Patched SR1 sound issues...

[AluminumHaste]

So I have SR1 installed on a FAT32 partition, patched with everything, including the widescreen hack and it was running great. But today when I loaded up the game the "Loading" screen sat there for about 45 seconds and when the game finally finished loading the sound is having....issues.

The music will play for about 10 seconds then stop. Any dialog will play for 10 seconds or so, then stop and the cut scene will keep playing (i.e. the camera still moves around Raziel) but then stops at a certain point until someone continues talking then the cut scene continues until the next time the sound stops.

What's weird is that it was working fine for days, then this stuff happens. Is there another patch to fix this? Even starting a new game has this issue now.

[AluminumHaste]

No? Anyone? Vamp? Wrace?

[Umah Bloodomen]

Please do not bump your thread as doing so is construed as spamming our Community - (As outlined here. (http://forums.eidosgames.com/announcement.php?a=50#rule8)).

I'm sure our technical gurus will respond to it as soon as their schedules permit.

Thanks.

[AluminumHaste]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here or anything but isn't the point of bumping a thread to get it to the top of the page? But I was already at the top lol. :D

Anyways, alright I won't "bump" myself around. I will wait.

[wrace]

hm, 2 times I saw such glitches (corrupted kain2.exe, for example), but since they appear randomly (and by evident reasons), so I do not created some patches for removing this.

Try to remove WideScreen-Hack (or change settings for it, - we wrote some notes about it) and load game again.

Also I need to note that using savegames from different versions of SR1 (1.0 or 1.02, other languages, patched or do not) can lead to various crashes and glitches (features of SR1-core).

[AluminumHaste]

hm, 2 times I saw such glitches (corrupted kain2.exe, for example), but since they appear randomly (and by evident reasons), so I do not created some patches for removing this.

Try to remove WideScreen-Hack (or change settings for it, - we wrote some notes about it) and load game again.

Also I need to note that using savegames from different versions of SR1 (1.0 or 1.02, other languages, patched or do not) can lead to various crashes and glitches (features of SR1-core).

I did notice on several occasions that the "Modified Date" of the kain2.exe executable was changed when I started having issues. I had started keeping a backup exe in a zip file on the drive but even that isn't working though as it also gets corrupted.
Even deleting the savegame.her file and copying over a new kain2.exe doesn't fix the issue.

I've reinstalled SR1 so many times now it's gotten to the point where I don't want to bother. I've masked the executable to see only 1 processor (Affinity) using imagecfg and that helped the stability for a bit but I'm back to not working again.
The other issue is that this is happening on three different computers. Granted they are all running Nvidia graphics hardware so there might be a correlation there.

One thing I did find in my research is that there is an open source project to get AdLib sound working that was designed for older hardware. (http://adplug.sourceforge.net/)

Description: "AdPlug is a free, cross-platform, hardware independent AdLib sound player library, mainly written in C++ and released under the LGPL. AdPlug plays sound data, originally created for the AdLib (OPL2) and Sound Blaster (Dual OPL2/OPL3) audio boards, directly from its original format on top of an emulator or by using the real hardware. No OPL chip is required for playback.

AdPlug itself is just the backend to many different audio player frontends, which are also being developed here. There are plugins for popular audio players, like Winamp and XMMS, as well as stand-alone players for many different systems available."

I know you've already done a ton of work on this project and I thank you for your time, I was able to play this great game for the first time in a decade thanks to you guys and that makes me very happy. :)

EDIT: BTW I did try and remove the Widescreen Hack, this issue happened before, during and after that hack was applied.

[wrace]

I did notice on several occasions that the "Modified Date" of the kain2.exe executable was changed when I started having issues. I had started keeping a backup exe in a zip file on the drive but even that isn't working though as it also gets corrupted.
hm, it sounds like some anti-virus software "cured" (or some virus corrupted) kain2.exe. Upload version kain2.exe from your PC on some host and give link on it - I want to look it.

I've reinstalled SR1 so many times now it's gotten to the point where I don't want to bother. I've masked the executable to see only 1 processor (Affinity) using imagecfg and that helped the stability for a bit but I'm back to not working again.
hm, I know such issues (with multi-core processor) for BO1, but for SR1 number of cores does not matter, I think (I have 2 pc with dual-core proccessors Intel and AMD; also I know some guys with quadra-cores processor).
BTW, what processes running in background with SR1?
The other issue is that this is happening on three different computers. Granted they are all running Nvidia graphics hardware so there might be a correlation there.
I also have Nvidia graphics cards on 3 different PC, but here issues with sound. All these PC have Realtek sound card (but I don't think that this does matter, - our fans tested patched SR1 on many configurations of PC, including ones with OS Windows-7 64-bit edition).

One thing I did find in my research is that there is an open source project to get AdLib sound working that was designed for older hardware. (http://adplug.sourceforge.net/)
I don't think that this library can help since in SR1 (PC-version) all sounds and voices ("archives" music.dat and voices.dat) are just *.wav-files without headers (so for playing them it is not needed to have additional libraries).
BTW: you tried choose compatibility mode for sound in initial configuration menu? Also something it helps setting (or un-setting) for kain2.exe Win98-compatibility-mode.

[AluminumHaste]

Okay here's the exe that's not working:

http://www.2shared.com/file/kDnI0vZC/kain2.html

I tried WinXP SP3, SP2 and Win98/ME mode no change.
I don't have a compatibility mode for Audio the only options I have are:

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/6756/soundoptionssr1.png

Also I'm not running any Antivirus programs. Twice a week I run Combofix, malwarebytes AntiMalware, TrendMicro Free online scanner and SuperAntiSpyware. Not once have any of these programs ever mentioned kain2.exe.

[wrace]

Sorry for delay.
hm, it is strange, but your version of kain2.exe differs from my one. Try such (http://www.nosgothica.org/games/sr1_kain2_eng.rar) kain2.exe.

About "compatibility mode for Audio": I mean selecting "Primary sound driver". :sorry:

[AluminumHaste]

That is not a problem, thank you for taking the time to help :)
I just tried your version of the exe and it's working for now. thank you

[The Hylden]

From my own personal experience, and from what I've heard from others, sound on SR1 (and even through SR2 and Defiance to lesser extents) has issues at times. So, hopefully this fixes the extremes you're having of this, but just note that if the sound still winds up looping now and then, as in some effects like fire and the Reaver hum, and sometimes the music also gets caught in a loop. Sometimes it gets deafening, and nothing will solve it but a restart of the game, while other times, it fixes itself by pausing the game and simply continuing, or reloading a save game. Like I said, it happens now and then in SR2 and Defiance also. The fire loop sound effect they implement is a prime example of this in all the games. No idea why they never could get this to work without bugs. I mean not only on PC, but it happens to lesser extents in the PS1 and PS2 versions of the respective games.

Anyway, your problem is to the extreme, so again, just nothing that if you still have looping problems after the fix, it won't be as bad, certainly, but don't be surprised if you do get them.

[AluminumHaste]

Okay the reason my kain2.exe was different from yours is because I was using the widescreen/fps hacked one found here: http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=114106

[wrace]

no, - I gave link on kain2.exe without fix for the Widescreen Hack (because I didn't test this dll enough), but I know what offsets are replaced by my fix (http://forums.eidosgames.com/showpost.php?p=1521198&postcount=4), so I compared your kain2.exe with my version + I checked these offsets (for fix) too and I found that some additional offsets were changed.
Fix for WideScreenHack I wrote by Perl, which does not cause such bugs, - we checked this program (and many other scripts) on different PCs.

[AluminumHaste]

Okay so now I'm at work using the other computer that was having the same issue. I downloaded the file you posted, replaced the kain2.exe, then applied the widescreen hack and now it's working perfectly. Now if only it would continue to work like this that would be really nice.

Well that didn't last too long, I'm playing on my laptop again and SR1 is back to crashing again. I was able to get into the game once by starting in 16bit mode but after exiting it just crashes everytime now.
Even if I replace the kain2.exe and other files with the ones you uploaded it still crashes. :sigh:

[wrace]

I suggest that something in your computer corrupted kain2.exe now and before (and downloaded version on your computer too), - it is only one reason for crashing the game "time by time" (and for other glitches you wrote above). May be some another files corrupted too. Try to install Total Commander and use the feature of this program to compare kain2.exe on your computer with the uploaded one (I think that it is needed to do in the Save Mode of your OS - to avoid corrupting kain2.exe by another processes - or on another PC): I think that some offsets were changed again. Also Total Commander has the feature to calculate CRC-sum (MD5, for example) of the file, - I can calculate this sum for my version of kain2.exe (with or without the WideScreen-Hack) and some another files for that you check your files.

I don't know what process/program corrupted files but it is not hard to find it - using Save-Mode of OS or by research the processes running on startup (Ctr+Alt+Del to view running processes and some programs - like Reg Organizer - for managing StartUp and Services).