VOGONS


Crackling audio

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First post, by slube

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I'm trying to test these sounds, but I'm having trouble with the game running choppy.

My system:

- Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz
- 1 Gb of Ram
- Windows XP service pack 2
- Geforce 6800, driver 8.1.8.5, 10/10/2005

About half the time when I start the game, the first splash screen goes too fast. Whether it does or not, the following movies often go too fast, and if this happens, when I get to the game, the controls are okay, but only every other sound plays, such as when Lara's running: you only hear every other footfall. Other sounds are skipped as well, as though the sound is struggling to keep up with the rest of the game. It's also quite crackly.
Does anyone have suggestions of some parameter I can change to fix this problem? Is there some change I need to make to the settings, such as the glidos .ini file?

Reply 1 of 12, by Glidos

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Slube, those problems are really weird. When I first added VESASupport, some people with slow machines had crakling sound during cut scenes, but that machine is a beast. In any case never heard of problems during game play. Not sure what to suggest. What sound card?

Reply 2 of 12, by slube

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What sound card?

Well, that is the weak area, it's a Soundblaster live 24-bit, though that should be enough. This is actually on my work computer. I should try it at home, where I have a Soundblaster X-fi.

I tried taking out this line from the .ini:CDCheckFile: data\Level10c.phd
but that didn't make a difference. I tried different resolutions. Perhaps the color quality should be 16 bit instead of 32 bit?

Reply 3 of 12, by Kaminari

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I have a SB Live and never met those issues.

You might want to check that you installed the latest drivers from Creative, not the default ones from WinXP. You could try toying with hardware acceleration as well, though personally I don't recommend it (but it sometimes proves useful on some configurations).

Reply 4 of 12, by Glidos

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Its not that any component is not up to the job. That spec is way higher than needed, but there are sometimes problems with PCI bus latency with some sound card/mother board combinations. With my last 5 or 6 computers I've used the onboard sound and never had a problem, but I've heard of many that have.

You should stick with 32bit color.

Could also be something running in the background. You sure you haven't got spy ware?

Reply 5 of 12, by slube

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I downloaded the updated driver.

Could also be something running in the background. You sure you haven't got spy ware?

I have Webroot Spysweeper running, which is pretty good at getting rid of anything going on.

Reply 6 of 12, by slube

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It's okay, the sound seems to be working now. Must be one of those temporary unexplanable things. Maybe it was the sound driver.

Reply 7 of 12, by slube

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Arrgh, back again. It seems like the graphics are going too fast, and the sound can't keep up. If I just let it run, the movies run too fast and I think they keep triggering sound before the previous sound is done. Then if I don't press escape, the program crashes at the end of the last movie.

Reply 8 of 12, by slube

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This is interesting. It seems like the problem doesn't happen when I run it in a window, only full-screen.

I probably should have also mentioned that I don't use a physical CD - I just run a disc image of TR in Daemon Tools.

Reply 9 of 12, by Glidos

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I run from a nero image with no problems.

You don't have one of the those stepping CPUs where the clock rate varies?

Reply 10 of 12, by slube

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No, it's full power all the time. The full-screen issue makes me think it's some kind of graphic thing that's happening in full-screen mode (sometimes), but not in a window. It doesn't seem like the sound is not working, just that the graphics are going too fast, or in some way interfering with it.

Reply 11 of 12, by Glidos

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The reason I asked was because Glidos under XP/NT has to take control of the emulated PIC chip interupts, and it starts by running its own timing loop to calibrate. Variation in speed during the calibration would put the timing out for the whole session.

On the other hand, I've never seen such a problem, and I wouldn't expect windowed v fullscreen to affect it.