XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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?

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

I have about 80% fixed also...


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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Cheers
Andy

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

is that the only sound like that??

Don

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Germany.gif[/img]

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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 [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Germany.gif[/img]

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

Before or after installing the game?

Don

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Don

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

Where can I find the codec?

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

Try reinstall sound driver.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

How do I do that?

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

Hi,

There is a WinRAR compressed file with all the WAV files and the Sounds.ini file included, posted at the Armorsite's WinSPMBT page, 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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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?

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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.)

Re: XP Sound Problems - Try this out
 

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?