My view of The Dark Mod

[LEGION]

Hmm, I replayed the mission (St. Lucia) again, saved and loaded quite often, but due to second playthrough I came only to, let´s say 1 1/2 hours. But the interesting thing: I used EAX but disabled Surround and I had no missing ambients!!!!

My old 'corrupted' save even works fine!! At the end I saved and loaded a lot in different places, where I had before the missing sounds and all went fine!!

 

BTW: Is there even a reason for turning Surround on, when you already have EAX 4.0 HD? I wasn´t able for hearing a difference ingame, but the menusong is louder when both options are activated. In the briefing for St. Lucia the music was even too loud! But with Surround disabled it seems more how it should be, in the briefing.

[LEGION]

I did some testing and can tell that this bug definitely occurs when playing a long time. My 'corrupted' save has a playtime about 6 hours!

The least missing sounds I had while using EAX on and Surround off. There were only some footsteps from guards missing. (I tested St.Lucia and the missing footsteps belonged to the guard outside the church, and on the next try the guard running to the statue after hurting her was without footsteps) But there were only one guard at a time with missing footsteps.

 

Disabling EAX doesn´t help, though. It is from time to time different. The longer you play, the more problems you seem to have.

 

Again, the best results I had with EAX enabled and Surround disabled.

 

I asked this before: Is there any profit by using Surround while EAX is already enabled? I´m not able to hear an improvement.

[Tels]

LEGION; did you run a memory test on your computer? Just want to rule out faulty hardware before we chase a bug that doesn't exist

[LEGION]

When I start the game I have 400 out of 4650 megs in my swap file. Did you mean that? Or should I use a specific console cmd?

 

My specs are:

3.25 GB RAM

Soundblaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer (newest driver)

 

btw, my newest SB driver solved the issue with the music in the St. Lucia briefing there it was before too loud.

 

The sound bug occurs too, when I just started the game and loaded the savegame. Maybe I could send you the file? Because on my system it is everytime I load the save the same sound bug!

[Tels]

When I start the game I have 400 out of 4650 megs in my swap file. Did you mean that? Or should I use a specific console cmd?

 

No I meant this:

 

http://memtest.org/#downiso

 

Download the ISO, burn it on a CD, boot from it and let it run for half an hour. If it reports any errors, your memory chips are faulty, and software will do all funky things

 

The sound bug occurs too, when I just started the game and loaded the savegame. Maybe I could send you the file? Because on my system it is everytime I load the save the same sound bug!

 

Sorry, I cannot help you with that.

[LEGION]

I did as you said, Tels. No errors and I made two runs to be sure. (and because I wasn´t sure if the program does test both of my RAM modules)

 

There is only one thing I don´t understand: I have two RAM modules with 2048 MB for each one. The program confirmed that. But WinXP says that I only have 3.25 GB RAM!? Oh, and DirectX says I have 3326 MB RAM. Where´s the rest? Is this normal or is something wrong here?

 

And before you might ask: the sound-bug is still there.

What I meant with the savegame: I think that this bug is implemented in the save so it would might help you in finding out what´s wrong. Just an idea I had. But I wasn´t aware that one save counts 85MB!!

[Serpentine]

32bit copies of windows will only use 3.2gb, you can use above that by enabling PAE - but it does cost performance which wont be returned in 95% of gaming cases. X64 would allow you to use all 4gb.

 

However, did you ever have TDM 1.0 installed? if so could you make 100% sure that you are using 1.01. There was a nasty save bug that caused issues like this a while back but it was resolved.

[LEGION]

Thanks for the info, Serpentine. But what is PAE? Just for info, I won´t activate it. And no, I never had TDM 1.0 installed.

 

Note: As I lured the guard 'with' missing footsteps in the next area (luring him out of the church into the statue room in St.Lucia) his footsteps came back.

Remember that this bug only occurred while I was playing very long. It happened only in the training mission and in St.Lucia and in both missions I played over 6 hours. (I checked this with a console cmd) I played since them three more missions, but at most reached about half the time and the bug never occurred though I loaded often to test this. I have 12 FM´s more to play and if it happens again, I´ll tell you.

[Serpentine]

If memory serves, Physical Address Extension.

 

Good, let us know if you notice any trends etc, but you don't have to make it your life's work to track it down. All in due course

[LEGION]

Damn, damn, damn. I had it all wrong. Has nothing to do with playtime. I just played the FM 'The Crown of Penitence' and I haven´t had to reload even once (but saved ca. 6 times) and the playtime was only 58 minutes but it happened again!!! I don´t get it. It was in the floor before the stairwell. The guards saw me and I hid myself under the stairwell. They came for me, but didn´t find me. During this event all three guards lost their footsteps! Saving and reloading couldn´t bring them back.

Now I know how it is like a guard, cause they sneaked up behind me and I didn´t even noticed!

 

This really sucks, cause I don´t know if it is my system or the DarkMod...

[7upMan]

Legion, you say you are using a dedicated sound card. Do you also have an onboard sound solution (like a Realtek chip)? In that case, it might be a good idea to take out your sound card (or just disable it in the Device Manager (Gerätemanager)) and have the onboard sound chip enabled (if it's not enabled yet, then you have to do so in the BIOS). Maybe this solves your problems. At least it's worth a try. And the sound quality isn't noticably worse.

[LEGION]

Yes, I have Realtek HD Audio. I´ll try this tonight. If this solves it you have to explain this to me.

 

About WinXP 64bit: how do I know my processor is capable of 64bit? I have Intel Core 2 Quad.

[Tels]

Yes, I have Realtek HD Audio. I´ll try this tonight. If this solves it you have to explain this to me.

 

About WinXP 64bit: how do I know my processor is capable of 64bit? I have Intel Core 2 Quad.

 

It should be able to do 64bit. AFAIK only some notebook CPUs are still limited to 32bit:

 

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2quad/specifications.htm

 

As for going to 64bit, under Linux this is no question: Do it. You can only win, you get more memory, the CPU can use more registers and you still can run 32bit programs (like TDM . I haven't used 32bit (except on my crappy laptop) at work or at home since quite a few years. My work PC has 16 Gbyte memory and 8 cores, btw

 

Under windows, it is a bit different. Newest (Vista and windows 7) have fairly good 64bit support, but XP is spotty. Esp. drivers for old hardware might not exist and there are other problems (if I remember correctly, you can only use signed drivers) as well. So make a backup before you wipe your PC and try 64bit windows

 

OTOH, Doom3 is a 32bit process, so it will never be able to use more than 3Gbyte (linux) resp. 2 Gbyte (windows) memory, anyway.

[LEGION]

My work PC has 16 Gbyte memory and 8 cores, btw

 

My goodness! Might I ask what do you need such a monster for?

And thanks for the infos.

 

The newest game I´m playing is Doom3/TDM. For anything else I have my PS3. Since most PC-games come out with so lots of bugs I´m not interested in them anymore. Only for Thief4 I´ll make an exception, maybe.

So for just 750 MB RAM more that my games won´t use anyway and an troubling OS, I think I leave it as it is.

 

Now let´s get to this fu**ing sound bug:

 

I tried Realtek but this is not an option. The sound through my (5.1) headphones is horrible and DarkMod seems not capable of activating even Surround on this. Loaded the mission and got a console crash telling me about failure for OpenAL or something. (not OpenGL)

 

But I´m pretty sure that this is a DarkMod problem.

 

Please try this yourself: (I did this 5 times and it was every time the same result)

 

Load the FM 'The Crown of Penitence' and head for the stairwell behind the locked door. (It´s no matter if you blackjack one or ghost, I tried both) When you open the door let yourself be seen and then run under the stairwell and hide behind the barrel. At least the two nearest guards should follow you. (steal the mechanist-like loot, so the guard is more aware and reacts faster when he sees you) When they relax and getting back to shift they should lose their footsteps. You can check by watering the torch and look in the hallway: The Captain (the one who had the key and walking up and down) and the one going the short route from the cellars shouldn´t be having footsteps.

When I ghosted I had 4 or 5 guys searching for me, but only the mentioned two guards lost footsteps. It seemed they lost them when relaxing, but before getting back to their area of patrol.

 

While I was trying this several times I used different settings for my soundcard/headphones. I tried disabling 5.1 output (Doom3/TDM doesn´t support this anyway, does it? Only 4 speakers, right?), disabling EAX, disabling CMSS 3D Surround and the EAX & Surround settings in TDM itself but always I got the same results in loosing footsteps.

 

Please tell me what you´re experiencing by this method!

[Springheel]

I have found guards with missing footsteps before as well, though only twice in all the FMs.

[LEGION]

I have to add a note:

 

I just replayed this mission and this bug occured, too. But this time I just took the mechanist-like loot the guard stood before. When he realized it was gone he alerted the two other guards that came by and as they relaxed, all three of them lost footsteps! I played the mission to the end and the one that patrols everywhere downstairs never got his footsteps back. So it is for sure no area-problem.

[Tels]

My goodness! Might I ask what do you need such a monster for?

 

The "monster" was only about 2000 euros two years ago, guess you get it a bit cheaper already. As far as work equipment goes, that's nothing, I still remember we paid easily 2500 euros (in the 90'ies) for some 22" CRTs... now you pay 250 € for a decent 24 LCD with more pixels on it.

 

It was intended for running multiple virtual boxes (with XP and 1Gbyte memory each). Since until very recently linux/virtualbox wasn't (isn't?) able to make it so that memory with the same contents exists only once, each virtualbox needs its own 1Gbyte memory, and since 16Gbyte were not much more than 8, I opted for this.

 

In the end it never came to that usage, now I am using it to primarily develop, e.g. web applications. Getting Firefox to consume 5.7 Gbytes memory legally in one tab can be fun It's also a great testbed for all things multi-core - you can test wether running 7 times the same application will slow it down - or not

 

The newest game I´m playing is Doom3/TDM. For anything else I have my PS3. Since most PC-games come out with so lots of bugs I´m not interested in them anymore. Only for Thief4 I´ll make an exception, maybe.

So for just 750 MB RAM more that my games won´t use anyway and an troubling OS, I think I leave it as it is.

 

Sounds sensible to me.

 

Now let´s get to this fu**ing sound bug:

 

Can you send a savegame after this happens? Would make it easier to verify it. I am not sure it can be fixed tho, it depends where the bug really is. But it sounds (no pun it is related somehow to the AI code.

[7upMan]

 

Now let´s get to this fu**ing sound bug:

 

I tried Realtek but this is not an option. The sound through my (5.1) headphones is horrible and DarkMod seems not capable of activating even Surround on this. Loaded the mission and got a console crash telling me about failure for OpenAL or something. (not OpenGL)

 

Well, I have my SpeedLink Medusa 5.1 headset attached to the Realtek onboard sound unit. I remember that the sound of the SoundBlaster Live was not noticably better than that of the Realtek solution I had at that time (Athlon XP, if I remember correctly), so I don't assume the sound quality should be that much different with current hardware. What I think is, maybe you mis-configured the Realtek HD Audio Manager?

 

Besides, I can have Surround with the Realtek too, no problem at all. Anyway, the sound bug you're experiencing is really strange...

[aidakeeley]

A mod beta of a dated engine... doesn't work with EAX + Surround on a 5.1 headset.

 

Hmm... Impossible!

 

 

...

 

Another thing I came across that, though you all may be completely aware about, I thought I'd mention as it may have gotten lost in the recesses...

 

While messing about a bit with the DR 1.2.2 release and advancing further into the A-Z tutorial I tangented my way off into this bit about Stims/Responses (author: sparhawk)

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Stim/Response

 

it is very important for the health of the system. If stims are not destroyed after they are used up, they will take up memory and hog your machine down after time. Also accumulating stims will cause the system to respond slower after time, as more and more stims have to be tested...

 

Might this have to do with longer-play=more-stutter+more-crash?

Edited April 21, 2010 by aidakeeley

[LEGION]

@Tels: PM me where I should send the save. You are aware that the save is about 86MB, are you? I think my googlemail can handle it, but never tried a large attachment like this.

 

But please try my method, it´s about only 5 minutes cause I wanna know if it´s only me or not! And if you have the same results like me I won´t need to send a savegame.

 

'Sounded' pretty interesting what you told there. (though I had to google VirtualBox )

 

@7upMan: My Realtek Audioconsole (Realtek HD Audiokonfiguration in der Systemsteuerung) was pretty easy to handle because it detected every of my three Headphone cables and I could choose what each stands for. (Front speaker, rear and center) I choose 6 Chanel system and tried this test where a bee was flying around my virtual head. All was fine and right!

But the sound was pretty calm (not clean and much noise while system start), though I turned everything up. (wave, master volume and each speaker) Also I could hear a noise when moving my mouse. This wasn´t hearable while I used my gamepad which emulates my mouse.

As I first started DarkMod (I didn´t made a reboot of my OS) I saw the gamescreen, but wasn´t able for any input. No mouse, Keyboard or Gamepad! Somehow I made my OS making a reboot. After that DarkMod seemed normal and as I enabled Surround in the Audio-Menu DarkMod wasn´t complaining. But as I started the mission I had this console-crash I mentioned before. And then I had enough.

But thanks for trying to help, anyway.

[LEGION]

A mod beta of a dated engine... doesn't work with EAX + Surround on a 5.1 headset.

 

Don´t refer to my headphones as headset! I payed pretty much. Have a look:

 

http://www.google.de...drvQREFy3Q1Gs1w

Edited April 21, 2010 by LEGION

[aidakeeley]

A set of headphones?

 

A phonic headset?

 

A gaggle of geese.

 

Anyway, thanks for the link. Not as expensive as I expected, actually. I may get into this.

 

But, to be honest, you may have to drop your expectations for the time being and just play with stereo... like I say, it is a beta total conversion mod of an engine that was built a whileback for a bloodletting game. Not that this shouldn't be pursued, this bug hunt. But there are more wide-reaching issues, I believe; and with less variables in the mix, I believe as well.

[LEGION]

This bug occurs too, while playing stereo!!

 

And I have to add that I needed the following too for using this headphones with my PS3. That was what I meant with "payed pretty much":

 

http://www.google.de...Rq6sQHkOl5KCCRA

[Fidcal]

aidakeeley: Yes, stims are a possible cause of some of accumulative techy crashes. I wondered before if say two bodies are lying on each other (or one body distorted) if there is a damage stim on the sword that is being endlessly triggered (I doubt it because I would expect that these stims are disabled except in melee.) But something is harming the AI in my FM and you can see pain being reported in the console right from the start. So I think it very likely that a damage stim is regularly firing and harming some AI.

 

I remember in my Thief FM that I was using an extension to the assets which provided a stim on arrows and a response on AI such that if an arrow whizzed by their heads then it alerted them. I had a situation where a spider went near a hidden arrow and the stim alerted it so it stayed around there and the stim kept firing. I was seeing fps dropping ... and dropping ... and dropping - until it crashed. Took me a long while to find that bug. In fact I abandoned it for several months as hopeless.

[Noisycricket]

After much sound testing in 1.0, I came to believe that TDM's sound propagation code somehow hinders the surround sound effect, since in Doom, i can pinpoint a needle dropping, where as in TDM, a sound is often heard the same way while rotating around a large number of degree. In addition, it often snaps to a whole new position which to my ears seems like going from stereo to mono.

 

As far as EAX, i don't believe the current maps are even built with the necessary room to room nodes supplying the data for the desired amount of reverb, except for one, but i don't think it works at all anyway. I just now started wondering if it wasn't something to do with some changes in the way DarkRadiant might build maps differently.