sound question

R

rapierdragon2

Guest
Of late I've been having some problems with my sound card (a relatively new Sound Blaster Live 24bit).

This causes sound playback to momentarily freeze or skip. It isn't that bad when I watch vids or anything outside the game, but within the game it causes the game's framerate to slow down to a crawl sometimes. I've tried disabling as many sound options as I can within Standoff's OPTIONS menu, but the problem persists.

Is there a command-line parameter I can use to tell Standoff not to play any sound at all? I know some games allow a "-nosound" type command.

rapierdragon
rapierdragon@hotmail.com
 
So this problem happens at all times, not only in Wing Commander? If so you are having a general problem and I'd try to fix that. Standard suggestion would be to reinstall Windows...
 
I think your problem is already covered in the FAQ. If you have a fast CPU, just check the "Avoid sound skipping on fast machines" checkbox in the Standoff launcher's "Options" menu. Alternatively, if you don't have a vary fast CPU, you can launch DirectX's dxdiag.exe, click the "Sound" tab, and set the sound acceleration slider all the way left to no acceleration.

Don't do both, though: If you check the "Avoid sound skipping..." options in Standoff's option menu then make sure DirectX's sound acceleration is fully enabled, else if you disable the option make sure that DirectX's sound acceleration is completely disabled.

If this doesn't solve your problem please list your system specs in this thread so we can help you (Windows and DirectX versions, CPU, video card, etc.)
 
I initially tried reinstalling win98se a few months ago when the card was new. A few people have told me its due to something hogging the pci bus (typically the video card), but I personally think something is messed with either in the driver or the audio buffer (or the default setting for the buffer).

Outside of games my system's audio works nearly perfectly with almost no skipping whatsoever.

Oddly the problem seems to occur more (or worse) when multiple sounds are trying to play.

Aside from the pci bus as a problem source, the next greatest complaint I've found online for the SB-live-24bit is that the default install settings are preset very poorly and a good number of people saying that certain driver versions won't work with certain revisions of the card. Sounds like microsoft... 1/4 of all "updates" in and of themselves are buggy and cause more problems than they solve.

rapierdragon
 
I feel like I'm jumping on a ship that's already been awesome for five years. How did I not know about Standoff earlier? Ah, well. First time I started it up, it ran flawlessly. No problems, no crashes. Ever since then, when I start out on a mission, any in-flight dialogue is garbled. It sounds like someone put together the remix version of the in-flight dialogue, where it will repeat the last few words of each phrase...several times. It also locks out the keyboard. None of the keystrokes will work. All the joystick functions work just fine, but from the keyboard...nuthin

When this happens, it also causes the in-flight controls to lag a bit. Not really sure why this started all of a sudden, but does anyone have any suggestions? I looked at the Standoff launcher options menu, but I don't have a thing to fix sound skipping, just movie skipping, and it's already checked.... Guess this means I'll have to interact with the real world for a couple of days...
 
Alright. Running XP on a 2.4 Ghz (celeron) processor. Video Card: Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller
Sound Card: SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio. Let me know if that's the info you needed (or not). I am using OpenGL, and some of the other forums were talking about that causing some problems.

Something else that may be part of the problem: every time I try to open Standoff, my virus protection software gives me a warning about the file being potentially unsafe, and recommending that I open it in safe mode. I'm not getting this glitch every time. Usually I get 3-4 flights in before it starts. Weird

And I gotta say that I used to think I was pretty bad-ass at Wing Commander. Thank you for dissuading me of that notion...(Holy Crap this is hard...).
 
Hummm... your system specs are a bit low to use all the rendering options, it is quite possible your CPU gets taxed and the audio sync can't keep up.I would recommend lowering the rendering options little by little, in that order:

First, make sure HDR is disabled. This option quadruple the CPU crunch required for rendering.
Then reduce antialiasing and anisotropy filter values.
Then try disabling the enhanced lighting option.

Make sure you have the lastest video and audio drivers installed, too.
 
Yeah, Standoff is not meant for the faint-hearted. It is definitely a challenge. However, the thing to remember is don't turn your difficulty down! That makes your wingmen dumber as well! You want to keep it on Ace or Hero. Then you can at least rely on them to not be completely useless. ;)
 
HaHa! Thanks! Game's running smooth as a baby's butt now. Too bad I still suck at it.... Oh, yeah. Difficulty stays at Ace. Beating it on lower levels doesn't count :D
 
Good to hear!

Now after you save Earth on the winning path you have to make sure to go back and play the losing paths of Eps 3, 4 and 5!
 
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