The sound problem culprits as far as I can tell

[Alby]

As far as I can tell..
The vehicle movement sound from Saving Pvt Ryan...
The mouse click...
the 140 numbered files I think...(various small arms)
EDIT I mistakenly had the 160 numbered files listed here before. Not all the 140 files are problematic...its just hard to tell which ones. <font color="blue"> </font>
Large caliber arty hits.
Vehicle Destroyed sound.
sound 212 sometimes comes and goes.
Small arms hits on tanks...(sometime I just get a tonk sound) should this be a ricochet?
I cant tell if it supposed to playing a ricochet or there is an actual "TONK" sound.
also you hear a ricochet before a vehicle blows up??
Changed all these to wav files except #212...
Things nearly 99% fixced now...except for that daggone TONK...I keep getting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

[Mobhack]

Alby said:
As far as I can tell..
The vehicle movement sound from Saving Pvt Ryan...
The mouse click...
the 160 numbered files I think...(various small arms)
Not all the 160 files are problematic...its just hard to tell which ones. <font color="blue"> </font>
Large caliber arty hits.
Vehicle Destroyed sound.
sound 212 sometimes comes and goes.
Small arms hits on tanks...(sometime I just get a tonk sound) should this be a ricochet?
I cant tell if it supposed to playing a ricochet or there is an actual "TONK" sound.
also you hear a ricochet before a vehicle blows up??
Changed all these to wav files except #212...
Things nearly 99% fixced now...except for that daggone TONK...I keep getting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif



Are you saying that a conversion to WAV fixes your problem whith whatever third-party stuff (CODEC or MP3 player perhaps) - fixes the sound problem for you?.

Changing to WAV would definately point to it being something installed on your system that is not "plain vanilla Microsoft" with regards to MP3 sound handling.

Now - if we could just figure out precisely what is installed on a few end users machines that is causing this (as it was not apparent at all on a dozen plus playtester XP machines), we would be able to isolate the problem.

Cheers
Andy

[JPYBasser]

For what if helps, I have an Realtek AC97 Audio chip. I downloaded and installed the latest CODEC from them and for Windows Media Player. It did not help. My computer is only one month old so I may have had the most recent files anyway.

[Mobhack]

JPYBasser said:
For what if helps, I have an Realtek AC97 Audio chip. I downloaded and installed the latest CODEC from them and for Windows Media Player. It did not help. My computer is only one month old so I may have had the most recent files anyway.



Not always the case actually. If bought direct from (say) Dell, then the thing is built to order and so you will most likely have the latest drivers.

However, if bought from a shop, or from any place that stocks things in a warehouse for a while, or ships boxes round the country to retail outlets, then the PC could have been manufactured 6-9 months ago, or more, and have been sitting around in its box all that time.

Same goes for replacement items like video cards. If it has been sitting on a shelf in (say) PC World for 5 months - then the drivers on the CD supplied will be f similar vintage.

If built to order at your local small shop that builds to spec, good ones will search for the latest drivers after installing the parts from the supplied box, others will simply install the drivers on the CD provided with say the video card, from a box they have had sitting on the shelf in the store for maybe 6 months. Depends on the small local PC builder really.

Cheers
Andy

[Alby]

Mobhack said:

Alby said:
As far as I can tell..
The vehicle movement sound from Saving Pvt Ryan...
The mouse click...
the 160 numbered files I think...(various small arms)
Not all the 160 files are problematic...its just hard to tell which ones. <font color="blue"> </font>
Large caliber arty hits.
Vehicle Destroyed sound.
sound 212 sometimes comes and goes.
Small arms hits on tanks...(sometime I just get a tonk sound) should this be a ricochet?
I cant tell if it supposed to playing a ricochet or there is an actual "TONK" sound.
also you hear a ricochet before a vehicle blows up??
Changed all these to wav files except #212...
Things nearly 99% fixced now...except for that daggone TONK...I keep getting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif



Are you saying that a conversion to WAV fixes your problem whith whatever third-party stuff (CODEC or MP3 player perhaps) - fixes the sound problem for you?.

Changing to WAV would definately point to it being something installed on your system that is not "plain vanilla Microsoft" with regards to MP3 sound handling.

Now - if we could just figure out precisely what is installed on a few end users machines that is causing this (as it was not apparent at all on a dozen plus playtester XP machines), we would be able to isolate the problem.

Cheers
Andy



I have the Realtek ac97 audio just as JPYbasser has.I just updated drivers yesterday, which did not really help.
what other info do you need and I will try to get it to you.
So far changing out the mp3s to Wavs has helped in my case, as far as I can tell.
at least it has for me.
I still think there is a slight click or pause at the beginning of some of those mp3s that is causing some of this. I mean microseconds here, not anything big.
I even went back and used some from the old SP3 online sounds. (vehicle penetration sound is one for sure I got from sp3)
Something to do with us Realtek ac97 guys perhaps??

[Alby]

JPYBasser said:
For what if helps, I have an Realtek AC97 Audio chip. I downloaded and installed the latest CODEC from them and for Windows Media Player. It did not help. My computer is only one month old so I may have had the most recent files anyway.



you got a link for this?
I got the same audio...I updated drivers, but saw noghting about codecs...

[JPYBasser]

Alby, I just went to Realtek's website and downloaded a flie named "WDM_A373a.exe." It was under software for Realtek AC97 Audio and said it was the most recent CODEC for this device. Not being much of a computer expert, I really can't be certain. I know it installed properly and did not help.

[Alby]

was it realtek.com??

[WingNut]

The AC97 is an onboard audio chip, if I'm not mistaken. The integrated audio and graphic cards are pretty much, with rare exception, junk for anything other than simple office automation tasks. Try finding an inexpensive component sound card. Heck, even an SB16, which you can still find on the shelves, is better than an integrated sound card.

Jeff

[Arralen]

Unless you get yourself a SB Live! or SB/Creative PCI card. Those seem to have some trouble with WinSPMBT (or more precisely, playing different mp3 sounds at once).

I'm using a no-name pci card with Crystal CMI8738/C3DX chipset and driver from 16.07.2002 (newest available!), and everything is fine.

[Alby]

Arralen said:
Unless you get yourself a SB Live! or SB/Creative PCI card. Those seem to have some trouble with WinSPMBT (or more precisely, playing different mp3 sounds at once).

I'm using a no-name pci card with Crystal CMI8738/C3DX chipset and driver from 16.07.2002 (newest available!), and everything is fine.




So then it possibly does have something to do with mp3s because I have never had this trouble before, with Mel files or Wav files.

[JPYBasser]

Yes it was realtek.com. Seems like the integrated chip can't handle the MP3 sound files. It handles all other Steel Panthers games. Could SPCAMO come out with some wav files for us integrated chip users?

[DRG]

JPYBasser said:
Yes it was realtek.com. Seems like the integrated chip can't handle the MP3 sound files. It handles all other Steel Panthers games. Could SPCAMO come out with some wav files for us integrated chip users?



*IF* it turns out that this is indeed the problem we may need to make a set in WAV. However, I'm having a hard time with the idea that any recently made computer would choke on MP3's. If you wish to convert the files that are in the game now to experiment download a copy of Goldwave http://www.goldwave.com/release.php
run the Batch Processing feature under "File" and convert all the MP3's in our \Game Data\Sounds to Stereo WAV's (they WILL be huge files. That's why we used MP3). Then, put the MP3's in a subfolder to keep them handy but out of the way then open up the file "Sounds.INI" and use a text editor to replace every ".MP3" with ".WAV" . When you are done you will have nothing but WAV files in \Game Data\Sounds and the sounds.INI should all look something like this.....


[soundeffects]
sound000="1click.WAV"
sound001="1.WAV"
sound002="2.WAV"
sound003="Null.WAV"
sound004="4.WAV"
sound005="5.WAV"
sound006="6.WAV"
sound007="7.WAV"
sound008="Null.WAV"
sound009="9.WAV"

then tell us if everything works 100% for you (or contact Realtek and ask them why their sound chip won't play MP3. Maybe they have an answer )



Don

[Mobhack]

Or - navigate to that directory, and double click on loads of files to have several playing simultaneously. If this then chokes, your sound card does not like playing nultiple MP3s simultaneously. This game plays multiple MP3 tracks simultaneously.

Cheers
Andy

[Alby]

So does the below still hold true??
copied from another thread.
I gots to know... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"We are working on a fix for the sound problem now. The delays between sounds were a bit too long. Some machines seem to be more sensitive to it. We had two playtest groups and nobody commented on it though so this is was not a problem for everyone

This is NOT sound file related. If anyones busily trimming sound files to make them sound "better" you may cause yourself more trouble when we issue the patch

Don"

[JPYBasser]

I downloaded the Goldwave program, copied the MP3 files to a new folder and converted all the MP3 files to WAV files at 16 bit mono attribute. Then I replaced all the mp3 in the sound.ini file with wav. That solved all sound problems, except for the delay when a round hits a tank. Thank you for the fix. I hope that you get the delay problem fixed soon.

[Alby]

I downloaded Goldwave too...
converted all sounds to 16bit STEREO Wav file
Fixed all my problems.
Thanks...nice tool to have! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Only thing left is to get rid of ricochet sound before a tank blows. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DRG]

Alby said:
So does the below still hold true??
copied from another thread.
I gots to know... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"We are working on a fix for the sound problem now. The delays between sounds were a bit too long. Some machines seem to be more sensitive to it. We had two playtest groups and nobody commented on it though so this is was not a problem for everyone

This is NOT sound file related. If anyones busily trimming sound files to make them sound "better" you may cause yourself more trouble when we issue the patch

Don"




Yes, we've speeded up the sound file response so the Hit+zing+pause+BOOM is no longer there. Now it's Hit-BOOM

Don

[DRG]

Alby said:
I downloaded Goldwave too...
converted all sounds to 16bit STEREO Wav file
Fixed all my problems.
Thanks...nice tool to have! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Only thing left is to get rid of ricochet sound before a tank blows. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



You won't need to. When we issue the patch EXE the new sound routine eliminates it

Don

[Alby]

You guys are great!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Coleco]

Thanks a ton for the sound fix!

[JPYBasser]

Thank you for your fast responses to the sound problem and its fix. I look forward to the patch fixing the delay issue.

[DRG]

Alby said:
So does the below still hold true??
copied from another thread.
I gots to know... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

"We are working on a fix for the sound problem now. The delays between sounds were a bit too long. Some machines seem to be more sensitive to it. We had two playtest groups and nobody commented on it though so this is was not a problem for everyone

This is NOT sound file related. If anyones busily trimming sound files to make them sound "better" you may cause yourself more trouble when we issue the patch

Don"




The delays in the sound reproduction were due to added millisecond delays in the code which we have reduced or removed. There WERE slight delays at the start of some of the sounds but they only added a very small % to the overall delay. The EXE we are testing now brings the game much closer to what you were used to in the DOS version and that is without trimming the sound files. The sequence now when a tank is hit and destroyed is "Hit-BOOM". ( i.e. just as fast as you could say "Hit-BOOM")

Don

[Alby]

Excellent!!
Thank You sir.

[KevinRanger95]

I installed SPMBT on my laptop and I noticed that the sound problem was not as bad and it played better, still there was some sound problems, but it generally played better, now my question is, Did the play testers use more laptops or did they use home PC's. I know that my sound card in my laptop isn't the best, but you would think that a SB creative card would have no problem.

[DRG]

KevinRanger95 said:
I installed SPMBT on my laptop and I noticed that the sound problem was not as bad and it played better, still there was some sound problems, but it generally played better, now my question is, Did the play testers use more laptops or did they use home PC's. I know that my sound card in my laptop isn't the best, but you would think that a SB creative card would have no problem.



There may have been some who used a laptop but for the most part they were desktops.

Don

[KevinRanger95]

how do I change mel. files to MP3's or wav files, I'm trying to take them off of SP3 sound file!

[Alby]

cool edit 96 works good!
just do a google search.
do you have sp3 online version?
It has wav files in it.

[KevinRanger95]

I don't know if it is online version or not, I just have my CD that I bought when it came out, but I will try the other, is it a download version of SP3?

[Alby]

My sp3 CD has 2 verisons on it.
it has regular sp3 on it, and also the version you can play online.

[RVPERTVS]

KevinRanger95 said:
I installed SPMBT on my laptop and I noticed that the sound problem was not as bad and it played better, still there was some sound problems, but it generally played better, now my question is, Did the play testers use more laptops or did they use home PC's. I know that my sound card in my laptop isn't the best, but you would think that a SB creative card would have no problem.



Are you saying that Sound Blaster sound cards have problems running the game?

I'm planning to acquire a laptop soon, and the model I like it's equipped with a 16-Bit Sound Blaster Pro Compatible sound card.

I've been playing the game on my sister's laptop (with Conexant MC Audio sound card) for a week and it runs like a charm, without a single sound (or any) problem.

So, does anyone knows if there's a problem with 16 bit SB Pro compatible sound cards playing multiple mp3?

[RVPERTVS]

Don, was there any problem with SB sound cards during playtesting?

[DRG]

RVPERTVS said:
Don, was there any problem with SB sound cards during playtesting?




No, none. I use a SB card.

Don

[RVPERTVS]

ok, then I don't know what KevinRanger95 was talking about.

I guess the laptop with a "16-Bit Sound Blaster Pro Compatible" sound card I want is ok then.

What model are you using?

[DRG]

" Creative SB Live! "

It's about 5 years old or so

Don

[RVPERTVS]

Arralen said:
Unless you get yourself a SB Live! or SB/Creative PCI card. Those seem to have some trouble with WinSPMBT (or more precisely, playing different mp3 sounds at once).

I'm using a no-name pci card with Crystal CMI8738/C3DX chipset and driver from 16.07.2002 (newest available!), and everything is fine.



Excelent, I shouldn´t have any issue then. I just keep guessing what Arralen was talking about?

[DRG]

It would appear that the issue is related to combinations of factors and not always just one thing A + B may cause trouble if you also have C but A B and D work just fine. All I know is, I have a SB Live! card and I hear all the sounds just fine.

Don