Sound and Animation Lagging

[miller7219]

Hi. I'm experiencing sound cutting in and out. Also, animations will freeze and the screen will go white, but sound continues. Once the animation is finished screen goes back to normal. I have a higher end system: AMD Athlonx2 Dual Core, GetForce 8400 GS Nvidia, 2GB RAM, SB X-fi sound, WINXP SP3 (upgraded to SP3 recently, but same problem).....all very common components. Sound and video drivers are updated to most current versions, as is DirectX. Any ideas what may be causing?

This issues aren't a show stopper, but just very annoying.

[TonyE]

Can you describe the sound cutting in and out in more detail?  By default if you say launch two missiles, the first sound is intentionally cut off to play the second sound.  Is that what you mean on the sound front?
 
As for the animations...  Is it just the animation screen going white, the entire Harpoon window, the whole screen?  I can't say we've heard of that happening (others, if you are out there, speak up).  A strange test might be to disable your video acceleration entirely and see if the white still happens.  My strange thinking there would be a video driver bug handling such ancient 2D GDI drawing commands. 
 
 

[miller7219]

Yes on the sound. It's the most noticeable with the nuke release animation and horn. It only happens as soon as the animation window pops and the first playing of the horn. It seems the popping of the animation window is dragging the sound. On the missile firing animation the sound doesn't lag, it only pops a bit...it's the animation that is the problem.
 
Let me try getting rid of video acceleration....

[miller7219]

Oh...when the screen goes white during the missile animation the ENTIRE screeen goes white, nit just a window. The sound continues to play normally and once the animation is done the screen returns back to normal.

[miller7219]

No luck...disabled both sound and all video acceleration through DirectX "dxdiag". Same sound lagging with the nuke animation and animation problems with missile launching. I think you may be correct about some driver or .dll not liking the older video format.

[miller7219]

Interesting...I haven't played anything but EC2000 battlesets forever, but tonight played a scenario from the old original GUIK battlest and NO lag with sound/video or anything. Started a scenario in the old NACV original and no problems. I noticed the animations for missiles firing are different with the old original databases. Appears the problem is with the animation files used for EC2000? Anyway to get the old animations with EC2000?

[TonyE]

Are you sure you don't mean EC2003?  The answer is pretty much no in either case, I'm just curious.

[miller7219]

Yes EC2003...so many versions of Harpoon over the years!

[TonyE]

Miller, can we try taking sound out of the question?  To do that, close the game and rename the Sounds folder to Sounds.bak (or something similar), making the sound files unavailable.  Then see if you still have the white screen problem.  Thank you.
 
The comment about pre-EC2003 battlesets working which EC2003 and newer don't does surprise me and might be a key piece of information.
 
 
 

[miller7219]

Tried it and no go. Still get the lagging and ultimate white screen. White screens every time after the 8th or so missile is fired. Less than eight it rarely lags and NEVER white screens. Definitely the animation....

[miller7219]

Again...no problem with the old original battlesets animation, only EC2003 battlesets.

[TonyE]

Thank you sir for continuing to try this and that.  No more great explanations at present but we certainly have more clues than ever.  If only I could reproduce the issue.

[miller7219]

Don't mind at all. If you ever find the problem let me know.