S&M Ep203 Audio Issues

Derwin

Hi TT Team, I just finished what is quite possibly my favorite episode of S&M you have produced thus far... a great achievement.
However, I encountered a problem I have not experienced until this ep. Many random weird audio glitches. There were some moments where the audio was merely "skipping", however the following were the worst offenders;

• Immediately upon opening the game, there was no sound. I had to let the opening scene finish, then click options, which magically restored all audio.
• No mariachi music... just the sound of him asking "Did someone say birthday?"
• In the scene with the
  bachelors, Sybil asks Bachelor 3 (Harry) if he is good with his hands...
  the game then froze and I had to alt-tab out to see the error message "Unable to create Audio Buffer". I re-entered the game to be greeted with a white screen with no sound, alt-tabbed, reentered the game and then sound was back after he finished speaking.
• No sound/music in the end credits *cry*
  But the final scene after the credits had sound

I am including my dxdiag file in case that proves helpful. Let me know if you need any more information. Again, this is the first time I have experienced this issue, and it persisted throughout my playthrough of this ep.

*EDIT* Oh yeah, I played it on Gametap.

Will

As far as I know, nothing changed in the audio between 202 and 203. You might want to update your DirectX and your audio drivers.

Or potentially do a redownload/install.

bangskij

What's with the audio in the club, there is no music. Except when I'm talking to Jurgen. In frustration I read some of the walkthrough and supposedly the beat is to change when I click on the light pattern buttons, so I suppose there was meant to be sound. My drivers are all the latest but I am running 64 bit XP... all the previous games worked just fine.

Will

Hey Bang, as a quick test try saving in the Zombie Factory and then loading that save. Let me know if that fixes the music.

bangskij

Sorry no, saving/loading does not help. Nor does exiting the game and then reloading. I still hear footsteps and other foley sounds though.

Will

Hmm, well if your drivers are up to date (and it probably couldn't hurt to re-install just in case), that puts the blame pretty squarely in DirectX's department. Try updating here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

Will

Also, if the DirectX thing doesn't work, would you mind telling me which scenes in the game are missing music (assuming there are others besides the Zombie Factory). Also, the name of your sound card would probably be useful as well.

bangskij

Okay, so - I decided to do it by the book and reinstalled the audio driver first. I'm using the built in audio on an nforce4 chipset motherboard by Epox, the latest nforce4 drivers are quite old and came out in late 2006. Ver 6.86 for the record. No change. I then installed directx. No change. I checked with Windows update that everything else was updated and it was except for en IE7 security update. Updating now. Everything else in the game seems normal. There is music in Stinkys, when I chat with Jurgen, when I'm outside... It seems only the dance-music bit the dust. My computer is in general fast and I'm playing in 1920x1200 on a 24" with not a glitch in sight(ati 1950 gfx). Beautiful game by the way, the puzzles are the hardest yet in season 2(I like that) I think and it's made me LOL a couple of times already. I don't know if this helpful but I'm currently stuck anyway so I'm just trying to distract myself so I can make an intuitive leap. :-)

bangskij

When outside, music fades in when initiating a conversation, then fades out when ending it.

bangskij

There *is* music, it is just *extremely* low in volume. I turned down voice and other sounds and set the music to maximum. Nothing. Then I turned my amplifier way up, to maximum actually. It's a fairly substantial stereo system I'm playing through. A CD played at this volume setting would wake up the neighbours a block away(it's nighttime here) and in the background I can just barely hear some music...

Will

Ok, I think I know what is going on, but I don't think there is a quick fix for it. Really short version is that it has to do with the on-board audio that both you and Derwin have. I'll have to look into options on our end, but this may just be a case of the card being too underpowered.

Derwin

Interesting... why do you think these problems haven't cropped up before? Let us know if you find anything, and thanks for taking the time to look into this.

Will

Ok, this is all assuming that I'm right. If so, it actually has to do with our music getting longer and more complex. Jared keeps out-doing himself by making longer and longer background music. The longest songs in the game are the ones giving you guys the trouble, so it would appear that they aren't fitting into your audio buffer. I'm no hardware expert though, so I could always be wrong.

Like I said, I'm looking into possible solutions on our end.

bangskij

Normally I use an Echo Mia or Layla(I work with sound) which are professional sound cards, but they're not here right now. I will check with one of them tomorrow or the next day to see if that works better, it was those I used when I played the previous episodes. Just my luck, I hardly ever use the motherboard sound(crap quality). Suppose I'll get an audigy or X-fi to have lying about for these situations, they're pretty cheap now I think.

Jake

It may be because there is just more audio playing in those scenes than ever before. The dance floor, for instance, has the different mixes of the background tune, with the different loops, etc.

bangskij

In the weekend I and a couple of friends will be doing what has become our tradition, we play through the game as if it was movie on my friends 42" sony hdtv. This is a nice TV but it only supports 1280x768 on vga input, not 1280x800 or 1280x720 which are the choices in your menu. Would adding 1280x768 be a hassle in future games? Now we're playing in 1024x768, which, obviously, is square. :-)

bangskij

I put the game in conversation mode with Jurgen and have been listening to the music for the last fifteen minutes or so. Great music, but there is no bassdrum, no drums at all actually, it is weird listening to for I have been to many a house party in my youth(ah, the early nineties *those* were the days B-)) and it gets this warm ambient feel about it without the drums. Are there supposed to be drums? I assume so...

Jake

For what it's worth, when you're in a conversation with a character, the game usually switches to a lighter mix of the main background track. The dialog mix of the club track might have severely reduced bass.

bangskij

You should release it as a single )

Atricks

I have this same problem with Audio, XP64, Intel Quad Core, latest drivers for the Audio (SB Audigy 4), Latest DirectX, 4GB of Ram.

It works for foley, voice, and some music, but "background" music seems to be missing such as in the Dance Club. Stinky's has music, outside the office does not, etc.

I actually noticed in in Bright Side of the Moon too (No Max Max World at the end and no music on the moon), but it's not nearly as jarring as the music completely missing in the rave!

bangskij

I have now tried with the echo Mia. There is no change. Music still missing.

Will

So if you guys are willing to try an experiment, would you mind opening up \Episode 203 - Night of the Raving Dead\Pack\data and try changeing mus_ZombieFactory_01.aud to OLDmus_ZombieFactory_01.aud. Then make a copy of mus_JurgensLair_01.aud and rename the copy to mus_ZombieFactory_01.aud.

Now start up a new game, go straight to the Factory. When you enter, you should be hearing the first violin solo type thing that was playing in Jurgen's Lair. If so, then this verifies that there is something weird about the individual files (be it size or whatever). If not, then its something in the scene itself that is causing the issues (too many layers of sound?).

benhubbard

I had the same problem, no music at the disco. At least that's where I first noticed :P Lots of dancing and no music...

I renamed the other file as you suggested and yes it worked. Violin music in the disco works fine.

On my second go through to get to the castle I noticed music in the street/cybils/stinkies was playing but very very quiet.

My computer:
Audigy 2 ZS sound card
Athlon 64 X2
Windows XP 64bit

Downloaded from the Telltale site (not gametap)

Maybe 64bit Windows is the common factor?

I guess I'll play Professor Layton until it is fixed :P

Omahdon

Renamed files as suggested and yes - heard violin music at the zombie factory.... Which gives it a certain weird "classical music violin solo rave" vibe. Talking to Jurgen causes the regular fade in of the "lite" version of the club's music and out of the violin solo. Going to the DJ Booth and playing around with the spotlight settings results in the violin music for the first setting and silence for the other four.

I too am starting to wonder if WinXP 64-bit is the root of the problem here.

(and Professor Layton is made of epic win )

Atricks

Tried that too, same result as the other guys. Violin music starts playing on entry, talking to Jurgen (after the first cutscene) fades in the lite dance music. Then it fades back out to the Violins.

Does it have something to do with streaming larger audio files? I said Audigy 4 in my last post, but I correct myself it's also an Audigy 2 ZS. I may try the onboard audio later to see if it eliminates the Audigy 2 as the issue.

JWMangrum

I had a minor audio issue as well. Specifically, the techno music in the Zombie Factory would play only when I was in a conversation. (It would start the moment I entered a conversation tree and stop the moment I left it.) Actually, as I think about it, the music would intermittently tune in for a few moments. I got the impression that I was hearing a short musical bridge meant to flow from one longer tune to another, without actually hearing the tunes.

Music played consistently while I was just walking around just once out of the dozens of times I passed through there: While in the disco room, I saved my game and quit out. When I loaded that game (and thus started in the area), the music worked completely as intended as long as I remained in that area. When I left for another area and returned, the music once again reverted to playing only during conversations.

Later, the end credits rolled in silence.

(Edit: I skipped down and posted without reading the thread. Seems I'm experiencing something that's already been reported.)

Will

Ok, that's definitely good to know. Thanks guys, I'll put the information to good use.

Kedri

I'm having trouble with the Birthday song, too. And if a sad theme was supposed to play when Harry left, I didn't hear that, either.

I don't think it's power, though. This computer's brand new.

Trumgottist

Derwin wrote: »

• No mariachi music... just the sound of him asking "Did someone say birthday?"
• In the scene with the
  bachelors, Sybil asks Bachelor 3 (Harry) if he is good with his hands...
  the game then froze and I had to alt-tab out to see the error message "Unable to create Audio Buffer". I re-entered the game to be greeted with a white screen with no sound, alt-tabbed, reentered the game and then sound was back after he finished speaking.
• No sound/music in the end credits *cry*
  But the final scene after the credits had sound

I got the abovementioned problems, too. Except that I got the "Unable to create Audio Buffer" thingy after question number three (which was my final question). After alt-tabbing out, finding that error message, and going back I was surprised to see everyone gone. I assume I missed something funny.

That 'puter has Realtek onboard audio, and Vista. I can dig up more info if you think it'll help you, but I don't have it right here and now. (I'm typing this on my MacBook.)

Great game though, even if it was the first of yours where I experienced a bug. (Not counting the intentional bug in earlier episodes. ) I had fun.

t_a_o

I've made it a habit to check for driver updates here on a regular basis.

jmm

I'm using a very old sound card (SB16 PCI) and I don't have any trouble even if I use audio post-processing software (Which I don't shutdown to play S&M)

I think the problem is a combination of bad(ly written) drivers and better and more complex music.

Kentaurus

I've had a similar problem. I was in the zombie factory and clicked the fireplace to go into Jurgen's room. The game seemed stuck loading, then I alt-tabbed and I saw that error message "Unable to create Audio Buffer". After pressing OK I alt-tabbed back to the game, it loaded Jurgen's room even though some audio of Max dialogue was missing.
Then I alt-tabbed back to desktop and opened task manager: SamMax203.exe process was using over 1700MB of memory (gasp!). I suppose the audio error is related to lack of free memory.

Anyway, I saved the game, quit and restarted it to check how much memory the process would have used by going to different locations:
load the savegame (Jurgen's room) -> 200MB
move to the disco room -> 550MB
move outside the castle -> 650MB
drive the car for the cd game -> 700MB
back to the office -> 820 MB
move to sybil's -> 935MB
etc etc

Now, is it supposed to eat all that memory as you move into a new location?

Will

For those of you with the audio issues, have you tried fiddling with the hardware acceleration on your sound card? Usually you can get to it by going Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Advanced Speaker Settings -> Performance.

bangskij

I just tried that. It actually worked, I got music. However, I also got a weird machine-gun like sound when Max walks around and when entering and exiting the menu and when changing settings in it. There was no anomaly when Sam walks around.

Finished the game by the way. Way cool. B-)

Stigmatic

I also had the same problem, but I only noticed no sound in the

mariachi music

part.
I didn't try any of those things but when I tried it again just now, everything worked.

I use Vista (sp1) x64, so I'm guessing that it's some sort of 64-bit issue.
I have the latest dx9c installed and the latest drivers for everything so I do not belive drivers to be the problem.

benhubbard

bangskij wrote: »

I just tried that. It actually worked, I got music. However, I also got a weird machine-gun like sound when Max walks around and when entering and exiting the menu and when changing settings in it. There was no anomaly when Sam walks around.

Finished the game by the way. Way cool. B-)

Yep, same result for me.

When set to emulation only, the music plays as it should but Max's footsteps sound like a machine gun (nicely put :P). I noticed the rain outside did too.

When you bump it up to basic acceleration, it's back to the original problem: sound fx are fine but no music.

I guess I'll play The Experiment until it is fixed :P

peoples

I've had problems with the audio on both 202 and 203. So, I bought a new soundcard, and I am waiting that to arrive next week and see if that resolves the issues I've been having. Issues are so severe, that the game is unplayable

sanmadjack

I also am having issues similar to this. Mostly missing music. I've got an onboard nVidia nForce4 Audio chip and I am running Windows XP x64. I was suspecting it earlier but once I hit the dance club it became very apparent there was something wrong with my music. I tried reducing audio acceleration and the music came on but Max's walking noise became too much for me to tolerate.

Roft

I am having the missing music audio issues too.

OS: Windows XP 64

Soundcard: HTOmega Striker 7.1

The 64bit aspect seems to be the unifying factor.

Hopefully this is figured out soon as I've had to put the games on hold till I get proper music. Thats one of the defining features of the S&M series.

benhubbard

Roft wrote: »

Hopefully this is figured out soon as I've had to put the games on hold till I get proper music. Thats one of the defining features of the S&M series.

Same.

Any progress on this Will?

Will

Yeah, we are pretty sure we know the solution, now it is just a question of implementing it. Since it is a fairly low level problem (deeeep in the code), I'm afraid it won't exactly be a quick turnaround. I assure you that I'm not letting this one lie though.