more sound problems

[AncientRein]

I was contacted by someone regarding my game.
They are trying to run my game on windows vista and are
complaining about the sound "flickering". Below are the computer specs.

OS: Windows Vista SP1
RAM: 3072 MB
Processor: Intel (R) Core (TM) 2 Duo 3.00 Go
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
Sound: Onboard Sound Controller
Disk space: 1st 221Go and 2nd 266 Go
DirectX 10.0c

I know others are having sound issues as well and well i'm pretty sick
and tired hearing about friggin Vista issues.
Maybe a fix will show up soon.

regards

[Lyberodoggy]

What is the format of the sounds that flicker? MP3? WAV?

[AncientRein]

i only use wav files.
I try to keep everything very simple.
I seldom even use more than one chanel at a time.

[Lyberodoggy]

well, can you tell your customer to try to recreate the problem, while recording the result (one way to do so is through Windows' sound recorder by redirecting the card's output to the input)? Hearing the problem could help identifying it... I never heared a single sound flicker...

[AncientRein]

Im gonna have to see if I can get any more info from the customer.
I dont know if they would be willing to record anything and
forward it to me. There has never been a single sound complaint
on XP thats for sure.

[CBSection31]

AncientRein, did you encrypt the sound files when you compiled the game in AM? It's a checkbox under Distribution Options. Doing this turns out to have been the problem with the other error messages, so it might be your problem here, as well.

[AncientRein]

hi chris ,
Saw your other post about the encryption.
I looked at that and it wasnt the case.
I did not select that option and I also looked
at the files in the folder as well.

I suspect vista for some rediculous reason
but who knows. Ill figure it out.


thanks

[CBSection31]

I would ask the customer(s) to open the audio files directly in Windows Media Player and see if they skip. To my knowledge, Adventure Maker simply uses an invisible instance of Windows Media Player to play the files, so playback in Media Player should be identical to AM.

Also, is it ALL sound that causes problem, or only music? I ask because WAV files can get pretty large in file size if they are of a sizable length, and the computer has to load the entire WAV file into it's memory at once. If a WAV file is a large file size, then slower computers may not be able to load the ENTIRE file into memory at once, so instead they load the file in chucks. If this is the case, then short sound effects (~1 second long) should play fine, whereas longer pieces (>15 seconds) will have small pauses or flickers, as the computer loads additional chunks of the sound file into memory.

[AncientRein]

all valid points.

I am waiting for additional details from this person.
I sent an e-mail earlier tonight..
What I asked them to do was to try the audio files
in the areas subfolder ( as you suggested ).
The majority of the sounds are pretty small
but I just dont have enough info yet.
I was thinking maybe disk chatter from not having
alot of ram. It may be that the computer is
underpowered for wonderful vista.
I have tested my game on slow computers with xp
So I just keep ending up back at the "new"operating system.

Ill let you know.

Thanks chris the input is appreciated.

[CBSection31]

My pleasure! Keep me updated as you get more info!

I agree that Vista can be a pain. Ugh, how I wish it had never been made!