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Hellbender (1996) Sound Woes

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First post, by alexparr

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(First post, please tell me if I did something wrong!)

So I recently booted up my old Windows 98 machine again, and I decided to play some Hellbender.
However, I've noticed that for some reason, the audio glitches out at multiple instances, and it gets even worse when I turn on hardware acceleration; which sucks, because it looks so much better than the software renderer.
Can someone help me out?

Below I have attached two recorded audio files recorded directly from my SoundBlaster Live; one using the software-rendered graphics mode, and one using the hardware renderer, to show the kind of audio I get from both. They were recorded using the "default" audio settings (4 buffers, 2048 buffer size). I usually play with CD Music, but to help demonstrate the problem better I set it to Synthesized Music for the recordings.
I'd send video files instead, but currently I have no way of recording video from the PC. Oh well.

Gateway 500S:
OEM Intel D845PT
Pentium 4 @ 1.80 GHz
256MB RAM
GeForce4 MX 440
SoundBlaster Live! CT4780
CAPS MAY HAVE FAILED, NEEDS MAINTENANCE

486 Project:
Jetway Motherboard
i486DX2 @ 66 MHz
8MB RAM
S3 Virge/DX
CURRENTLY OUT FOR REPAIRS

Reply 1 of 5, by feda

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Does changing the buffers and buffer size settings do anything? I vaguely remember having a similar issue with it and I think one of those helped.

Reply 2 of 5, by alexparr

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feda wrote on 2023-02-09, 03:42:

Does changing the buffers and buffer size settings do anything?

I tried it and from what settings I've tested, it didn't really do the sound any favors.
That said, do you remember what settings you used?

Gateway 500S:
OEM Intel D845PT
Pentium 4 @ 1.80 GHz
256MB RAM
GeForce4 MX 440
SoundBlaster Live! CT4780
CAPS MAY HAVE FAILED, NEEDS MAINTENANCE

486 Project:
Jetway Motherboard
i486DX2 @ 66 MHz
8MB RAM
S3 Virge/DX
CURRENTLY OUT FOR REPAIRS

Reply 3 of 5, by feda

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alexparr wrote on 2023-02-09, 12:08:
feda wrote on 2023-02-09, 03:42:

Does changing the buffers and buffer size settings do anything?

I tried it and from what settings I've tested, it didn't really do the sound any favors.
That said, do you remember what settings you used?

No, but I tried the highest and the lowest.

Reply 4 of 5, by Gmlb256

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Hello. Did you test any other game to see if there are issues with the SBLive! driver (I assume that it is the WDM one that is installed) or it is just Hellbender?

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 5 of 5, by alexparr

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-10, 00:41:

Hello. Did you test any other game to see if there are issues with the SBLive! driver (I assume that it is the WDM one that is installed) or it is just Hellbender?

I tried Fury3 and Monster Truck Madness 2, and they seem to work just fine; even with acceleration on MTM2. I also remember trying Unreal Tournament GOTY and that works fine too. It seems to just be Hellbender.
I tried reinstalling the card's drivers and that didn't help.
I also tried the "highest" sound settings and that did remove the stuttering, however the sound was very laggy due to the amount of buffers. I tried setting it to a reasonable setting but It reintroduced the stutters.

Gateway 500S:
OEM Intel D845PT
Pentium 4 @ 1.80 GHz
256MB RAM
GeForce4 MX 440
SoundBlaster Live! CT4780
CAPS MAY HAVE FAILED, NEEDS MAINTENANCE

486 Project:
Jetway Motherboard
i486DX2 @ 66 MHz
8MB RAM
S3 Virge/DX
CURRENTLY OUT FOR REPAIRS

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