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 :D)

[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]

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 (http://www.driveragent.com/)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]

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]

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.

[sanmadjack]

Thank you for putting so much effort into resolving the problem. Us 64-bit users really appreciate it when a company actually cares about us.

[bangskij]

Ditto. Appreciate the effort, hope you get it sorted out before the next one is out.

b

[neon]

Good to know. I had the same issues, although I found restarting my computer every so often prevented it becoming a major problem.

I guess this is another good example of how episodic games can be superior :-)

[bangskij]

Just wondering, getting all geared up before the launch of the next episode on friday, if I can expect it to work properly. I finished the last one on my laptop which worked fine(32 bit vista) but it has no real 3d card and so stutters a bit. Would like to play on the big computer... :-)

b

[Will]

The root problem will not be fixed for 204, but I'm expecting the problem to be less serious in most instances. So the short answer is maybe. Since we don't have any computers with that problem, I'm essentially having to guess how bad it will be.

[bangskij]

Some people on the list seem to blame it on 64 bit windows. Have you been able to verify this?

[Tester Scott]

We don't have a 64 bit Vista machine to test it on so we are currently unable to verify that.

[bangskij]

:-)
Don't mean to nitpick, but I run xp 64. It's not like I expect everything to work on it, many games develops aversions to it. But it's nice for work.

[benhubbard]

Ah poop, guess I'd better steal my GF's laptop to play ep3 before I play ep4.
There was a big cliffhanger wasn't there? :P

[peoples]

:-)
Don't mean to nitpick, but I run xp 64. It's not like I expect everything to work on it, many games develops aversions to it. But it's nice for work.

XP 64-bit has the worst driver support of the whole universe, just about :) I have not had problems on Vista 64-bit yet, even though people seem to think that is the common nominator.

ps. telltale team, up the bitrate of the voiceovers, as the S's still aren't really perfect, with headphones the lack of bitrate is ever so apparent. I think this was mentioned when the first episode came out ;)

[Will]

Out of curiosity, how was the music in 204? More problems? Fewer?

[Chris1]

The music worked fine except for the end credits, which were completely silent. I take it there was supposed to be a track playing then?

By the way, I've also had the music go silent for the end credits of episode 2 this season; I assume it's the same bug..?

[Will]

Yeah, almost certainly. For this episode, the end credits was an instrumental version of The Song. For 202 it was the full version of Miller's song.

[Trumgottist]

It's not a 64-bit issue - mine's a 32-bit OS. (Regarding 204, I'll let you know when I've played it. I only wish I had more time!)

[JWMangrum]

Out of curiosity, how was the music in 204? More problems? Fewer?

No audio dropout problems like I've occasionally encountered before. The T.H.E.M. song was slightly "soft" compared to the spoken dialogue that peppered it, but honestly that could just have been my speakers.

(I did have a problem in that I encountered intermittent "lag" whenever I was in Stinky's -- most notably immediately upon entering, and then right after starting and ending conversations. Basically, whenever I interacted with anything in that area, the game would freeze up for a few seconds.)

[Omahdon]

Okay, this time I heard absolutely no music at all apart from incidentals during cutscenes, the opening and closing credits sequence, during the auto-destruct sequence, during four instances of conversation (speaking with Max after breaking into Bosco's, Superball in the Oval Office, Future Max and the Oldest Mariachi) and (thank god for small mercies) the T.H.E.M song (which was radical, awesome and other 80s catchphrases). But apart from those instances - endless, background-ambient-noise-but-no-music silence, which is a shame as this episode is quite possibly the best of this season yet.

[Fonars]

Just dropping in to this thread to say I've had to stop playing Season 2 now as well due to this issue.

The only problem I've had is that the music in the nightclub is non-existent. If I start a convo it starts and then promptly goes away. No fix fixes it.

I've tried it with three audio interfaces. My Sound Blaster 1024 Live!, some on-board thing that Windows calls "Realtek HD Audio" and my E-MU 0202 USB interface. All of them do the same thing.

Again, I have Windows XP x64.

I hope this gets a fix soon enough. I opened up the .aud file and the music is utterly superb, so this is a real shame!

[Laserschwert]

Out of curiosity, how was the music in 204? More problems? Fewer?

I've got the same problem as everbody here on 203, and it continues on 204. When starting a new game there IS music during the intro-cutscene (the trio breaking into Bosco's), but no music when wandering around there. Launching into a conversation gives music (the "light" version), and the UFO-cutscene and the main titles have music as well. Wandering around the spaceship has - again - no music.

I'm on XP64 as well, so I guess 64-bit is our "T.H.E.M." here.

Luckily at home I'm running XP 32-bit, and there's no problems there.

[bangskij]

On my desktop pc(64 bit xp) it is as before, little music. On my laptop(vista 32 bit) everything works fine.

[Roft]

I dieing here for a fix! I've had to put season 2 on hold and it's killing me. I can't even read the boards so I don't spoil any thing from the last 2 episodes. :(

[Trumgottist]

It's not a 64-bit issue - mine's a 32-bit OS. (Regarding 204, I'll let you know when I've played it. I only wish I had more time!)

…and now I've finished the game (fun, btw). No problems for me in this episode.

[Roft]

Any update? Will this be fixed for the finale and season 2 updated? I'm dieing to play 203-205, but only if the music is working.

[Will]

We made some changes to 205 audio, but I'm not sure it is the ultimate fix. We will likely find out tomorrow.

[benhubbard]

Well, I just tested out 205 and the problem remains.
There is music in the intro cutscene, but once gameplay starts there is no music at all.

[bangskij]

Yes. The problem remains. No change here also.

[sanmadjack]

I'm still waiting on this to be fixed, I stopped play Night of the Raving dead because I didn't want to miss any of the music. At this rate, I'll have to wait for the Season 2 soundtrack to come out and just play it in the background while I'm playing the game.

[bangskij]

If you have no computers that exhibitis this problem, is there something I(we, the community) can do to help? Some technical info or something like that we may retrieve from the bowels of our machines... ?

[Will]

Well we are working on a fix, but it is a pretty major change to the engine. We were on such a tight schedule that it would have been too risky to make the change. We should certainly have a fix in time for the season DVD at the absolute latest.

[Omahdon]

Same problems as before - more silence than you can poke a sickly giraffe at, unfortunately.

[Roft]

Any time frame on the sound fix? Been anxiously awaiting the ability to enjoy the last 3 episodes of the season.

[Will]

The sound code is currently being melted down, reforged, tempered, and banged upon mightily by giant sledge hammers. In short, I don't know, but rest assured that we are definitely working on the many problems.

[Roft]

The sound code is currently being melted down, reforged, tempered, and banged upon mightily by giant sledge hammers. In short, I don't know, but rest assured that we are definitely working on the many problems.

Haha! kudos for a most awesome response!

[BiggerJ]

It looks to me like fixing the problems would involve major deframbulation of the sprambulonic wibble matrix, not to mention a complete overhaul of the Wamberton-Breggle Spranting System(TM). The fixes should be completed in a year starting with a two (number of digits unknown).

[Roft]

It looks to me like fixing the problems would involve major deframbulation of the sprambulonic wibble matrix, not to mention a complete overhaul of the Wamberton-Breggle Spranting System(TM). The fixes should be completed in a year starting with a two (number of digits unknown).

Nothing a good sonic screwdriver couldn't fix!

[Fonars]

So what you're saying is that the sound code is hastily tied together with bits of timey wimey string?

[BiggerJ]

So what you're saying is that the sound code is hastily tied together with bits of timey wimey string?

A great big ball of timey wimey stuff. Far more effective.

[Jake]

So what you're saying is that the sound code is hastily tied together with bits of timey wimey string?

That's exactly what he's saying.

[Will]

Was hastily tied together with bits of timey wimey string. Now it is being tied together with razor wire, so every time we touch it we cut ourselves. We are kinda emo in that way.

[Fonars]

Good luck maintaining that!

[Roft]

Need any help beta testing the new code? Win XP64 Pro user.

For some reason, I just simply can't bear to format a new partition for XP32. I'm afraid it would burn like the hemorrhoids of a thousand suns.

*sits on pins and needles*

[Will]

Not just yet, but I may poke for some help before we burn this thing to a disk only to find out we still didn't fix the problem.

[Roft]

Not to be a pest, but any status on the audio overhaul?



First things first, but not necessarily in that order.
-Doctor Who

[Roft]

Now that the DVD is available, does this mean the audio issue has been worked out? If so, what is the projected time when the downloadable versions will be updated with the audio fix?

[Fonars]

Now that the DVD is available, does this mean the audio issue has been worked out? If so, what is the projected time when the downloadable versions will be updated with the audio fix?

I came here to post this too.

I'm holding off on ordering the DVD until I get confirmation that this bug is fixed.

[Will]

Oh yes, I should probably update you guys. The stuff on the DVD is the EXACT SAME as the stuff that is currently on the web. I really wanted to get this fix in on time, but we had to hit the deadline for the DVD printers. Yes, we are still hoping to fix the problem and when we do, we will re-post the online versions.

[Roft]

Oh yes, I should probably update you guys. The stuff on the DVD is the EXACT SAME as the stuff that is currently on the web. I really wanted to get this fix in on time, but we had to hit the deadline for the DVD printers. Yes, we are still hoping to fix the problem and when we do, we will re-post the online versions.

Drat! No point in me getting the DVD then. :( Thanks for the clarification Will.

[Fonars]

Well.

I'm extremely disappointed. :(

[tabacco]

Sorry man. You have no idea how hard everyone tried to get the fix in in time :(

[bangskij]

Uhm, I haven't been here for awhile, I was just wondering if you'd had any luck with the sound thingy. Judging by the posts I'm guessing not. Still, kudos for the effort, not many game developers care about us 64 bit folk and trust me, I've had my share of problems since I went into the whole win64 thingy. The whole OS is one big issue if you ask me, still, want my 8 gigs of ram. Plays the game with friends on an oh so average and problem free gaming computer. Solving puzzles is so much more fun when you have three people screaming into your ears "Click the tombstone again, maybe this time it'll move." ;-)

Irony RIP, that had us rolling on the floor. But I digress. Keep it up. An I'll still get the DVD, can't wait to see the making of.

[Will]

For the record, the problems should NOT happen in Strong Bad. We are working on doing a backwards engine port for Season 2 to try to get the same audio code up and running.

[bangskij]

kewl.

Be a shame to play a game for attractive people with no sound.

[Roft]

At this point is time to be frustrated. I purchase games on a regular basis that have sound that works properly. If it doesn't I'm usually secure in the fact that it's fixed in a timely manner. I give Telltale leeway as I love this company and I love Sam & Max. But I'm pretty fed up that I have not been able to enjoy the game I purchased for roughly 7 months. EA, A company I loath and buys up some of my favorite software designers is able to fix problems with in this massive frame.

I have 6 GB of ram and can't see any sense in using XP 32. I use Win XP 64 Pro because I like the fact that my 1GB of gfx ram doesn;'t eat into my available ram usage.

It's time to get this fixed. I'm a huge adventure game person. At the same time I'm also patient. At this point I think I've gone beyond the customer patience and have been a sucker.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable expecting this fix out by this point. I'm able to enjoy old and new game alike. At this point Sam & Max is the only game I've purchased that's not enjoyable.

[Fonars]

I must wholeheartedly agree with Roft, this is ridiculous.

[Roft]

Any updates? It'd be nice to play these games that I purchased ages ago over the Thanksgiving holiday.

[bakkelun]

I bought the whole season, and once I got to Episode 203, the alleged "no disco on the dancefloor" bug (no music where the zombies are supposed to dance to my epic subzero sound effects) was there. The OS, of course, is Windows XP 64-bit.

At first I thought it might be something wrong with my computer, but since all the other games I play run flawlessly (with sound and the works), including all the previous S&M games from Telltale, it couldn't be it. I bought the Season 2 DVD without really knowing wether or not the bug had been fixed. Reading this thread confirms it, they didn't get it done in time.

Now, it's been over 2 months since the DVD became available and it's closing in to a year since I bought season 2 (on feb 2009), but there's still no word on how to get this cleaned up.

So...I threw an email to support and got a reply from someone named will:

Hey Bakkelun,

Yeah, we have heard this problem before with 64 bit users. We are currently working on a fix, but I don't know if it is a few weeks or a few months from being done (our schedule is a bit overloaded at the moment). Unfortunately, I don't know of any workarounds for it either. If you would like a refund, please let me know and I can arrange that for you. For the record, this problem will happen intermittently throughout the rest of the Season, though if I remember correctly, 203 is the most noticeable. Sorry for the inconvenience!

I think what the affected users need are progress reports. How far are Telltale's technical team in finding the error? What has been done, what remains? Never underestimate the power of frustrated users.

sincerely,
-bakkelun