Movies playing in HUD cause game to pause

I can confirm that XP is not the direct cause of the problem as I run eoc on it without any trouble at all.

I'm running WinXP with the following two ACPCM codecs:

IMA ADPCM CODEC version 4.00 for Audio Compression Manager
copyright 1992-1996 Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft ADPCM CODEC version 4.00 for Audio Compression Manager
Copyright 1992-1996 Microsoft Corporation

I've tried disabling one or the other with no affect. My friend's XP box has the same two codecs by the way.

My problem is not _missing_ sounds as in the Freelancer reported problems (which I don't experience in the demo by the way - haven't bought the full game yet)... my problem is the game freezing for 30 seconds when playing certain sounds found in the speech directory (.wav files). The .mp3 soundtrack plays flawlessly and I'm using the Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 CODEC (Version 1.9 build 305).

Please go into your XP Control panel/Sounds/Hardware and click on the Audio Codecs properties and tell me which versions you are running. Perhaps if I match those versions I can alleviate my problems.

Anyone? If you are so sure it is codec related (I agree with you). Than please tell me which codec(s) the game was designed to use (vendor and version). I initially wrote to Infograms requesting that specific information, the response I received indicated nothing about codec information, just stating that XP may not fully support EoC. I can understand that the development team may no longer work at Infograms, but someone should be able to tell me which codecs the game is intended to use.

Before I wrote to Infogrames, I thought it might be a problem indicative of the codec's memory usage... different codecs use memory differently... one may have a 1Mb RAM buffer with direct addressing while another uses half a meg and different addressing scheme. The programmers of EoC may have optimized their code to make use of one codec's buffer for performance reasons. The buffer may overfill with multiple streams and the current Codec with XP (the one _I_ have courtesy of MS) waits until a periodic flush is done to clear out the buffer...my guess, the codec flushes the buffer every 30 seconds Since I don't have the source code for either the game or the codec, I have no idea. So I am relying on Tech Support to kindly provide me the information I need to make this recent game (which is still being sold) run properly on a modern (and de facto standard) OS.

I could understand if the game was 98 only and did not support NT/2000/XP.... but the Infograms website lists it as XP compatable, the EoC manual states it is designed for Win 2000 (as well as 98 and ME)... and it is designed for DirectX 8...so I think this is an issue Infogrames _should_ support. You can pass it off saying my machine is wacky, some software I don't realize installed a weird _Microsoft_ codec, or my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card/drivers is to blame... but posts from others here with the _EXACT_ problem seem to indicate otherwise.

The other frustrating part is that one can play the entire first two acts and possibly never see the problem creep up, leading some to say "it works on my machine..." when really, it may be having the same problem... just waiting for the rampant distress calls of Act 2 to trigger the buffer problems (presuming it is the buffer and not an issue with XP or a required NT/XP service).

[}]

Dispite all my griping, moaning and bitching... thanks for your help. I've never had this much trouble with a game before... and I've been gaming since 8086 days.... I still remember by heart how to configure custom autoexec.bat and config.sys files for each game... some needed x amount of base ram, x amount of XMS, while others needed x + 16kb base ram and y amount of EMC... while others needed x + 64kb base ram and no upper memory manager (can't even load my mouse.sys!! - but since the game uses a stick, who cares?). Given that, most other problems I've had with Win95 and later games are are easily traced to driver problems with video/audio. This isn't the case here...

The game uses just two codecs that I am aware of:

Microsoft ADPCM format for speech.
Fraunhofer MP3 format for the music.

You could try converting all the speech to standard PCM format (MP3 may even work). There are various batch-convertors available on the internet that can do this.

Another thing to try is renaming the streams/audio/music folder so the game can't find music, and see if it works. If it does, then there's a conflict between music and voice playback.

You could also try renaming the speech folder (but leave the music one as it is), and see if the game still pauses while displaying dialogue.



-- Steve
Stephen Robertson
Particle Systems
Independence War Website

Renaming the music folder has no effect on the problem... I hear no music, but the freezes still occure. NOrmally (when the music folder isn't renamed) when the game freezes for 30 seconds+ while these speech streams play, one can still hear the music and any sound affect playing at the moment.

As I said in a previous post, renaming the speech folder is the only solution I have found. But as it detracts from the game considerably, this is akin to just not playing the game. I remember when Wing Commander II had the "Speech Pack" as an add on you had to pay for... but my god, what a wonderful improvement. Also, when I do rename the speech folder, I constantly miss mission critical messages as I am not looking up in the left corner. I can check the mission log, but long lines of speech are truncated.

I am _very_ dissapointed here but I obviously love the game enough to put up with it. I am looking for an ADPCM - PCM conver to try that route... but and earlier poster to this thread has no success with trying different audio formats.

I'm running XP with the MS ADPCM codec and I'm having this problem. I have tried everything I can immagine... a whole list of things with no effect. SOMEONE has to have experienced this and found a solution. Or at least can tell me the version of the MS ADPCM codec this will work with.

I tried audio converting. First I converted the ADPCM .wav files into 22khz mono PCM .wav files. I didn't have the problem for 3 hours of game play, then BAM it's there. I tried converting the original ADPCM .wav files into 44khz stereo PCM .wav files. BAM problem still exists. I checked and my system is using (it seems to) a different codec for pure PCM than the MS ADPCM codec. So I am at the conclusion that this is _NOT_ codec problems. This is a problem with the embedded audio player in EoC and it's memory interface to WinNT/XP kernel. Yes, it uses a codec... but perhaps it controls more specifically the allocation of resources (as many optimised code routines for games do) than say, WinAMP or Windows MediaPlayer 9. This might make it use predictalbe amounts of system resources to not slow down the graphics. But there is deffinitely a different behavior here under XP than on 98. Though, one person on 98 reports this problem, and not every one with XP has it... I can't reconcile the issue. But as much as I wanted to beleive it was Codec related... I don't see how. Unless someone on XP who isn't experiencing the problem can tell me codec make/version/build info, I have to assume I have the same codecs as anyone else running XP with DX9/MP9. Those who say it doesn't work on their 98 system may be having similar but not identical problem. The people with XP who say they don't experience the problem may just not play enough of the game in act 2 to notice it. I can't say with the lack of troubleshooting certanty in this thread. It is hard to diagnose these types of problems with specific protocols and controlled equipment/software. With here-say and "mine works" "mine doesn't" reports it is almost impossible. Considering the fan base of this game is generally dead (or at least dormant while Freelancer is occupying their time), perhaps it will never be resolved.

I'm in the middle of act 3 and will probably just muddle through, restarging ever other launch to get rid of the annoying 30 second involuntary pause. But I am really looking forward to the development of Epic for EoC and hope to play.

Thanks for all your help and bearing with this issue. I would love to hear from someone who knows for sure what it is... or if you have it and are trying to cope... please chime in.