what the problem is exactly but my sounds are erratic. I fire an 84mm RR and sometimes it sounds like a crash, and the next time like a soft fart.

Strange...WB



Well I finally got down to the "soft fart" notation on my to-do list and after scratching my head awhile I remembered this post. I loaded up a game with 84 mm RR teams and sent them hunting and all the sounds seemed fine to me. Are you still hearing this on your machine?

Don

[Fabfire]

Hi,

There is a WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) compressed file with all the WAV files and the Sounds.ini file included, posted at the Armorsite's WinSPMBT page (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/winspmbt.htm), so it's only a matter of enduring the download (43 MB) and "unrar" it to your C:\Program Files\Shrapnel Games\The Camo Workshop\WinSPMBT\Game Data\Sounds folder, and you're in business...

I posted this big file so that those who are suffering from the sound problem with the MP3 files can find an easy solution to their problem. But I ask that if you are part of the majority that doesn't have this problem, *PLEASE* don't download it, and let those who really need it to get it, because I can't garantee it will remain there for any longer if I run into bandwidth usage problems. Many downloads of a 43 MB file make up for a lot of bandwidth usage...

I hope this helps anyone who is suffering from this problem, which is caused, so it seems, by on board sound cards which doesn't deal well with playing multiple MP3 files at the same time.

Fab

[DRG]

The reason I provided the simple instructions to convert the existing MP3 files with Goldwave is that Goldwave is only a 1.76MB DL and it then takes about three minutes to convert all the existing MP3's to WAV's unless the person is totally inept. A 1.76MB DL then three minutes of easy work seemed a much simpler solution than posting huge files for people to download which really chews into your bandwidth allowance.

Don

[Mobhack]

Also - the goldwave route would be much better for someone on dial-up, 1.8 MB dial up is a lot less painful than 43Mb, especially if the dial-up user is paying by the minute.

Cheers
Andy

[Fabfire]

Jesus Almighty Christ! Guys... Come on...

I am only making another alternative available. There are lots of people, as it seems you two just ignore it, that have difficulty even in finding a file within their HD... And who prefer the 43 MB download. And, Don, qualifying those persons as "totally inept" is just being rude (to put it mildly), and doesn't help WinSPMBT a little bit. Why would I bother to upload a 43 MB file, if it is not to help somebody else?

What's going on here, anyway?

How about doing a little thinking before dropping heavy artillery on people who are only wanting to help?

Fab

[DRG]

A BIT sensitive for some reason today?

YOU were the one asking people to only DL your file because of bandwidth usage problems. ALL I did was point out the reasons why *I* provided the alternative I did. If there are people who prefer to DL 43 MB over 1.8 and a couple minutes work then you've definitely provided a useful and valuable service for them and there is nothing wrong with that.

Take a pill, NOBODY was "dropping heavy artillery on people who are only wanting to help" gimme a break. If you want to provide this to people that just fine by us.

Don

[RVPERTVS]

Just one question:

Allthe problems discussed in this topic are XP related right?...I mean, there shouldn't be any issue runing under W98, with any codec or whatever the culprit is on XP right?

[DRG]

RVPERTVS said:
Just one question:

Allthe problems discussed in this topic are XP related right?...I mean, there shouldn't be any issue runing under W98, with any codec or whatever the culprit is on XP right?




The key seem to be XP combined with systems that use an integrated sound chip though not in 100% of the cases. I don't recall anyone with w98 and a proper sound card having difficulties ( ??)

Don

[RVPERTVS]

What do you mean by "a proper sound car"?, any suggestion?

I´m asking because I´m upgrading my machine and I don´t want to spend money just to find out that my new acquired hardware has issues with the game or that there´were better hardware options to play it.

Thanks in advance

[RecruitMonty]

Well I think that file from M256 was damn useful. M256 you are a great help thanks a million.

[RecruitMonty]

I do have a proper souncard by the way and we are not inept just because we cannot get something that used to work to work properly again.

[RVPERTVS]

Take it easy man¡¡

I´m sure Don didn´t mean it the way you´re putting it

I don´t know how to convert a mp3 file into a wav file and I don´t consider myself inept it´s just I haven´t read the instructions yet, I´m sure after that I will be able to.

But at the same time I don´t consider as geeks people who can, it´s just they have more free time. I guess

[d64]

I also think it's not a bad idea to have the wav files downloadable. Not because I think converting them is hard, but because I believe people should avoid installing too many programs on their computers in this day and age.

One idea that came to me is that there are many freeware command-line sound converter programs available today, which are stand-alone executables and do not require installation, so maybe the sound directory could include one of those and a bat file that would batch-convert all the files just with one doubleclick of the mouse.

Also, as the wav files are pretty big, would there be any interest in a bittorrent containing them?

(Btw, for the record, I had the game crash fairly quickly before I converted the files to wav. I am using winxp but my soundcard is a 24/96 pci card, not integrated.)

[Beeblebrox]

Hi, there.

Seems like the soundprobs went away for most people but me. I have the CD version and 2.0 patch. Sounddriver is the often problematic integrated AC97, processor AthlonXP 1600+, winXP, a fairly ordinary setup. However, I have never exeperienced any problems with this particular sound unit in any other game ever. Oh, and I did the Wave-stuff already. Doesn't work. game freezes in barely a round of action. Have I missed something? Are there more tricks to try?

[DRG]

Beeblebrox said:
Hi, there.

Seems like the soundprobs went away for most people but me. I have the CD version and 2.0 patch. Sounddriver is the often problematic integrated AC97, processor AthlonXP 1600+, winXP, a fairly ordinary setup. However, I have never exeperienced any problems with this particular sound unit in any other game ever. Oh, and I did the Wave-stuff already. Doesn't work. game freezes in barely a round of action. Have I missed something? Are there more tricks to try?




Read through the entire "Games crashes and flashes" thread. There is info in there on sound problems. Integrated sound IS a problem with some computers and this game but we've found that some third party sound CODEC will give the game trouble as well.

One thing that has caused trouble for some people is mmswitch.ax . if you have it you could try unregistering the mmswitch.ax file by typing the following in Start > Run: regsvr32 /u mmswitch.ax. FYI I don't have it in my system

Don

[Beeblebrox]

Thank you, and sorry for not reading through the threads properly. I'll try that fix. Seems like that file has caused lots of problems not only for winSPMBT.

[DRG]

Beeblebrox said:
Thank you, and sorry for not reading through the threads properly. I'll try that fix. Seems like that file has caused lots of problems not only for winSPMBT.




No problem. There are a lot of threads to wade through

try reading this thread (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=wspmbt&Number=362073&Forum =f100,f171,f144,f145,f157,f147&Words=arrested&Sear chpage=0&Limit=25&Main=362073&Search=true&where=bo dysub&Name=&daterange=1&newerval=5&newertype=y&old erval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post362073)

it has some info on the problems caused by third parety codecs

[Beeblebrox]

ok. Tried the wav-thing and the mmswitch thing. Wav thing did nothing, unregistering did dot work, as no mmswitch could be found to unregister. Do I have to resort to the two not so nice options to play silent vs. delete all codecs to root out the bad one or are there still alternatives left?

[DRG]

Did you check the CODEC's? This was one of the original little problems discovered when the game was released. Some people have third party codec's installed in their machines that the game simply does not like and for the most part these codec aren't being used by anything particulary worthwhile

Look for this thread and message #

Codec files arrested charged with screwing up game
#362073 - 06/26/05 08:34 PM

Don

[Beeblebrox]

Haven't "checked" the codecs yet, as the only way to do so, to my knowledge, would be to delete them. I'm sure I could, since the caution of that approach would match that of their introduction to the comp... The thread you are reffering to mentions this cheerful strategy. Nah, I think I'll just sit back, relax and let the other guy find his culprit(s) first. Who knows? Sooner or later you might have a whole list of bad codecs. At least one of them is bound to be found on my comp. Thanks for listening, though!

[Stian]

Zaphod,
Here's something you could try; a way of out finding what codecs are used when playing audio files like mp3 are using a free tool like GSpot:

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/download.html

It's a bit technical but here's a quick walkthrough;

In GSpot, go to the File menu, then Open -> Select an mp3 file (any will do I think), click Render (bottom), then look at Audio Path there and you should get the name of the codec windows uses to play the file.

Also, click on the 'Status' line and then the name of the filter for info on where the offending file is located on your system.

Then go the the windows Start menu -> Run, type 'regsvr32 /u path to codec file' and the codec should be uninstalled.

Hopefully the game will then use your the default, MS-supplied codec for mp3 playback.

Hope this helps you to finally enjoy the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Stian

[Beeblebrox]

Sounds like a better approach than deleting at random. I'll try that tonight. I've heard that codecs per definition are a source of grief, but have never had problems before. An enlightening experience...

[Beeblebrox]

Oki. The "culprit" seems to be quartz.dll in that case. (I did the wav-thing, so I used one of the game-wavs). Since quartz.dll seems to be a microsoftfile associated to DirectX. Removing it is not an option. The only thing I can imagine is that it has become corrupted some way or another. Ill try to replace it with a brand new one and see if that helps.

[Beeblebrox]

Replaced the quartz.dll with a nice new one, but... Nope. Didn't help. Obviously there is something else that is messed up. ...Or at least I thought i changed it. As it turns out, the file was again the original after restart. Exactly what codec should windows use to play wav, or mp3 for that matter?

[Stian]

If quartz.dll is used then the playback of mp3 files should work, are you sure this crash is related to sound playback and not some gfx driver issue?

Anyhow - you could try installing for instance AC3 filter to play mp3 instead of the default - I'm using it now with no problems...
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/formats/ac3.shtml

Also you could try FFDShow or a third-party mp3-filter:
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/formats/ffdshow.shtml
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/formats/mp3.shtml

S.

[Beeblebrox]

Sorry for not replying for ages. Lots of work and other non-gaming bits for a while. About the causality of the misbehaviour of the game. It works splendid, albeit boringly silent, if i turn the sounds off. It crashes in a few turns if i turn sounds on. I do not use mp3, since I did the wav thing suggested as a first step of trouble-shooting. On my comp, wavs are played back by quartz.dll, mp3s are not. If I were to let the game play mp3:s again, I would have to delete all installed codec to end up with the quartz.dll that has already proved inept in the wav-scenario. In sum, it certainly seems that sound is an issue here, and it would seem unlikely that mp3 would work, when wav does not. I think I'll just play silent until I do my yearly reinstall of winXP. (If that helps)

Fortunately, the game runs smoothly on my laptop (normally used for work-related stuff) :-)

[Stian]

Well, sorry to hear you have not yet fixed it. But on the other hand, thankfully SP is one of the few games where sound is not 'really' necessary, at least not for me.

I usually listen to the radio or music when playing the game, the sound doesn't really give me anything useful anyhow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Stian

[Beeblebrox]

Oki. Latest and hopefully last post in this thread on my behalf. Did my annual windows reinstall yesterday. Installed lastest realtek drivers for the ac97 (which, it said would be MS-signed, which of course was not the case, at least according to my win XP). Now, for the first time I can actually enjoy mayhem with sound for more than 2-3 rounds. The game has yet to crash, in fact! However, there appears to be something at least mildely wrong still, as sound volume would suddenly drop, only to reappear again a few moves later. Dunno what that's all about, but I really don't care at this point. All in all I'm quite happy with this level of enjoyment. Thanks all for helping out.

[Wonder]

Used Goldwave to convert the .MP3s to .WAV and the game no longer crashes, but there's a delay everytime the game plays a sound. Particularly annoying with artillery barrages as it takes an eternity for them to complete!

[Mobhack]

Which version of the game? - have you applied the patches to the latest version?.

Fast artillery on or off?.

Cheers
Andy

[Wonder]

Ehh... never mind! Messing with the animation delay values helped http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[RedMike]

OK ...now let me really throw in a monkey wrench. I have mbt installed on my WinXP drive, no worries, works fine. But WinXP is not my preferred OS. I dual boot Linux. Now I have WinSPMBT running on Linux with the help of Cedega...but the sound doesn't want to work. I've tried everything I can think of, different formats, sample rates, bit depths, tweeked Cedega config files. The whole shooting match. Any Linux heads out there running WinSPMBT on Linux ?? Any ideas ??

The more games I get running on Linux is one less reason to keep Windows anywhere near my machine.

Regards,
RedMike...out

[Mobhack]

does your UNIX emulator emulate DirectShow?

(do you get the splash screen intro?)

DirectShow is used for videeo (the splash screen) and also for sound efects.

If there is no DirectShow support, or there are no UNIX drivers for the sound - you will not get any.

Are you running the game in DirectX mode or in Windows GDI mode (the GDI mode was intended for other O/S which may not support DirectX).

Cheers
Andy

[RedMike]

I'm not sure if Cedega supports DirectShow or not. Have to look into that. But no splash screen intro so maybe not.

I can get sound by converting mp3s to wav but I have to reduce bit depth to 16 bit. However, it's not really useable sound. Intermittent at best, choppy, and haphazzard. In short...sucks.

To get the game running I had to go Fullscreen 800x600 mode. That did the trick. Runs smooth with no lag.

I haven't tried GDI mode. I'll give that a whirl. With exception of sound the game seems to be running perfectly. That is really cool!!

SPWaW runs perfectly as does HttR. That's about it in the wargame department. And WinSPMBT is by far the best SP going...imho. I'd be happier than a pig in poop if I could get it working 100% on my Linux drive.

I'll report back...thanks!

RedMike...out

[RedMike]

I just tried GDI mode and no progress but I think I need to go back and convert the mp3's to wav at 16 bit as I indicated before. I have a 24 bit batch I was exoerimenting with in the Sounds folder now. I did change snd.ini file too for the record.

Oddly enough the background sounds play perfectly, the weapons are the difficult buggers.

Report more as I go...

RedMike...out

[RedMike]

Further testing shows I can get the same crappy sound with the stock mp3 files as with converted wav files.

I have things set to:
No Intro
GDI
Fullscreen
800x600

Sound on in game preferences causes discernable lag, not bad but noticeable.

Sound off in game preferences eliminates any lag, game hums along nicely in "stealth" mode. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I've posted a support request on this one at TransGaming, developers of Cedega, which is not technically an emulator. It's more along the lines of crossover libraries and drivers. That sort of thing (winex).

Hey Andy, just curious if you guys thought about using cross platform libraries when you planned developing the Windows version. Why not SDL/OGL for example instead of DirectX ?
As a self-taught game programer wanna develope something someday kind of a guy, just wondering.

Cheers!

[Mobhack]

there is not enough of a UNIX market to make the hassles of multi platform development worth the candle.

If you are getting sound - you have some emulation/handling of DirectShow. However the game uses up to 21 strams for concurrent play (overlay of sounds), your card/and or emulator/and or drivers may olny allow 1 simultaneous MP3 stream.

Try background noises off, sound on. If it "chops" any overlapped/overlaid sounds (exchanges of fire, movement noise across multiple hexe moves etc) then something in your system is limiting you to only 1 sound channel. If it is doing it with WAV files as well, definately some part of unix/emulator/sound card/drivers is most likely limiting to 1 channel?.

It may also be something to do with your O/S or emulation's handling of COM objects - each DirectShow channel is a COM object, which gets fed the next sound file, and then gets re-used later when finished if needed. 20 nax sounds at one as I recall (been a while) and the background music/noises channel, and 1 for the mouse click.

Try turning mouse click off if you have it on, BTW.

Cheers
Andy

[RedMike]

Thanks Andy, I'll do some more experimenting along the lines pointed out and report back. There is a sound issue I've read about regarding Linux and ESD and some programs that has to do with multiple sound channels. I'll read up on it.

For the record, my specs:

Pentium 4
2.26 GHz cpu
512 mb ram
GeForce 6800 GT 256 mb
Sound Blaster Live!
ubuntu Breezy Badger i686

Regards,
RedMike...out

[RedMike]

Andy,

Here's the latest from my ongoing Linux experiments.

WinSPMBT runs perfectly well with exception of choppy sounds.
Requires Cedega (v5.03 tested) fullscreen 800x600 mode for smooth play.

SPMBT v3 runs exceptably well with DosBox v0.63. Perfectly playable sound and all.

SPWW2 v7.01 runs exceptably well with DosBox v0.63. Perfectly playable sound and all.

Will continue to try and get sound playback running 100% with WinSPMBT and report back if and when I make progress.

RedMike...out

[RedMike]

OK...I give up. After going through every conceivable sound system/driver combination (esd,alsa,oss etc.) I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with my hardware setup. I can play multiple sounds concurrently no sweat. I can even run xmms (a music player) whilst running Cedega/WinSPMBT and hear both the music, the game background sounds, friendly vehicle movement sounds, aircraft sounds, and chopped up broken intermittent weapons sounds.

I think the trouble is definitely with Cedega and WinSPMBT.

Have to wait on TransGaming to fix it...maybe.

RedMike...out

[RVPERTVS]

Stian said:
Zaphod,
Here's something you could try; a way of out finding what codecs are used when playing audio files like mp3 are using a free tool like GSpot:

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/download.html

It's a bit technical but here's a quick walkthrough;

In GSpot, go to the File menu, then Open -> Select an mp3 file (any will do I think), click Render (bottom), then look at Audio Path there and you should get the name of the codec windows uses to play the file.

Also, click on the 'Status' line and then the name of the filter for info on where the offending file is located on your system.

Then go the the windows Start menu -> Run, type 'regsvr32 /u path to codec file' and the codec should be uninstalled.

Hopefully the game will then use your the default, MS-supplied codec for mp3 playback.

Hope this helps you to finally enjoy the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Stian



Ok, I haven´t experienced a sinlge crash, just audio hicups (I want to know if my system is using a problematic audio codec or not) I dowunloaded and ran the Gspot v 2.21 with one of the game mp3 sounds and I had this render info:

"Direct Show claims to be able to play the file. The following combination of filters were used:

C/:Program Files/Shrapnel Games/WinSPMBT/Game Data/Sounds/2.mp3 (Audio Source)
MPEG-I Steam Splitter (Audio Pre-Processor)
MPEG Layer-3 Decoder (Audio Decoder)
Default DirectSound Device (Audio Renderer)"

Also there is some more large info (which I can print to a file if someone tells me how)when I click on any of the above mentioned fields. Anyway, the "main" driver appears to be quartz.dll

I just want to know if those audio hicups I´m experiencing are due to a problematic codec or not and want to know if these could be fixed without converting to WAV.

Any help with this will be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[cusbut]

Heres another one, my version of Winspmbt kept crashing but would play if the sound was turned off, I tracked the culprit to a 'Mpeg4system.dll' file that came with the software for my new samsung phone. I have renamed the file 'copyMpeg4system.dll' and the game runs perfect now, if I need to use the phone software I just have to remember to rename that file, lol

[Eazy]

On a similar problem guys. i've noticed that when firing ATGM's at tanks equipped with VIRSS (what does that stand for btw?) the missile hit sound is replaced by the sound of the smoke dischargers (that pop noise)
Does anyone know whether that's part of the same XP/onboard sound problem here?
Thanks

[Mobhack]

See the Mobhack help (where the technical nuts and bolts tend to be discussed) - Units tab page, EW section, where ARENA and VIRSS is described.

Acronnyms Site (http://www.waesg.com/cfm/frame.cfm?src=http://www.waesg.com/wa-abbrv/wa-vv.htm) useful WWW link, found within 1 minute of entering "virss" as a Google search term. Google is a very useful search site, if you need to find a term you aren't familiar with.

As to the VIRSS smoke sounds replacing the missile hit sound - depends, if the missile was deflected, there will be no hit sound, as the VIRSS worked http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cheers
Andy

[AnzacGuy]

I used the recommended cure of using goldwave to change the MP3 sound files to .wav files for this problem as my new machine is XP pro with on board sound. It wouldn't work at first but I check a preexisting wav file in the folder and noted it was 16bit mono so used that and the problem was fixed. I then tried 16 bit stereo and it goes fine now. I donot note any difference between the stereo and mono quality.

[Mobhack]

You probably will not - I dont think any game sounds are stero (no panning etc). And mono format files should be smaller than stereo.

Cheers
Andy

[Simaril]

Been a while since this problem's been discussed, but even after working through the thread I'm not sure I've done the fix properly. I did use the goldwave conversion to .wav, left the files in the sound folder, and moved the .mp3s to another folder. Now I can play the game, but for some reason it's completely silent. I double checked the .WAVs and they do function properly.

What have I missed?

[DRG]

If you have upgraded the game with all the patches the WAV's should have all been added for you without having to convert.

What version of the game is reported when it loads the main screen??

The likely problem in your case is the Sounds.ini located in the Game Data/Sounds folder is still pointing at the MP3. I don't have all the previous patches loaded in this machine ATM but I seem to recall this was all switched over a patch or two ago because of all the problems people with older systems were having with the MP3's

Don

[Gladiator]

I have also sound problems. I reinstalled the game but it didn't helped.
I only hear heavy caliber guns (except arty and air assaults), troopmovements and that's it.

Greetings

[Mobhack]

I have also sound problems. I reinstalled the game but it didn't helped.
I only hear heavy caliber guns (except arty and air assaults), troopmovements and that's it.

Greetings

1) What operating system are you using?. It is rather useful to know that before trying to diagnose your problems.
(If you have Vista then read through the threads on Vista below)

2) have you installed the game with all its patches, in order?. It is the later patches that replace the MP3 sound files with WAV. Check your \game data\sounds.ini file - all entries should be pointing to .WAV files after you have correctly patched.

Andy

[DRG]

Been a while since this problem's been discussed, but even after working through the thread I'm not sure I've done the fix properly. I did use the goldwave conversion to .wav, left the files in the sound folder, and moved the .mp3s to another folder. Now I can play the game, but for some reason it's completely silent. I double checked the .WAVs and they do function properly.

What have I missed?


My guess is you haven't changed the sounds.INI to point to the Wavs and not the MP3's .

However, the problem I have with all of this is that the game was converted back to WAV with all the changes done to the sounds.INI with new WAV files quite a number of patches ago so all the manual converting of MP3's is a complete waste of time if all the patches have been installed in order

Don