Microphone problem

nastynasty

Hi i have microphone problem.. Its a studio grade microphone which still works (i am able to record onto the computer). I am using a motu ultralight mk3 hybrid as my sound card. The microphone is connected to analog 1. On windows 7 when i speak through the microphone, you can clearly see signal going through MOTU Analog under the recording devices tab.
However in NS2 in the sound setup i choose MOTU Analog as the input device, and even with gain maxed out there is no signal.. Suggestions? (Please note the microphone also works in other games)

Obraxis

Please make sure your microphone is set to default in Windows:



Then, try changing NS2 to use 'default' for your Mic input. If that does not work, select your Mic name directly.

Cheers

nastynasty

Thanks for the reply as you can see in the image below, i am getting signal in MOTU Analog.
In NS2 under input: Default - does not work MOTU Analog - does not work...

nastynasty

Ok, anyone have an answer to this? Seems like its a problem that needs to be fixed.. Almost as if NS only looks for signal in your inbuilt microphone jack..

Obraxis

Please provide a techsupport.exe file - this will help a lot when diagnosing your issue. (techsupport.exe is in your NS2 directory).

Though, I suspect that your Mic has a built-in soundcard chip and this is causing issues.

You try disabling Realtek sound temporarily in Device Manager, see if that fixes the issue.

nastynasty

Thank you, Realtek is not an option though i did disable "High Definition Audio" though this did not make it work.

So my microphone is analog and requires phantom power. There is no inbuilt soundcard chip. The issue i feel is that NS2 does not recognise my external sound cards inputs.
It definitely recognises the outputs as i do have in game sound. When i toggle through the different input channels on NS2 (which is accurately describing all of my sound cards inputs), I only get signal in "MOTU Return" which should happen as the Return channel is effectively returning what i can hear as a signal.
Also i have checked the inputs on all the other games it works on and the settings on other games are just using "default" as the input.

METROID

nastynasty, try checking your mic configuration in the STEAM settings.

nastynasty

Thanks for your comment. Mic works fine when testing through steam. Mic also works on other steam games.. Just not NS 2.

METROID

I have a silly question: when you press voice button in the game, does you nickname show up in the right side with speaker icon?

Also, try to disable all other Recording devices in the Windows Sound Settings. And check that Mic properties allow applications to use it in Exclusive mode.

Your Mic format setting must be: 1 channel 16 bit 48000Hz (DVD) or 1 channel 16 bit 44100Hz (CD).

nastynasty

Thanks Metroid, i did double check and it was all fine... My name does show when i hold down the talk button. I use 44.1kHz 24 bit studio quality, no difference on 16 bit.. and yes it does allow applications to use it otherwise the mic wouldn't work on other games.

Obraxis

Try setting it to 16 bit rather than 24. In case ns2 can't handle 24 bit.

METROID

@nastynasty, if changing the audio format didn't help, then I have no options. As I know, people often complain on not working Mics on "complex devices" like MS Kinect or PS3 Eye-camera.
But, I think, you can try something out. You can try to use Virtual audio devices and re-route sound to them, try looking for Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) or analog via Google, maybe it will help.

DC_Darkling

unfortunately I never used such sound equipment so im a bit in the dark here. However, lets see what I can think off.

The first thing coming to mind is if ns2 is asking the system directly, or going through windows in terms of sound. Im thinking its the latter as it doesnt require kernel.
Nethertheless, run ns2 as administrator. See if it helps. It shouldnt matter, but all the more info the better.

Also be sure you use the latest drivers and software of motu, from their website. Especially if you got windows 7 64bit.

>edit, scrap the above.

Error: Couldn't start recording (Unsupported file or audio format. )


I now wonder what format ns2 expects or wants to use! And what does your mic use?
i have a strong feeling its imcompatible.

nastynasty

OK so I have not solved the problem but i have found a way of getting my mic working in NS2. I ended up hard wiring it do a different input of the motu and sent it to the motu's "unused" input, set that as the default in windows and voila, it works..
Though in doing this, the signal does lose a bit of its strength and quality as shown below. The problem must be some sort of communication error between my analog and ns2, i do stress that the analog channel works fine when recording to PC and in other games.
However i am happy that i can get my mic working. Thanks all for your help!

nastynasty

The only difference between these 2 inputs is the sample rate options. Maybe NS 2 doesn't scan each 8 channels for signal? Though the input of the mic is is channel 1.. I did notice notice NS 2 doesn't care about what options you are using for Windows unless you select "default". I can use the MOTU Unused without selecting it in Windows as "Default device".

DC_Darkling

I just 'woke up' and realised you use 8 channels for input for your mic? Bloody hell why? (Im seriously wondering, not ns2 related)
I mean, 2 channels for a mic is usually pretty good in most voicechat programs.

without knowing a shred of info about how ns2 handles sound channels, I would also assume it may not work with 8 channels for microphone.

nastynasty

I use 1 channel out of 8 possible channels for my mic. The other inputs are for my music production setup