No InGame Sound at all.

wbowley · Post by **wbowley** » Tue Oct 03, 2000 8:57 pm

I have installed the game four times. Two full downloads, one limited download and the latest is from the PC Gamer October CD. So I guess that spans pretty much all of the versions since the initial release. The opening videos and sounds play perfectly, but as soon as the game starts, no sound at all. I have deleted the preferences file from the save directory and restarted the game, I have selected and deselected unit fx and soundtrack so many times I have lost count. Every other piece of gaming software I own works perfectly with my hardware except the one I want to play the most, SPWAW. (Sigh). Any ideas? I have an AWE64D with the latest drivers from Creative, Altec Lansing speakers and subwoofer. Sound works great on Steel Panthers III, OPART/CW, and all of the Battleground games, but not at all within SPWAW. Please, I need some help with this. The sound is what makes the game so immersive. It's fun to play anyway, but without sound it's half a game.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Tue Oct 03, 2000 9:09 pm

Now we have some very sharp computer folks on this forum. Bill asked me about this one and I did not have an answer. I'm not strong at all on the technical aspects of the game.

I do know, however, from previous posts, that there are many here who are.

So help out this fellow gamer, please! He wants to enjoy the game as much as you and I are enjoying it.

Any hints or suggestions will be greatly appreciated by both "Bills"

Wild Bill

------------------
In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Fuerte · Post by **Fuerte** » Tue Oct 03, 2000 9:18 pm

I can only guess, but buying a new sound card might help.

SB Live Value is the best choice at the moment, because Aureal is in bankruptcy. I have MX300 (Vortex 2).

If that is not an option, then installing DirectX 7.1 or something might help.

Still, in SPWAW 4.1 many of the sound files were fixed, they are now in a consistent format, which some older sound cards handle better. Have you tried 4.1?

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Tue Oct 03, 2000 11:58 pm

Originally posted by Fuerte:
I can only guess, but buying a new sound card might help. SB Live Value is the best choice at the moment, because Aureal is in bankruptcy.

No, don't do this - especially don't buy the SB Live Value .. it's the card that caused most of the troubles

Your AWE64 should be fine, as far as I know.

If that is not an option, then installing DirectX 7.1 or something might help.

Not necessary, too, In fact, DX7.0a could cause you some problems because it needs newer drivers for graphics, sound etc. . Most times not an issue, as some "standard drivers" come along with the install, but I have seen troubles with this as well.

Still, in SPWAW 4.1 many of the sound files were fixed, they are now in a consistent format, which some older sound cards handle better. Have you tried 4.1?

Now that's important - especially SB drivers seem to have trouble playing sounds with different formats at once .

IMHO most severe problems with sound originate in a faulty Windows configuration .. but don't get me wrong - some sounds missing now and than, or some weapon animation not playing at all is an old SP issue, that wasn't corrected since SP1 - and the matrix team can't do much about it as they got the code without any documentation

;
But if you can't get any sounds something must be wrong - most likely with either the SPWAW install or your Windows configuration.

I have tried SPWaW v2.3 on my old machine :

K5-166, 64MB, 64MB Swap, S3 TrioV64 2MB, ALS120 sound, Win95c with DX6.1

.. as you can see, neither the newest hardware nor the newest drivers, but it ran well !!!

But maybe there is a "special problem" with especially your soundcard or graphics card, or whatever you have in your machine - it's unlikely, but you never know

Arralen

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Wed Oct 04, 2000 3:30 am

Still looking for some answers here for William Bowley if any of you have more ideas on how to get sound for his game...WB

Schrullenhaft · Post by **Schrullenhaft** » Wed Oct 04, 2000 3:46 am

Earlier posts mentioned a problem with the sound formats being a bit different for a number of the sounds and this may be confusing the drivers for the SoundBlaster. The following suggestion doesn't really address this, but it may be worth a try.

Assuming that you've installed DirectX 6.1 or later (if you haven't then you're going to have problems running SPWAW). Go to the Start Menu > Run > type c:\program files\directx\setup\dxdiag.exe (DX 6.1 may have a different directory structure under the "directx" directory and/or it may have a different filename which may be "setup.exe" > this will launch the DirectX control applet (the bottom of the initial tab will tell you what version of DirectX you're running) > click on the Sound tab > on the middle left of the tab adjust the "Hardware Sound Acceleration Level" all the way to the left > click on the Exit button. I'm not sure what sort of "hardware acceleration" the AWE64 would provide to DirectX, but maybe this will affect the way SPWAW works with the audio drivers.

[This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited October 03, 2000).]

Rhone · Post by **Rhone** » Wed Oct 04, 2000 5:26 am

I have to disagree about the Sound Blaster Live Value. I have it and the game sounds run like a champ.

2 things that had to be done to make the sounds work were.

1. Ensure that you installed the upgrade (if it were an upgrade) to the root directory of your SPWAW directory.

2. When you are in game, ensure that fast artillery is off, this makes the artillery sounds work correctly and in many cases those could be the first sounds you expect to hear.

Hope this helps.