Guard footsteps sound problem (now with more sound problems!)

[mike mayday]

I'm not sure if this is a problem with just some of the missions or a general DM problem...

 

In many cases, the guard footsteps are very loud, don't seem to get quiter with distance. I play in surround and they seem to be played at "my location", but it's not any better in stereo. Sometimes I hear them perfectly even if there's a few meters of stone between me and the guard (Heart of the Lone Salvation, sewers at the beginning). It's extremely disorienting.

Sometimes the same problem occurs with guard voices.

 

Turning EAX on or off doesn't make a difference.

I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (latest drivers) and a 5.1 speaker setup.

 

Tried this in Heart of the Lone Salvation and the Sound Alarm Tutorial. If I remember correctly, I've had the same problem in Sant Lucia.

Any clues on how to fix it?

Edited May 18, 2010 by mike mayday

[Irenices]

I've has the same problem in a number of missions and have yet to find a solution myself

 

(ps-love your df tileset =p)

[mike mayday]

Now that I'm playing with headphones and surround off, I seem to be having another problem. The game behaves as if I was still using surround- when I turn away from a source of sound, it gets silent. This also causes extremely weird fluctuations of NPC voice volume.

 

EDIT: This was caused by EAX HD, it doesn't seem to work very well

Edited May 19, 2010 by mike mayday

[Bikerdude]

I have fixed that in my current mission, all authors need to do is set s_maxdistance to something like 8. This will lower the distance at which you hear the guard and means the sound get louder or quieter as the guard get closer or further away.

 

What could be done is all sound args the Ai's to the above in the 1.03 update.

 

[update] corrected advice based in Springs input.

Edited May 19, 2010 by Bikerdude

[Springheel]

If you set the maxdistance to 6 (there is already no mindistance by default) then that would make the falloff more dramatic. However you won't hear AI at all if they're more than 6 units away (less than the size of an average room).

[mike mayday]

Ah, some more clues: further testing with surround speakers:

WITH EAX ON:

-turning surround on or off doesn't seem to make a difference- the game is indeed stuck in surround.

-looking straight at a sound source causes the sound to almost mute, only if the sound source is on my side or back does the sound play correctly (so it appears as if the center speaker was extremely quiet, works fine in my speaker setup app though).

 

WITH EAX OFF:

testing... mostly works fine!

So the main thing to work on would be sound propagation I guess. Things like walls blocking sound etc.

Edited May 19, 2010 by mike mayday