Various sound/audio problems
yuffiedamus
Member Posts: 3
Heya folks, Julius Borislov asked me to post my thread here instead of the steam community due to the large playerbase!
In BG:EE I do have lots of strange sound behaviour and/or problems. For instance, almost all character sounds seem to disappear after the first party companion says something. Although I checked the "always" button at select- and command sounds, I will only get a single spoken line of any companion, after that no battle cries, no "i like your reputation", no casts, no selection audio. But I do know that there should be audio because the subtitles say so. Also all the soundfiles of Npcs (greetings and so on) are gone. The whole world feels just very very silent. Only after a complete exit and restart of the game, another single audio will be played.
Another problem is that all the UI sounds are gone. In BG you used to have some 'scroll opening' at mage spells e.g., or the sound of a picked up and/or dropped sword if you did something in your inventory. Everything is just gone, adding to the feeling of a very silent world.
Perhaps the strangest of all my problems is that there is no freakin' way to use my speaker for BG:EE. Despite all settings, even If i fully deactivate my line-in, where the headphones are plugged in, the audio (or whats left of it) will only be played via headphones. It's like there is no digital audio out for BG:EE, but even BG vanilla had no problems at all with it.
I admit my soundcard is a lil' bit older, it's the Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion. But hell, she did cost nearly 200€ and is still one of the best soundcards out there. I do run the newest Win10x64 drivers and almost everything else just works fine.
I tried mixing with all the possible settings, I tried to verify my game files, I did google (many problems, few solutions). Is there any chance of fixing these game-destroying audio problems?
As always, thanks in advance!
In BG:EE I do have lots of strange sound behaviour and/or problems. For instance, almost all character sounds seem to disappear after the first party companion says something. Although I checked the "always" button at select- and command sounds, I will only get a single spoken line of any companion, after that no battle cries, no "i like your reputation", no casts, no selection audio. But I do know that there should be audio because the subtitles say so. Also all the soundfiles of Npcs (greetings and so on) are gone. The whole world feels just very very silent. Only after a complete exit and restart of the game, another single audio will be played.
Another problem is that all the UI sounds are gone. In BG you used to have some 'scroll opening' at mage spells e.g., or the sound of a picked up and/or dropped sword if you did something in your inventory. Everything is just gone, adding to the feeling of a very silent world.
Perhaps the strangest of all my problems is that there is no freakin' way to use my speaker for BG:EE. Despite all settings, even If i fully deactivate my line-in, where the headphones are plugged in, the audio (or whats left of it) will only be played via headphones. It's like there is no digital audio out for BG:EE, but even BG vanilla had no problems at all with it.
I admit my soundcard is a lil' bit older, it's the Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion. But hell, she did cost nearly 200€ and is still one of the best soundcards out there. I do run the newest Win10x64 drivers and almost everything else just works fine.
I tried mixing with all the possible settings, I tried to verify my game files, I did google (many problems, few solutions). Is there any chance of fixing these game-destroying audio problems?
As always, thanks in advance!
0
Comments
Need to know some more info...
- Has this problem been there always or only begun recently?
- Are you running the latest version of BGEE (2.3.67.3)?
- Are you running the latest version of Windows 10 (1703) or version 1607?
- Any chance you could also run 'DXDIAG' and place the results in a response?
- Do you run a HDMI monitor?
- Are you running sound set up as 5.1 or 2.0? Saw some discussion about this on the GOG forums.
There was a past problem with the same (or similar) sound card which can be found in a discussion here.
It seems that some resolved their issues either by reinstalling OpenAL or using OpenAL_Soft which can be found here.
If this doesn't work, along with the DXDIAG txt, could you also open baldur.lua and copy the lines that begin with 'SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options',...).
Hopefully, you will have a quick win with OpenAL_Soft...
Gus
Edit - Asked Q about sound setup.
I'll try to answer some of your questions now until I have the time to check out the more difficult points.
- The problem exists as long as I play BG:EE. I started a week ago, although the game itself is installed via steam for maybe two years.
- Since I usually recieve all the autoupdates, BG:EE should be at the latest version Steam has to offer.
- I'm not quite sure where I'm able to take a look at the exact Win10 version, but I usually do all the updates as soon as they're available. Windows Updater says it's up to date.
- Will try this DXDIAG later.
- I do run a HDMI monitor, but without monitor speakers. NVIDIA- and LG IPS Output coming from the GPU drivers is disabled.
- My digital audio out (speakers) are 5.1, my line in is set to headphones. Nevertheless I tried every possible setting from simple Stereo to 2.0 to 2.1. No effect at all while running BG:EE.
To be honest, my problem is almost 100% like it's been described in the thread you mentioned (http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=708255). Besides the background music, every single type of audio is only played once per game-launch. I tried installing the newest OpenAL but it doesn't fix my problem. I'm unsure if there's a difference between http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html#overview and http://openal.org/downloads/ . I didn't manage to install the first one tho, cause the "build/ directory" folder is empty.
So far and again thanks for your time!
yuffiedamus
I was able to download the OpenAL Soft from here. It might be an older version but it doesn't need building and can be used as a test.
Also, if you did download the 1.18.0 binary version (openal-soft-1.18.0-bin.zip) from the first site you mentioned, the driver you are looking for is found in the /bin/win64 or /bin/win32 directory. You could copy the files and try. If it doesn't work the first time, go for the "The IT Crowd" fix (have you tried turning it off and on again
A segment of the readme file in 1.18.0 version:
To use the 32-bit DLL, copy it from the bin\Win32 folder to the folder that
the 32-bit OpenAL32.dll router is installed in.
For 32-bit Windows, the Win32 DLL will typically go into the system32 folder.
For 64-bit Windows, the Win32 DLL will typically go into the SysWOW64 folder.
To use the 64-bit DLL, copy it from the bin\Win64 folder to the folder that
the 64-bit OpenAL32.dll router is installed in.
For 64-bit Windows, this will typically be the system32 folder.
The included openal-info32.exe and openal-info64.exe programs can be used to
tell if the OpenAL Soft DLL is being detected. It should be run from a command
shell, as the program will exit as soon as it's done printing information.
Hope this helps
Gus
Party (or Solo) on