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Author Topic: audio hiccupz  (Read 3567 times)
Sethelberry
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audio hiccupz
« on: August 01, 2006, 03:18:36 am »

This may have been covered before but I've searched the message boards for hours without finding my exact problem.   I can run the game (version .50)  great with or without sound,  but when sound is on it stutters or hiccups throughout the entire thing,  whether voice is on or off and whether its run on mixSDL or on openAL.  I don't have ANYTHING running in the background and no spyware either.  I have a 1.6 Ghz with Windows XP. Any suggestions?  THANKS!

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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2006, 11:01:43 am »

First of all, did you restart UQM after switching from OpenAL to MixSDL (a restart is required for this change in the setup menu to take effect)? If not, you may have been using OpenAL all the time. Also, have you tried decreasing sound quality?

If that doesn't help, I'd try looking for sound driver problems and performance problems. If you're running in OpenGL mode with a slow graphics card, too heavy filtering or bad drivers, you may experience performance issues; however, in this case, I'd expect jerky motion as well as sound stuttering. If you have the same problems in 320x240 unfiltered pure SDL mode, I think we can rule that out as the source of your problem.

Finally, I'd start upgrading drivers, especially those of the sound card.
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Sethelberry
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2006, 04:45:54 am »

Ok,  I DID restart after making changes,  didn't help.  Also I think I have an INTEL ac'97 soundcard,  but after scouring for drivers I only found 2,  neither of which helped at all (actually had NO sound when installing those drivers,  had to reinstall my old one).  I ran it with no sound it runs just fine,  didn't know if there is any other solution,  I know you aren't gateway people who know my computer so I appreciate any and all help you have/will give me!   Maybe if there is a way to try running just the old school sound with no speech?   I tried turnin the speech volume down to 0 but that didn't help the problem.  I love the musc in this game and it almost is sacreligious to play without it!   
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2006, 01:11:52 pm »

Turning the speech volume to 0 disables speech (you should notice that the oscilloscope in the dialogues follows the music instead of the speech), so the speech is not the problem.

The Intel AC '97 standard comes in dozens of variations that are mostly compatible with each other; if you're looking for drivers, you should look for one for the exact chipset used in your system. I'll try to find a machine with XP and AC '97 sound for testing and see if I can reproduce your problem.

In the meantime, let's take a look at system load. Some apparently harmless software has been known to cause sound stuttering problems in lots of games. For example, I tracked down one particularly hard-to-diagnose case to Ahead/Nero InCD. Even though you have no visible programs running, there may be quite a lot of stuff going on. Check the process list in the XP Task Manager; posting the contents of this would make it easier for me to check whether this is the cause of your problems.
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Sethelberry
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2006, 12:14:47 am »

ok.  Not sure how to post my processes without manually typing each one of them,  any way to cut and paste?   Also,  the EXACT hardware is intel (r) 82801AA AC'97 audio controller.  I googled that + XP and drivers,  like I said,  didn't come up with much.  If I HAVE to play without sound I guess I have to,  but there HAS to be a way for it to work,  since it works ok on others computers,  right?   
As far as my exact computer specs,  I'm not really sure,  its a hand-me-down from my brother,  Let me know what info you need and I'll try to get it for you.  Thanks so much!   
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2006, 01:45:16 am »

Not sure how to post my processes without manually typing each one of them,  any way to cut and paste?
[Alt]+[PrintScrn] does a screen dump of the current window; this should be sufficient (albeit crude) if all processes are visible.

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Also,  the EXACT hardware is intel (r) 82801AA AC'97 audio controller.
That sounds familiar; I'll see what I can dig up tomorrow.

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I googled that + XP and drivers,  like I said,  didn't come up with much.
Intel refuses to provide chipset reference drivers, so you'll have to check the motherboard manufacturer instead (lovely, eh?). If the motherboard manufacturer is Intel, you will want to start with their motherboard support page.

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If I HAVE to play without sound I guess I have to,  but there HAS to be a way for it to work,  since it works ok on others computers,  right?
Have you tried using Linux? Wink

Anyway, speech and everything works fine on the Pentium III 500 MHz with 320 MB RAM, nVidia Riva TNT and SB Live! I'm currently typing this on, so I seriously doubt your machine lacks the necessary processing power.

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As far as my exact computer specs,  I'm not really sure,  its a hand-me-down from my brother,  Let me know what info you need and I'll try to get it for you.  Thanks so much!   
Now that we've figured out that it's an integrated sound chip, the motherboard type will be useful to know. I guess CPU type and frequency, RAM size and graphics adapter model would also be useful information in ruling out performance problems.
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2006, 01:02:54 pm »

Well, I can't get UQM 0.5 ("typical" install, i.e. 3DO speech/music) to stutter or anything like that in dialogue, planet landing, combat or anything in XP Home on a Celeron M at 1.3 GHz (768 MB RAM) with an Intel 82801DB sound chip ("Conexant AC-Link" driver, version 6.13.10.8310; preinstalled) and an Intel 82855GM display adapter in OpenGL mode at 1024x768 with HQ filtering and the whole works, not to mention a screenful of background processes including Firefox, AVG and a system tray full of other odds and ends. This is in MixSDL mode; the initialisation process aborts in OpenAL mode with:

Code:
Couldn't initialize OpenAL: 40961

The UQM/SDL sound code seems to be quite robust. Unless your graphics adapter is very old, the problem is likely a broken driver or some weird software sucking up cycles.
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Sethelberry
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2006, 04:53:07 am »

OK!   Downloaded this little program which basically analyzes my comp and gives the specs,  this is what I have.   I HOPE this is what you need.  As a side point I installed it on my brothers comp.  and it worked perfectly first time,  no changes or anything needed.  I have a BRAND NEW video card ATi Radeon with 256 MB so I don't think thats the prob. 
Oh and also,  since downloading new drivers and trying to "rollback to old driver"  Now my sound doesn't work at all with anything.  FUN!   I love computers!   
I really appreciate all your help!!!!




 Operating System         System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)         Emachines
Enclosure Type: Other
Processor a         Main Circuit Board b
1.20 gigahertz Intel Celeron
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache         Board: Trigem Computer, Inc. Lomita
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix 1.03 03/06/2002
Drives         Memory Modules c,d
156.55 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
25.26 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

LITE-ON LTR-24102M [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

Maxtor 6Y120P0 [Hard drive] (122.94 GB) -- drive 1, s/n Y413WNNE, rev YAR41BW0, SMART Status: Healthy
Maxtor 91360U4 [Hard drive] (13.61 GB) -- drive 2, s/n C403FRWC, rev MA540PR0, SMART Status: Healthy
ST320011A [Hard drive] (20.02 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 3HT2QY0M, rev 3.10, SMART Status: Healthy         254 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'M1' has 128 MB
Slot 'M2' has 128 MB
     Local Drive Volumes
     
      
c: (NTFS on drive 0)    20.01 GB    8.19 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 1)    122.94 GB    13.74 GB free
e: (NTFS on drive 2)    13.61 GB    3.34 GB free
     Network Drives
     None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details)         Printers
local user accounts   last logon
 Owner    8/4/2006 10:48:12 PM    (admin)
local system accounts
 Administrator    never    (admin)
 ASPNET    never    
 Guest    8/4/2006 7:52:53 PM    
 HelpAssistant    never    
 SUPPORT_388945a0    never    

DISABLED Marks a disabled account;   LOCKED OUT Marks a locked account
        
HP OfficeJet V40xi    on DOT4_001
Controllers         Display
Standard floppy disk controller
Intel(r) 82801AA Bus Master IDE Controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]         Intel(R) 82810E Graphics Controller (Microsoft Corporation) [Display adapter]
RADEON 9200 PRO Family (Microsoft Corporation) [Display adapter]
RADEON 9200 PRO SEC Family (Microsoft Corporation) [Display adapter]
Default Monitor
OEC 15.7 [Monitor] (15.7"vis, January 2003)
Bus Adapters         Multimedia
Intel(r) 82801AA USB Universal Host Controller         Intel(r) 82801AA AC'97 Audio Controller
MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device
Standard Game Port
Communications         Other Devices
      

 

        Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Compatible Mouse
Generic USB Hub
USB Root Hub
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #8 on: August 05, 2006, 01:52:21 pm »

Sorry about the disappearing sound card bit. I suggest you remove all sound drivers and reinstall the correct one instead.

That specification dump helped a bit. The motherboard seems to be from some obscure Korean manufacturer (Trigem) that doesn't seem to believe in end-user support for motherboards (no mention of motherboards anywhere); I guess they aren't selling motherboards to consumers directly at all. Cute.

This means the support responsibility is shifted to the machine manufacturer; apparently eMachines in your case. As I don't know the exact machine model number, the best I can do is direct you to eMachines support, where the correct drivers seem to be available.

If I'm reading the driver description correctly, you're using Microsoft's display drivers for the Radeon 9200 card. Microsoft invariably has practically useless OpenGL support, so I strongly suggest you upgrade to ATI's reference drivers.
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Sethelberry
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2006, 05:52:53 pm »

YOU TRULY ARE ENLIGHTENED!!!!!   
I installed the ATI driver and went to the emachines support page and got new drivers and now it works PERFECTLY!!!   Also my computer runs a hell of a lot faster now.  Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!
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Re: audio hiccupz
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2006, 09:57:03 pm »

YOU TRULY ARE ENLIGHTENED!!!!!   
Can I quote that on my next research grant application? Wink

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I installed the ATI driver and went to the emachines support page and got new drivers and now it works PERFECTLY!!!   Also my computer runs a hell of a lot faster now.
I'd ask for 3DMark scores for comparison, but I doubt you'd want to put the system back the way it was to get the "before" figures. Wink

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Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!
Glad to help, Seth. Blow up an Ur-Quan for me, OK?
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