Need Help Better Sound.

[djferry]

Hi guys, i hope im doing the answer to the proper place...I started working on some sounds ( stock sounds are utterly awful, uberdowngraded and a lot of information is lost...) to add to PoTC last build mod.

So i started with thunder's, spend almost all the day creating 3 new thunder sounds, with a rich low end frequency zone (now thunders are thunders...) and the problem i faced is, after a lot of trial and error, ending at 16khz@16bits to match the 256kbps the rest of sounds has... it's when im playing in the middle of storm, a crash with an abnormal termination error occurs... system log's say this:

...\SOURCES\memory_service.cpp line 107
_X_NO_MEM

I read somewhere its about fragmentation memory, and space allocation or something like that , so i try to make the sample sounds exactly the same original game has (time and weight ?¿ in spanish we call for that name i hope you guys understand what i mean xd) but the error still there... if i replace with originals game works well... but hell thunders in vanilla are to "light"... i love to see my table runing free when a thunder happens...

So, what im missing?

Is 16khz what engine uses? or what is it? Is 16bits correct also? or i need 8 bit ( since i listen a lot of dither sound in other sample sounds....i thought it was bad recording but since i faced all those problems today... i also tried with 8 bit but also had crashes....)

My plans is reedo a lot of ugly sounds ingame but hell i spend the whole day for only 3 sounds to make it work, and are not working... if im stuck at the first ones...

Sorry my bad english xd i hope it's understandable.


If there is some .c files that handles the load of sounds im interested also,or to solve that _X_NO_MEM, because i would like to make thunders more larger... vanilla are to short. (i made a research but i dont see anything PROGRAM/sound folder also weather but nothing probably im miss some?)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I do remember that some WAV files can crash the game when played.
Never did understand why.

@Jack Rackham added a lot of sounds to the game though.
I wonder if he can help.

Also, thanks for working on improving things!

 

[djferry]

Thnx for the info about some wav's crash the game :/


And yeah i found sounds , sounding good, and i thought why, now i know thnx i hope Jack Rackham knows what is hapening here

 

[Jack Rackham]

First, my knowledge of sounds is very limited.
For .wav I use 22050Hz 16bit Mono 352kb/s as it works.
There may be other combinations that do work but certanlay not all. 8 bit I think doesn't work.

For .ogg (music) I have used 44100Hz 16bit stereo or 22050Hz 16bit stereo with many different kb/s.

When a soundfile doesn't work it sometimes just means silence but it can crash too. Especially if the .wav is some kind
of variation of .wav (.wav_+something else after). There are several types.

 

[djferry]

thnx man, well i tried every combination... 22050hz@16bit, 16000hz@16 bit, even 8 bit...(everything mono as the game needs to recreate the estereo but himself) also 44.1khz@24bit just for try but then the game doesn't found the files xd i want just to say thnx for this work you guys did for this game, adding my knowledge in sound part to get this gem sounding better as im the type of person that think sound inmersion is a pilar on this type of games.

Yeah silence sound was hapening at the begining when used 44.1khz@24bit then in system.log saw that files don't load... crashes appear just when i switch to 22050,16000hz etc... so this means game reads but, something in .dll files or .c files are configured a way that my samples are incorrect and can't handle and throw error's. Atleast is what my logic says as i read on the system.log ( maybe im wrong for sure ) but well if i found or you guys can acces to this sound .dll files to know if are telling us how to do that sample sounds (as i read you got the src dunno if .dll files also, just interested only on sound part... i dont know if that knowledge can be known as i understand it's a private src....),but if can, tell me something about sound, as my intention is reedo the other sounds left that are really ugly ingame...(slowly there is tons of sounds...) maybe those files tell us something about how to do proper sound samples to the game engine to be read well.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@djferry: Could you upload an example sound file that you are trying to make work?

@Jack Rackham: When he does, would you be willing to "convert" that the way you normally do so that it works?

It might be some sort of combination between frequency, bitrate and program used that makes it work or not.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Sure, @djferry: upload and I'll try to convert it.

 

[djferry]

ok , but well i try every config possible, it mitgh be the program, as i tried with the same config Jack did and did not work :/

So thunder1 fits the time , i mean it's the exact time as the vanilla sound. The others 2 not, just for try if all works or just only the first ( then it means time is crucial also in sound samples ). The file is a wav 44.1khz@24bit if it's needed to convert, it's better to have the file untouched. ( for programs i use cubase for making sounds , and also audition for the final make up )

MEGA

crossfingers if is something i did wrong and can be fixed atleast for future sounds do well.

 

[Jack Rackham]

thunder2 & 3 only resulted in a long fzzzz.
thunder1 was possible to convert and the game didn't crash. A nasty extra click sound was added both at start and end of the sound though. Needs some surgery...

 

[djferry]

wow how this is possible i mean the 3 sounds had the same settings. ( just curious ) And that nasty click its because the conversor cut / start the sample when it's not in 0 db? ( curiosity )

If is a conversor for the game it might be can't handle at all 44.1khz@24bit i will try to put those sound in 22khz@16bit and i will reupload. ( if its not a problem )

Here its all 22050hz @ 16 bit.
MEGA