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Author Topic: Miserable sound quality  (Read 13384 times)
narcis
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« on: September 04, 2007, 01:13:26 AM »

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
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fromhell
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« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2007, 01:15:05 AM »

s_khz 44
snd_restart
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dmn_clown
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« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2007, 02:22:15 AM »

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
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Fitacus
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« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2007, 05:53:27 AM »

Indeed Q3A sounds much better than OA. Maybe it's possible to improve especially the weapon sounds.
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next_ghost
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« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2007, 08:26:09 AM »

Or you could try using SDL sound instead of OpenAL directly.
s_useOpenAL 0
snd_restart
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w1zrd
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« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2007, 10:41:44 AM »

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.
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narcis
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« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2007, 02:02:57 PM »

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.


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. Tongue

Thanks for the help!
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narcis
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« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2007, 06:16:40 PM »

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.
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dmn_clown
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« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2007, 06:32:23 PM »

...

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.

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oasisforever
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« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2008, 08:46:41 AM »

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)
« Last Edit: February 07, 2008, 08:52:05 AM by oasisforever » Logged
pulchr
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« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2008, 08:56:46 AM »

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
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oasisforever
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« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2008, 09:27:28 AM »

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..
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oasisforever
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« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2008, 10:12:06 AM »

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?
« Last Edit: February 07, 2008, 10:27:06 AM by oasisforever » Logged
dmn_clown
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« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2008, 11:30:44 PM »

from the command line:

Code:
./ioquake3.xxx +set s_useOpenAL 0
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