Have you thought about using a different API to try and solve these problems? I belive the Miles system is quite good, if not a little pricey compared to DirectSound.

Link here - http://www.radgametools.com/miles.htm

Ian

This may or may not be relavent and only be coincidental, but PitSpotter has taken it into it's head to only work intermittently. This IS since U22. Prior to that it worked flawlessly. Not just me either. Maybe a new version is required for the new sound system. . Kegetys?

So synthesised sounds are here to stay?

Thank God - none of this sampled rubbish people actually think is any good. Sure it might sound nice, but it's as useful as a gritty sponge.

When I'm just standing on track and then changing the sound blocks option clickng trough it really quick, my LFS freezes.

I found another quite weird thing about sound today.

I windowed LFS by pressing Shift+F4 and some "rythmical" crackles came up right away. They were quite loud and completely independant on what I was doing. Low revs, high revs, window, fullscreen, no matter what, those sounds was still there, it sounded like an old LP vinyl or scratched CD. Those crackling suddenly disappeared after approx 1m30sec.

It never happedned before, just now on U22 patch.

I installed the u22 patch, a couple of days ago. Yesterday I tried the F1 on the oval. Ohh boy - When you come close to the wall - The crackles and pops are disgusting. But why did I write it then ?

I have played around with midifiles and soundcards and soundfonts, for a while now. If you use a tool, for editing music, as Cubase ligth - You will experience just the same crackles, when you overload the system. (To many tracks, using big soundfonts, at the same time)

On a smaller system, with a Soundblaster Audigy, using a large piano soundfont - I get 99,0 % of a Chopin piece rigth, untill he really quickly starts hitting the piano. Again these crackles and pops destroys the music.

But in both instances, you can cure "the disease" by turning som buffersizes up and down. Not all systems are the same, especially the soundcards are not. Could it be a solution, to work out a tool which adjusted those buffers and the other thingies, one adjust in a "music system" ? - I recon that there is not the big differences between a music system, and a game sound system - Both have to work hard, and needs to be adjusted some times - Or am I all wrong

Quote from alland44 :

I installed the u22 patch, a couple of days ago. Yesterday I tried the F1 on the oval. Ohh boy - When you come close to the wall - The crackles and pops are disgusting. But why did I write it then ?

I have played around with midifiles and soundcards and soundfonts, for a while now. If you use a tool, for editing music, as Cubase ligth - You will experience just the same crackles, when you overload the system. (To many tracks, using big soundfonts, at the same time)

On a smaller system, with a Soundblaster Audigy, using a large piano soundfont - I get 99,0 % of a Chopin piece rigth, untill he really quickly starts hitting the piano. Again these crackles and pops destroys the music.

But in both instances, you can cure "the disease" by turning som buffersizes up and down. Not all systems are the same, especially the soundcards are not. Could it be a solution, to work out a tool which adjusted those buffers and the other thingies, one adjust in a "music system" ? - I recon that there is not the big differences between a music system, and a game sound system - Both have to work hard, and needs to be adjusted some times - Or am I all wrong

Well... a music track is always the same: it will have the exact same sequence in all cases. In LFS you might start braking, crash, add revs, etc. it ican be unpredictable... So it's definitely not exactly the same (mind you, I did not say you said it is exactly the same).

I think I just found the bug with the sound - haven't tested extensively but switching the mirrors off seems to eliminate it completely! Switching them back on seemed to return it.

EDIT: Having tested some more, it seems that the "ploping sound" was caused by that. I still get very slightly clipping from time to time but its barely noticable.

So LFS mirrors don't just mirror image, they also mirror sounds, how cool is that!

Maybe the drawing of mirrors takes place at a crucial point in code, causing these crackles as a sideeffect? I'll try that out as soon as I'm home...

Yes, atleast for me it does remove all weirdness of the sounds. When I turn the mirrors off I can't hear the crackling or popping or the weird left/right bouncing when drivng front of another car. Nicely spotted axus

Quote from PLAYLIFE :

Well... a music track is always the same: it will have the exact same sequence in all cases. In LFS you might start braking, crash, add revs, etc. it ican be unpredictable... So it's definitely not exactly the same (mind you, I did not say you said it is exactly the same).

No, it's not... playing an MP3 is always the same, but actually creating music (using Cubase SX and a gazillion softsynths (VSTi)), is something very similar to what Scawen is doing I'd imagine. The sequencer (Cubase, and LFS) only tells the soundgenerator (synth) what notes should be played (pitch and instrument), and the soundgenerator then creates the sound on-the-fly by creating a waveform that is returned to the sequencer. The sequencer then mixes all available waveforms and outputs that into a buffer.

Maybe Vista uses a sort of ASIO driver to dump the buffers in (which causes these problems, normal drivers just stop playing).

Just tested it and I can confirm that disabling the mirror improves sound quality a lot. I'm not sure if it's 100% perfect and I think I still heard a little noise/crackling here and there when in a full AI field, but it's much better.

just tested u22 on vista rc2. ran fine, unlocked fine, except for the heli cam missing synth sounds that also happens on xp sp2.

cmi onboard.

Creative have released new Vista beta (32 and 64bit) drivers for Audigy and X-Fi cards. I'm not running Vista, but maybe these may help smooth out some people's sound problems. The link is-

http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

Quote from axus :

I think I just found the bug with the sound - haven't tested extensively but switching the mirrors off seems to eliminate it completely! Switching them back on seemed to return it.

EDIT: Having tested some more, it seems that the "ploping sound" was caused by that. I still get very slightly clipping from time to time but its barely noticable.

Thanks a lot for this bug detection! And thanks also to the people who tested and confirmed it.

It's because I used the graphical view direction as part of the calculation for the different things which happen in each ear. The new system can generate sounds at any time, including while LFS is drawing the mirror view. The bug is that I did not isolate the view direction and use only the main view direction. The symptom is that any sound which is different in the left and right ears, would be generally swapping randomly and so causing discontinuities in the waveform (audible as clicks).

I'll get this and the other "LFS sound bugs" fixed first thing before going on with the underlying "Windows / Vista sound bugs".

what vista bugs? i played game just fine?

Kid, did it work for you on default settings (Sound Blocks = 2) ? And does it still work if you set it down to 1 ?

A lot of people with Vista need to set Sound Blocks to about 4 to eliminate skipping...

did i get that correctly
you calcualted sound directions using graphical info and if the timing was out of synch the sound was mirrored all the time when it happend while the rear view got drawn ?

and appologies for for the other thread we kind of got carried away

I didnt read everything, but i ve also sound problems in my headset.
Some"pops" too.
I didnt had that on older patchs.

Quote from lake10 :

I didnt read everything, but i ve also sound problems in my headset.
Some"pops" too.
I didnt had that on older patchs.

You MUST read EVERYTHING, otherwise this forum is useless. You have problems, but have to previous 20 odd posts helped (mirror things). Have you tried them? Anything to add other than you have a bug we already know about? Even then, you tell us NOTHING about your computer (XP/Vista, Intel/AMD etc etc).

Sorry to sound harsh, but this test forum relies on people READING the warning, READING the threads, and ACTING upon what they read. When you have read these bits of information, done a proper test, and worked out whether your post was needed, then you may edit your post above with the new info, or remove it.

Scawen/Mods: You can delete my post if you don't think it's needed, or if the deletion of his post makes mine useless. Sorry if I was in the wrong writing it. For the record, disabling the mirror improves my sound somewhat, but I haven't tested extensively enough to write anything that hasn't already been written.

Hello!

Vista users, please visit this thread and try out the small test program.

We'll find out if DirectSound suffers from the same issues as waveOut.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=13844

Watching the STCC feature replay, I played with the mirrors toggling, and that is for sure the cause of crackling, because with mirrors = noticible aibet minimal crackling, but without mirrors, it becomes clear as day.

Quote from tristancliffe :

You MUST read EVERYTHING, otherwise this forum is useless. You have problems, but have to previous 20 odd posts helped (mirror things). Have you tried them? Anything to add other than you have a bug we already know about? Even then, you tell us NOTHING about your computer (XP/Vista, Intel/AMD etc etc).

Sorry to sound harsh, but this test forum relies on people READING the warning, READING the threads, and ACTING upon what they read. When you have read these bits of information, done a proper test, and worked out whether your post was needed, then you may edit your post above with the new info, or remove it.

Scawen/Mods: You can delete my post if you don't think it's needed, or if the deletion of his post makes mine useless. Sorry if I was in the wrong writing it. For the record, disabling the mirror improves my sound somewhat, but I haven't tested extensively enough to write anything that hasn't already been written.

You dont have to be so aggresive.
I saw some ppl asking if others guy had problem, i just said yes since patch U22.
Sorry for my useless post.........