Miserable sound quality

[narcis]

Hi,

first of all, thank you very much for a very well done and sophisticated game. This is so that my other comments don't sound too rude.

I'm a Linux user, and the in-game audio sounds like total crap, although it is set to "high" in-game. It sounds like it's at 11 or 22 Khz. The Quake 3 demo doesn't have any such problems, the sound is crisp and clear. I am using ALSA as sound architecture, I have turned off the aRts daemon. Here is the output during startup:

Code:

------ Initializing Sound ------
Allocated 96 sources.
OpenAL info:
  Vendor:     OpenAL Community
  Version:    1.1
  Renderer:   Software
  Extensions: ALC_EXT_capture AL_EXT_capture AL_EXT_vorbis AL_EXT_MP3 AL_LOKI_quadriphonic AL_LOKI_play_position AL_LOKI_WAVE_format AL_LOKI_IMA_ADPCM_format AL_LOKI_buffer_data_callback ALC_LOKI_audio_channel
Sound initialization successful.
--------------------------------

Any idea what the problem could be, or how I could improve my sound quality? The game looks really good, but unfortunately with audio like that it doesn't make sense to play.

Thanks

[fromhell]

s_khz 44
snd_restart

[dmn_clown]

Any idea what the problem could be, or how I could improve my sound quality? The game looks really good, but unfortunately with audio like that it doesn't make sense to play.

Configure OpenAL corectly

[Fitacus]

Indeed Q3A sounds much better than OA. Maybe it's possible to improve especially the weapon sounds.

[next_ghost]

Or you could try using SDL sound instead of OpenAL directly.
s_useOpenAL 0
snd_restart

[w1zrd]

Or you could try using SDL sound instead of OpenAL directly.
s_useOpenAL 0
snd_restart

OpenAL 0 gives some strange echoes on my system though, but I use it since otherwise I would get no sound while recording videos.

[narcis]

s_khz 44
snd_restart

Tried that, didn't work. There are still a lot of "clicking noises" which are responsible for the bad audio quality, I think, it's as if every time some sound gets played, this noise is added.

Configure OpenAL corectly

The config file didn't exist, I used the ALSA/44khz example for me now. Didn't change anything.

Or you could try using SDL sound instead of OpenAL directly.
s_useOpenAL 0
snd_restart

Thanks! That did indeed work.

Indeed Q3A sounds much better than OA. Maybe it's possible to improve especially the weapon sounds.

True, but at least I can play OA now.

Thanks for the help!

[narcis]

It seems that this is a general problem that OpenAL has with AC'97 cards.

I just went over to the forums for "Penumbra: Overture" and they seem to suffer from exactly the same problem. One of the dev's created a modified libopenal.so and asked users to try it out. I downloaded the Update and extracted the file, then tested it with OA, same results as the other users: The sound is a little better at first, but the sound artifacts are just different. With the original libs, they produce tubby sounding artifacts, with the tampered one the artifacts are chirping at a high pitch. So, I think for people with AC'97 cards, the only option is to turn off OpenAL support for now.

In case somebody else wants to try out the tampered libs:

Code:

- go to http://frictionalgames.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1255
- create some temp folder
- download the attached file to the temp folder
- make the file executable
- search for "Untar t" in the file and replace with "Untar x"
- execute the file with the option "--list"
- run "./bin/linux/x86/libc.so.6/lzma-decode instarchive_all patch.tar"
- run "tar xvf patch.tar"

The lib is now unpacked in the "libs" directory. As root, replace the symlink in /usr/lib/libopenal.so.0 to point to it.

[dmn_clown]

...

Better idea:  extract that lib into your oa folder and create a short little start-up script:

Code:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
./ioquake3.xxx

where xxx is your architecture, there is no sense in hosing your openal on the next security update from your distro.

[oasisforever]

Or you could try using SDL sound instead of OpenAL directly.
s_useOpenAL 0
snd_restart

i have the same problem as Narcis: trying to play openarena but with crappy sound quality (also realtek soundcard).
So how do i use those codes, in the terminal? doesn't work..
output:
bash: s_useOpenAL: opdracht niet gevonden (= dutch, in english i think it means "command not found")

thanks in advance! (i like the game but it is horrible to play it in this way)

[pulchr]

you use the commands in the in-game console.
check your keybinds for the console button and bring it down - type the commands and try again

[oasisforever]

you use the commands in the in-game console.
check your keybinds for the console button and bring it down - type the commands and try again

okay, i tried it in the game with several keys, but none of them gave the console. I only get the message "WORLD_18 is unbound, use controls menu to set" when i press the key directly under the ESC key. Then i tried every key on my board, but i only get that message, sometimes MODE instead of WORLD, or another number instead of 18.

Strange..

[oasisforever]

ok, i found out with an autoexec.cfg that you can toggle F12 into the console key.

But now i try those commands ( /s_useOpenAL 0
and /snd_restart ) and they don't have any result! Any ideas what goes wrong?

[dmn_clown]

from the command line:

Code:

./ioquake3.xxx +set s_useOpenAL 0