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[Hardware] Creative X-FI and sound issues

ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
edited November 2015 in Troubleshooting
I have gog version and after the intro, only music works well. There is no voice, footstep, spell sound.
Post edited by Gate70 on

Comments

  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    We'll need hardware & OS info.

    Also, please check Options / Sound and make sure the individual volume levels are turned up.
  • ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
    os: win7 64bits with all updates
    hardware: xfi titanium with last driver 2.40.8
    gpu: nvidia geforce gtx780 with last driver
    sound kit: 5.1


    I tried with my laptop (win vista, realtek sound card, stereo) and I have no problem.

    I think it's a bug with driver sound but I have the last driver for my sound blaster card. I d'ont know how solve this problem

    "Also, please check Options / Sound and make sure the individual volume levels are turned up"
    I try and same thing.

    I have voice in cinematics but when HRothgar came in inn to speak, there is no voice. In game I have only music but no voice, no footstep. If I exit any house and I enter anew, sound came back. But sound disappeared if I speak with an npc or ramdomly.
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    edited October 2014
    There are known issues with the Creative X-Fi drivers. Have a look at the following for help:

    https://beamdog.zendesk.com/entries/31177538-Troubleshooting-Reinstall-OpenAL

    OpenAL_Soft has been known to solve most of these issues.
  • ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
    edited October 2014
    Thanks.
    It works but not all the time.

    With openal_soft, if I have music in the main menu at game launched, game works very well (I have voice, sound, footstep)

    If I don't have music in the main menu (options are the same than if it works), game crash.

    On ten game launched, It works one time.

    In BG1 EE, game worked without openal soft.
  • ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
    edited October 2014
    update:
    I try a new version of openal_soft here http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html and it works all the time.

    Maybe you could update openal soft in beamdog site.

    I find here that problem with open all could arrive with the last driver of sound blaster
    http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=708255

    I don't know if driver is the real problem but maybe because in BGEE, I play with the penultimate (at the time of BG1 EE launched, it was the last driver) driver (2.17.0008)
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    Thanks for the update! Glad to hear you got it working - we'll update the version we're sending out.
  • FranpaFranpa Member Posts: 637
    Yeah when I saw you offering the alternative version I checked the website and downloaded the newest version to apply to both Baldur's Gate games, hopefully this will resolve some weird extremely minor audio issues in them that I was experiencing.
  • ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
    Cerevant said:

    Thanks for the update! Glad to hear you got it working - we'll update the version we're sending out.

    Thanks.
    Could you report to creative because a bug report from a developper could be usefull to make a new driver without this problem?
    If it's a simple gamer that report, they never make a new driver.
  • FranpaFranpa Member Posts: 637
    edited October 2014
    I might remove OpenAL_Soft, after experimenting with it in Winamp (With the WUMPUS Plugin) it seems to only produce mono audio (Or an extremely narrow sound stage)...
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    The installer we provide puts the .dll in the game directory, so it should not affect any other software.

    I do believe that we have reported this to Creative. I'll check again.
  • FranpaFranpa Member Posts: 637
    edited November 2014
    Oh no you're correct about that, I downloded the version from its developer website (Sourceforge) which by default comes in an EXE that presumably replaces your system32 copy (Which would be bad). I opened the EXE file in 7zip, extracted the DLL file and simply placed it in the same place as Winamp.exe and also installed the WUMPUS plugin for Winamp.

    WUMPUS adds OpenAL output support to Winamp and by having OpenAL_soft's DLL file in the same place as Winamp.exe it forces the WUMPUS plugin to use OpenAL_Soft instead of regular OpenAL.

    OpenAL_Soft produces mono output in Winamp, OpenAL produces Stereo, DirectSound produces stereo etc.
  • stockduckstockduck Member Posts: 5
    Hi!

    My friend and i bought the game with 1.3 now- because the german language is now added.
    But we both have a real big problem with the game. We can only hear the background music, sometimes we can also hear the some ingame voice. But no sounds like steps, spells etc.

    Yes, i googled etc. and found some hints. It is the X-Fi (Titanium) what we both have installed in our system. (i guess so)

    The interessting part is- the original game (from www.gog.com) works fine. Even with EAX support (creative alchemy) and it sounds great!

    Ill add my dxdiag. Please... can this be fixed? We both really want to play this im Multiplayer :(

    Ty

  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Prepping for merge
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Hi @stockduck‌
    Have merged your notes into this thread, have a look and see if the link provided by Cerevant helps.
    Thanks
  • stockduckstockduck Member Posts: 5
    edited December 2014
    @ Admin

    Ty! Havnt found this thread before. Sry about this

    @ Topic
    Hm... i tried this now... did not help. But perhaps i am too stupid to use it correctly.

    Edit:

    Ok, pleas help me, i have no clue what i have to do now.

    Status:

    Fresh install of OpenAL from the BG2:EE folder (steam). Last driver for my soundcard.

    I dont get it with that link. http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

    Ok, i downloaded it, i read the manual.

    I checked it with the two cmds- here are the results (first is x64, 2nd x86):

    Available playback devices:
    Generic Software on Lautsprecher (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Generic Software on SPDIF-Out (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Available capture devices:
    Mikrofon (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Digital-In (Creative SB X-Fi)
    "Was Sie hören" (Creative SB X-
    Default playback device: Generic Software on Lautsprecher (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Default capture device: Mikrofon (Creative SB X-Fi)
    ALC version: 3888378.0

    ** Info for device "Generic Software on Lautsprecher (Creative SB X-Fi)" **
    ALC version: 1.1
    ALC extensions:
    ALC_ENUMERATE_ALL_EXT, ALC_ENUMERATION_EXT, ALC_EXT_CAPTURE, ALC_EXT_EFX
    OpenAL vendor string: Creative Labs Inc.
    OpenAL renderer string: Software
    OpenAL version string: 1.1
    OpenAL extensions:
    EAX, EAX2.0, EAX3.0, EAX4.0, EAX5.0, EAX3.0EMULATED, EAX4.0EMULATED,
    AL_EXT_OFFSET, AL_EXT_LINEAR_DISTANCE, AL_EXT_EXPONENT_DISTANCE
    EFX version: 1.0
    Max auxiliary sends: 1
    Supported filters:
    !!! none !!!
    Supported effects:
    !!! none !!!
    Available playback devices:
    SB X-Fi Audio [0001]
    Generic Software on Lautsprecher (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Generic Software on SPDIF-Out (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Available capture devices:
    Mikrofon (Creative SB X-Fi)
    Digital-In (Creative SB X-Fi)
    "Was Sie hören" (Creative SB X-
    Default playback device: SB X-Fi Audio [0001]
    Default capture device: Mikrofon (Creative SB X-Fi)
    ALC version: 2686924.1994682912

    ALC Error: Invalid enum parameter passed as an argument to an ALC call. (0xa003), @ 134
    ** Info for device "SB X-Fi Audio [0001]" **
    ALC version: 1.1
    ALC extensions:
    None
    OpenAL vendor string: Creative Labs Inc.
    OpenAL renderer string: SB X-Fi Audio [0001]
    OpenAL version string: OpenAL version 1.1
    OpenAL extensions:
    EAX
    EAX1.0
    EAX2.0
    EAX3.0
    EAX4.0
    EAX5.0

    EFX version: 1.0
    Max auxiliary sends: 2
    Supported filters:
    !!! none !!!
    Supported effects:
    !!! none !!!

    Can u tell me what i have to do know? To copy any of the dlls (like in the manual) does not help me.
    I am really confused.

    Thank you very much!!!





    Post edited by stockduck on
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    @stockduck‌
    I think you should be able to run the exe at this location, installing to your 783 folder for BGII:EE
    https://beamdog.zendesk.com/entries/31177538-Troubleshooting-Reinstall-OpenAL

    There were other posts about installing older versions of drivers for the X-Fi Titanium sound card, or changing card settings. These include details of people installing openal and so on. It looks to me like no one answer works for everyone so you may have to try one suggestion at a time to see if any help you.

    http://forum.baldursgate.com/categories/windows-pc
    e.g.
    http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/35183/no-sound
    http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/9178/possible-solution-for-creative-x-fi-owners-having-issues-with-static
    http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30246/openal32-missing
    http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/7463/no-sound-update-how-to-fix-it
  • stockduckstockduck Member Posts: 5
    Ohhhhhhhhhh...

    Thank you very much!!!

    For me- the first link helped so much. Now i have all sounds ingame. I am so happy right now. Now we can start our multiplayer session. It is so weird (just for me?!) with all that versions von OpenAl...

    Thank you again!

    I wish you all happy christmas :smiley:


  • ultimaultima Member Posts: 24
    Cerevant said:

    The installer we provide puts the .dll in the game directory, so it should not affect any other software.

    I do believe that we have reported this to Creative. I'll check again.

    Have you reported this problem to creative?

  • patricklibudapatricklibuda Member Posts: 3
    edited November 2015
    Hi,

    I have an odd sound problem with the enhanced editions of BG 1&2 (the current GOG versions).

    BG1EE:
    When I start a game and walk around, the bloke or girl I happen to be controlling only acknowledges commands very rarely - waiting until he or she has finished acknowledging also helps sometimes - however, the tutors and the girl for whom you are supposed to find a book also stay numb (o.k. I did not try further...) - the classic non-EE version, however, works fine.

    BG2EE:
    When I start a game, there is no speech until the golem comes. After the other one has said something like 'no matter, they will only be a slight delay' and he vanishes the game hangs - and stays that way until you press Alt-F4 and then click on cancel - then things continue and work fine (o.k. I only checked until Imoen starts to talk...). Here also the classic version works fine.

    However, in both cases, the problems disappear when I change my sound device from Soundblaster X-Fi to Nvidia Geforce via my telly (I use a telly as monitor).

    And particularly with BG2EE I also have sound artifacts during video clip playback (e.g. the intro).

    The funny thing is that both BGEE games are supposed to be using OpenAL for playing sound - and who coughed that up? Creative! and they also use it for their EAX 3D sound stuff under Vista or later... Normally you would expect the X-Fi to work flawlessly under OpenAL and these two games so far are the only ones where I have this kind of problem. (The problems occur regardless of which mode the card is in (Games or Entertainment), speaker set-up (5.1 or 2.0), or audio set-up (32bit/96kHz or 16bit/48kHz).)

    By the way, yes I am using the most recent (Win 10 compatible) driver version ;-). Updating did not help.

    It would be nice if the folks at Beamdog could look into the matter of sound playback. From what I have read on the net, it would appear that there are a number of sound chips (e.g. Realtek) with similar problems. And despite the age of both games, there still are problems.


    Cheers
    Patrick
    Post edited by patricklibuda on
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 6,002
    ah yes, I had the exact same issue, and what it is, is your sound card, apparently the EE games aren't a fan of some sound drivers with that particular card ( I have the same one) so what I had to do to fix the problem is download an older version of the driver and that fixed it right away, it would be nice if they did an update to the game that can actually support that card properly, but until then, the only way you are fixing that is an older version, unfortunately I am on my laptop so I cant tell you what version I have ( since my pc is over 400 km away) but just go look for driver downloads of your card and download and install the driver that is one stage older than the driver you currently have and it should work, if not, then go one stage older than that, I had to download an older driver and when I installed it, the sound was perfectly fine
  • patricklibudapatricklibuda Member Posts: 3
    edited November 2015
    An older driver version or an older OpenAL version? I read somewhere that copying an alternative version (with current version numbers) solved the problem for them. Anyway, going back to an older driver version would not help as I am using Win 8.1 64bit and the penultimate driver version from which I updated was the one released specifically for Win 8.1 compatibility (i.e. anything older would not work at all never mind with the EE games). I presume you are still running Windows 7 ;-).

    After reading the according suggestion on the net, I did try copying the two OpenAL files from my Windows system directory to the BGEE directories but alas to no avail - despite the fact that they have the same version numbers as the OpenAL files that were supposed to work. Might try older OpenAL files one of these days though.

    Anyway, it would be nice if the folks at Beamdog could be so nice as to look into the issue again. And while they are at it, they could add support for EAX 4 or even 5 as well ;-).
  • Gate70Gate70 Member, Developer Posts: 3,883
    Hi @patricklibuda I've moved your report into the Troubleshooting section as it affects more than one game and is a hardware specific issue. I don't know if any of the suggestions above will help, but worth a try.

    I'll give this a nudge internally in case there is anything that can be done, however making a change for what appears to be a driver issue could have unintended consequences elsewhere (e.g. for other pc soundcards, on other platforms that the games are available on, or break it again with a future Creative driver).
    Thanks
  • patricklibudapatricklibuda Member Posts: 3
    edited November 2015
    Hi,

    Thanks :-). By the way, I have since endeavoured to try out other, older versions of OpenAL but the result was the same.

    There appears to be something under the bonnet that is in dire need of checking ;-).


    Cheers
    Patrick
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