[Spoon]

I know, I know. I've complained about the sound code so many times now. And I will probably keep doing so until something changes.

Right now the new sound code will do some absolutely horrible things with sound. If you let a wing of 6 fighters warp in close to the player, you had better cover your ears. Because it will not sound like 6 fighters warping in. It will sound like 6 banshee's wailing as they crawl their way out of the deepest pits of the abyss. Battuta actually had to move a wing of fighters away from the player's starting point in WiH R2 exactly because of that. It will absolutely demolish your ears.

Same goes for turrets on salvo mode. As clearly evident here: http://youtu.be/41l9wwBrxrs?hd=1 during the first few seconds you will hear a turret firing 4 shots at once. It's a horrible clipped bgggghhhzz kinda noise. Not pretty at all.

Now I won't claim I know anything about the code or sound terms. But I would really love to see for one of you awesome super cool coders to either make it so that once a sound plays more then once on the same frame it will only play one time. Or that it will simply not be amplified the way it gets now and causes that bad clipping.

[headdie]

I know it's dated now but my SB Audigy with Creative Inspire speakers cant cope with it so please can the code be tweaked to fix this if possible.

[QuantumDelta]

Same goes for basically any nebula with lightning.
It sounds ridiculous, it's almost completely unplayable, you really only have one option; turn the sound off and play without it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9arxDnth4&lc=x4DnxsmXjbZxiwERXp81OIObn2e9dsii7V0kie8wW38&feature=inbox

T____________T

[Commander Zane]

I actually don't remember what the original lightning sounds like anymore...

[The E]

We'll get back to you once we get someone who knows this stuff.

[Reprobator]

Well since the new soundcode (1 year ago or more) i eared problem with beam as well.

[Spoon]

We'll get back to you once we get someone who knows this stuff.

Despair

[MatthTheGeek]

thats no good you most make an update

[JGZinv]

Instead of asking/demanding an update... why not request info on what skills are needed in said person for the sound code...
then start looking around the net for one.

Complaining about the problem when there's no one to fill the need won't make him poof into existence here and fix it any sooner.

[ssmit132]

I think MatthTheGeek was just joking around there.

[QuantumDelta]

Indeed he was

[Fury]

We'll get back to you once we get someone who knows this stuff.

Considering how big issues are presented by current sound code, it might be worth considering reverting taylor's soundcode back to what it used to be. You gain some, you lose some either way.

[Sushi]

We'll get back to you once we get someone who knows this stuff.

Considering how big issues are presented by current sound code, it might be worth considering reverting taylor's soundcode back to what it used to be. You gain some, you lose some either way.

I'd be on board with this. It sucks (both from a lose-features and a painful-to-do point of view) but I've had nothing but grief from the sound code ever since it got changed. I've been kicking myself ever since for not paying more attention to Antipodes and not squawking about the problem before it was too late.

[QuantumDelta]

I put up some fair resistance to it's addition to trunk before it went in... :<

[Sushi]

I put up some fair resistance to it's addition to trunk before it went in... :<

I remember that, actually.

[Spoon]

I wouldn't mind reverting back to the old code.
Yes, on one hand its a shame. But considering the issues the new code has and the fact that nobody understands the code well enough to be able to support and fix these issues...

Also, I complained quite a while when it first went into the nightlies (mostly because how it utterly crapped up the sound on my old pc)

[Sobbsy]

Could anyone kindly fill me in on what changed with the sound code (and/or what the supposed benefits were to be from switching to it over the old code?). Just curious.

[Goober5000]

People complained about the old sound code, and now they're complaining about the new one.  Seriously guys.   Let's see if we can do some intentional debugging instead of standing around complaining.  Can someone go through the recent builds and find out when the particular problem appeared?  Start in six month increments and narrow it down.

Also, try running with the -no_3d_sound command line and see if it fixes anything.

[Iss Mneur]

Could anyone kindly fill me in on what changed with the sound code (and/or what the supposed benefits were to be from switching to it over the old code?). Just curious.

Basically the internals of the sound code were rewritten to make better use of OpenALs capabilities rather than the engine having to baby feed the sound code.  The three largest things, from *my* point of view, that were changed, was how the sound code detects sound cards and microphones, the really poor management of the sounds and (this is what is relevant to this discussion) enabling full 3d, multi-source audio.

The problem with the full 3d, multi-source audio is that, there is no cutoff on the volume and the number of sources in a certain point.  The old sound code, implicitly had them because the old sound code would only attempt to play so many sounds a time (the "baby feeding") so it didn't overload the sound cards of the day (afaict, the old sound code is from retail except for being ported to openAL), whereas the new sound code sends every single sound to openAL and lets it figure out what to do. The end result is things like a wing warping in results in 4-6 warp sounds played at the same time, which being an already loud sound results in the extreme clipping everyone is complaining about.

Unfortunately, though I think I know what the problem is, I am not familiar enough with OpenAL to know how to fix it, and I haven't had time look into it.

People complained about the old sound code, and now they're complaining about the new one.  Seriously guys.

Isn't that how it works...

[Spoon]

People complained about the old sound code, and now they're complaining about the new one.  Seriously guys.   Let's see if we can do some intentional debugging instead of standing around complaining.  Can someone go through the recent builds and find out when the particular problem appeared?  Start in six month increments and narrow it down.

Also, try running with the -no_3d_sound command line and see if it fixes anything.

Durr? When did the problems occure? In the revision in which Taylor commited the sound code of course. 

Thing is, we've got this sound code that apparantly nobody really understand due to the lack of openal knoweldge. It has these really bad issues that several people have raised complaints about. And its not being supported. This last bit should be enough indication imo to just pull it.
The new code could be great with tweaking and fixing, but since that is apparantly not going to happen anytime soon...

Edit: also no, -no_3d_sound does nothing to fix the clipping.