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/d...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!