Sound Glitches - TOMI Ep2

[Wicked Mouse]

There are some sound glitches in the speech of Guybrush about the "Historical Landmark". And I think I've heard some in Elaine's talk to Guybrush as well, but cannot repeat it.

[Jake]

What sort of sound glitches?

[Wicked Mouse]

Ehm.. ticks and speech getting disformed, or how you call it, a bit. Strange thing is, when I turn off all music and background sounds, the speech sounds fine, but when I turn sounds back on, it's there again.

I recorded and saved it as an mp3. Tell me if it works:
http://m2hyrg.blu.livefilestore.com/...k.mp3?download
I clicked on the the Historical Landmark Plaque first, then turned sounds on, clicked again and then on the Library sign.

I got an Audigy 2 ZS by the way.

[BillyTheRatKing]

Wicked Mouse, you have to rename the file to an .mp3 when you download it but it works then. And I'm having the exact same issue. I'm using a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer sound card just in case you need to know.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by Wicked Mouse

Ehm.. ticks and speech getting disformed, or how you call it, a bit. Strange thing is, when I turn off all music and background sounds, the speech sounds fine, but when I turn sounds back on, it's there again.

I have the same issue.
It seems to depend on the number of sound effects playing at the same time.

I made a short Video. Sound playback stops working properly when i get closer to the Royal Chamber, where a lot of sound is going on.

[Wicked Mouse]

Yeah indeed same thing, DjNDB. Except different speech

[Will]

woah, weird. Not sure what's going on there. I'll poke around.

[Morkev]

Just to notify, same problem here on the exact same places.
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro, newest drivers, Vista HP 64-bit.

[mrschaatsbergen]

Same problem here! "S" words and "u" words sound terrible!

Here is the "big" thread about this problem:

http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ad.php?t=11463

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by mrschaatsbergen

Same problem here! "S" words and "u" words sound terrible!

Here is the "big" thread about this problem:

http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ad.php?t=11463

Are you sure it is the same thing?

What we are talking about here does not depend on S or U words and it can be "fixed" by turning off everything but the voice. It's more like a bug in the sound system as you can see in the video, and not bad recordings.

[Morkev]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

Are you sure it is the same thing?

What we are talking about here does not depend on S or U words and it can be "fixed" by turning off everything but the voice. It's more like a bug in the sound system as you can see in the video, and not bad recordings.

I think DjNDB is on to something here. I have the exact same problem as shown in the video, and it does indeed not seem to be the "S and U" problem.

Having played some more now, I seem to have it narrowed down to happen when there's both music and background sounds in addition to the main spoken dialogue. The dialogue then gets "broken up/stuttery/choppy" call it what You like.

Would be great if Telltale could figure this one out. If it's driver related, a bug in the sound engine or whatnot. Never had any sound nor graphical clitches in ep. 1, and would like to experience this episode from it's best possible side aswell.

Edit: Typo

[mrschaatsbergen]

Whoops! Sorry, I read the post too quickly I suppose.

[DjNDB]

By the way - I noticed the same thing in exactly one of the Wallace and Gromit Episodes.

It was "The Last Resort" during chapter two while examining objects in the dining room. Sound played fine later in the game on the same objects.

[bobhobbit]

It sounds like something is causing the sound in the game to clip (go over the maximum allowed volume) which makes things sound horrible and distorted-like. I've had the same problem here. So far Tales episode 2 is the only place I've encountered it. (I haven't played W&G.)

Edit: using SB Audigy 2 platinum on XP SP3.

[VoodooKing]

I have the same problem. Using a Soundblaster X-FI Extreme Music on Vista 64bit.

The problem becomes more apparent when Guybrush talks to the fish guy in the bait and mast repair shop.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

I made a short Video. Sound playback stops working properly when i get closer to the Royal Chamber, where a lot of sound is going on.

That problem is gone with the new Version of chapter 2.

[suppafoxe]

Originally Posted by Morkev

Just to notify, same problem here on the exact same places.
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro, newest drivers, Vista HP 64-bit.

Same problem here, the sound can get clipped, repeated, overlapped, missing, all kind of unplayable stuff.
Yesterday I found a workaroud: if I launch the TOMI EP2 shortcut just after the windows desktop is visible, the sound works fine!
I just played the first five minutes, so I do not know if the problem will arise again, but if I launch the game "normally" after windows finishes to load its stuff, the sound is flawed beginning from the start menu and on to the game.
When launching the game as soon as possible, I get the game launcher that says the "no connection to the site bla bla" and then I just launch the game and it works.

My windows installation is quite clean, at startups I only have the antivirus (bitdefender), the nvidia driver stuff, and the sound stuff, so I don't know why if I launch the game just before windows finishes crunching (don't know what) the sound works.

Things I tried without success:
-Removing LAN cable
-Manually killing antivirus, windows notify programs, audio and video exe from the task manager before launching the game
-Removing antivirus, audio and video exes from the windows automatic startup


For reference, I did a couple of tests in the pasth weeks:

My initial system (bought a couple of years ago):
WinXP 32bit SP3
Athlon 64 4000+
2GB Ram DDR333
Asus A8N-E with nForce4 chipset
Audio Realtek ALC850 (integrated)
Geforce 7900 GTX

I played TOMI EP1 (Detail Level 9) and I only got sound glitches when the screen was full of 3D data (complex scenery or many characters). The framerate was fine, but the sound began to get cut sometimes; I resolved this by lowering the detail level (at 1) in certain areas of the game

I played TOMI EP2 and the sound glitches were more frequent, lowering the Detail level just removed some of them, but there still were some. However I played the game start to finish.

I thought that maybe with a new video card the casual glitches would go away, so I bought the new MSI Geforce 9600GSO 1GB, the one without the need for an external power cable.
I launched TOMI EP2, the framerate was a bit smoother but the sound glitches were much much worse than before. The game was unplayable.

I then tought that maybe, with a new audio card, the game would be fine.
I bought a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro, but the glitches were still there, horrible as always.

I then updated the nForce chipset drivers, and verified that both audio and video drivers were up do date, but still sound glitches.

I then searched in the nvidia and creative forums, and found out that a problem with the nForce4 chipset and audio cards was well known from some years now.
It seems that the nVidia chipset is not fully "PCI compatible" and does some strange things that make the other data on the bus (ie sound) to be delayed.
This can explain why the sound is being played cut, repeated, missing,etc.

Some people resolved this by sending their audio cards to creative and get a new chip firmware, some other resolved this by changing PEG and PCI stuff in the bios.

Final Words: I still do not understand why I can play the game with this trick.. I tought that my system was "old" but that's not true because I can play the game in certain conditions. Now I'm waiting for EP3, the situation may change for unknown motives.

PS: there is a big difference in the glitches between EP1 and EP2, EP1 is playable with some glitches, EP2 is unplayable.
Other 3D games and applications seems to work fine.

PPS: thanks Telltale, the game is awesome!!