All sound is distorted

[LoneHiker]

Several updates ago all sound — music and environment — in the game became distorted. This MP3 file demonstrates how the game now sounds:

http://tinyurl.com/byhul6l

I located the sound files and played them through Windows Media Player and they sound normal. There were no sound issues in TM2 until a couple of months ago. I tried changing the sound quality in the launcher but this has no effect.

I can't reproduce this problem in any other application besides TM2.

[Electron]

The Beta 2.1a hotfix should fix this. Please report, if not.

If not, copy this file to your ManiaPlanet program folder. This fixes the audio distortions on Windows XP.

[LoneHiker]

Thank you for pointing me to that thread.

The game is currently running Beta 2.1b Build 23/01/2013 16:15. I replaced the existing dll with the zipped one and the distortion is still there, unfortunately.

[eyebo]

Have you tried changing audio settings? Maybe turn on or off HRTF or EFX or some of the other options. Here's a screenshot of my settings, and sound is working fine for me:



I assume things were working fine before the update though. Hmm..

[LoneHiker]

I did try different audio settings but it had no effect.

[TMarc]

Please check on your PC if you have other versions of OpenAL32.dll installed (e.g. in Windows system folders).

You might as well check this out: http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-487.html
Download the HPLSoundTest.zip file , extract it, and rename OpenAL32.dll there to OpenAL32._dll
If the sound is working, then you have OpenAl somewhere else already.

Edit: In fact the title is misleading. The sound is not distored by to high volume. It seems to be a issue with audio buffers.

Do you have other applications which use audio running in parallel? E.g. TeamSpeak, Skype, or others?
Please also give us details of your sound hardware.

[LoneHiker]

Renaming the file as instructed and attempting to run the test program fails because it can't locate the dll.

However, running the test program (with the renamed dll) in an existing sandbox works. So I did a file search and there is a copy of OpenAL32.dll in the following sandboxed folders:

WINDOWS\system32
Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender
Program Files\Outerra\Anteworld
Program Files\Unigine\Heaven DX11 Benchmark 3.0\bin

The sound in the test program, Anteworld, and Heaven DX11 Benchmark is normal. If I take the dll from one of these folders and change the date using touch.exe and put it in the ManiaPlanet folder, TM2 sound is normal again. TM2 is not run in a sandbox, just to be clear.

There are no programs running like the ones you mentioned. The sound card is a Creative SB Live! Value on Windows XP SP3.


UPDATE: After installing the most recent (circa 2003!) sound drivers, deleting the working dll from the ManiaPlanet folder and reverting to the old one, TM2 still sounds normal. So the old driver was not getting along with the ManiaPlanet dll but the newer driver is fine with it.

[TMarc]

good to hear, thanks for the feedback on this