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Author Topic: Sound distortion after interception  (Read 4647 times)

Offline Coincident

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Sound distortion after interception
« on: December 02, 2015, 09:50:49 pm »
Hello everyone.

I've been getting an extremely annoying problem with the game sound. After an interception ends, all the game sounds and music get extreme distortion (I can hear loud cracks on every single sound, including music). It is extremely disturbing to the ear and makes the game unplayable. The only way to fix the problem is by saving the game, closing OpenXcom, and lauching again - which I have done over a hundred times... (without exaggeration)

I've searched the forums and the bug-tracker and found nothing of the kind - which is strange because it is a very obvious problem that happens in 90% of all interceptions. That makes me think that it might not be a bug, but rather some problem on my machine.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything similar? Any ideas on how I can fix this?

PS - I'm using windows 7, and I've tried several versions of OpenXcom (1.0 and several nightlies), and they all yield the same problem. In the sound options menu everything is at default, I did not change any settings (should I?).

PS2 - I'm currently using a Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card that can emulate binaural sound environments and 7 channel surround sound through headphones. However, I have every feature turned off while I play OpenXcom (with simple 2 channel audio). I think I'll start by trying the on-board sound card to see if the problem still happens.

Thank you in advance for any insight.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2015, 09:16:25 pm by Coincident »

Offline winterheart

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2015, 11:36:40 am »
Are you using native AdLib version?
Can you try MP3 / OGG format from mods?

Offline Coincident

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2015, 09:20:06 pm »
Are you using native AdLib version?
Can you try MP3 / OGG format from mods?
(Sorry for the late reply, I was expecting to get reply notifications automatically for starting a thread...)

I was using WAV in options, but below there's a text saying "Current: Adlib"
I tried changing to MP3 and to OGG, but the text below still says "Current: Adlib"



PS - I edited the first post - the pitch of sound is not distorted, there are just many sounds missing and I can hear loud cracks very often after the bug happens.

Offline Coincident

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2016, 01:50:56 pm »
I'm sorry to bump this thread.

Does anyone have any idea on how to fix this problem, or why I cannot change music format? (it always defaults back to Adlib)

Offline Bloax

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2016, 02:27:56 pm »
It sounds like interception for some reason sets the sound buffer size far too low for you, and unfortunately openxcom doesn't expose the buffer size/count options.

Music format should work despite showing Adlib.

Offline Coincident

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2016, 02:47:00 pm »
Music format should work despite showing Adlib.
I'm sorry, but it doesn't. I have literally tried every music format option, and every option sounds exactly the same (and has the mentioned distortion problem).
I've really run out of ideas on how to fix this.  :(

Offline Bloax

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2016, 04:40:43 pm »
I'm sorry, but it doesn't. I have literally tried every music format option, and every option sounds exactly the same (and has the mentioned distortion problem).
I've really run out of ideas on how to fix this.  :(
The music format is just that; the preferred music format.
I haven't tried, but I'm pretty sure that it's there to determine what format takes precedence if you have multiple replacements for the default music in multiple file formats.

You can't fix this issue without someone exposing the sound buffer/size as options, though.
You could try reducing the audio sample rate after the distortion kicks in to see if that does anything to affect it.

Offline Coincident

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Re: Sound distortion after interception
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2016, 09:34:55 pm »
I'm sorry to bring this old topic back, but I found the cause of this bug.

This only happens if you drag the music volume slider all the way to the maximum (100%).
So, if you set the music volume to, for example, 90%, and increase the volume a bit in windows, the problem will never occur.

(Nevertheless, it would be nice to see this fixed in OpenXcom in the future :) )