Sound bugs since 268 (potential minor exploit)
sotanaht
Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
Join Date: 2013-01-12 Member: 179215Members
Mostly related to my particular headset/driver (corsair vengeance 1500) and mostly fixable on my own, I still wanted to report this due to the potential exploitative nature of what's going on.
When my headset is running in 2.0 stereo mode (either set that way in the corsair software or with the software not running), certain sound effects are extremely muffled when they should not be. In particular, most of my own movement sounds and certain attacks (shotgun and lerk bite/spike confirmed so far) are almost inaudible.
The reason I say this is exploitable is because while I can hardly hear myself, I can still easily hear the enemy, meaning I could be shooting or biting an rt (lerk but not skulk) and still clearly hear anyone approaching.
Simply setting the driver software to 7.1 surround fixes the problems. I should probably just leave it at that but I'm not all that happy with the way these headphones sound in 7.1 so I would prefer the option to listen to the 2.0 sounds I've been hearing all this time, which is why I say "mostly fixable".
When my headset is running in 2.0 stereo mode (either set that way in the corsair software or with the software not running), certain sound effects are extremely muffled when they should not be. In particular, most of my own movement sounds and certain attacks (shotgun and lerk bite/spike confirmed so far) are almost inaudible.
The reason I say this is exploitable is because while I can hardly hear myself, I can still easily hear the enemy, meaning I could be shooting or biting an rt (lerk but not skulk) and still clearly hear anyone approaching.
Simply setting the driver software to 7.1 surround fixes the problems. I should probably just leave it at that but I'm not all that happy with the way these headphones sound in 7.1 so I would prefer the option to listen to the 2.0 sounds I've been hearing all this time, which is why I say "mostly fixable".
Comments
Ingame sounds
Taunt's bug
G35 uses it's own drivers being that it is USB.
If you are running these with the logitech gaming software, you can increase the volume with the included pre amp in the options.
0.0
I do not experience this.
What are your in game options for sound? Is NS2 recognizing your setup? Drivers?
That is exactly the problem. The corsair headphones are weird, they actually report themselves to Windows as if they were stereo speakers and only through the "corsair headset software" are they functional as anything else (windows still calls them 2.0 speakers). It's always been a problem in NS2 in one form or another (basically the 7.1 never worked properly), but only 268 introduced any sort of bug with the 2.0 mode.
Dolby is only supported in 5.1 mode, which sounds much better to me so I'll be using that.
Just the quality of the sound coming through the headphones takes a nosedive. Sounds a little echoy. I'm not good at describing sounds but I'm 99% sure it has absolutely nothing to do with NS2.
My current theory for why some sounds are so muffled and quiet is that the game is sending full 7.1 audio and my headphones are dropping certain sound channels entirely, so all I hear is what is going to the front left and front right "speakers". With people complaining elsewhere that your own footsteps sound like they are coming from behind that makes a bit of sense. What doesn't make sense is that Skulk bites are full volume, but lerk bites are almost inaudible, same for LMGs (normal) and shotguns (quiet).
Weird. After messing around with different audio setups tonight i attempted to play some NS2 and when i did i heard the same exact sound issue you had - it was playing the positioning incorrectly.
So i switched off my surround using the analog switch, then flicked it back on, and BAM... it fixed it....... weird.
That is the first difference: Megalodon is using standard Windows drivers to report itself to OS as 7.1 (or 5.1) soundsystem. No additional drivers or software are needed.
My ingame sound options:
So, to what I've figured out.
I extracted the PCM soundtrack from my "healing" video, I opened it in SoundForge and saw this:
The channels are:
1 - Front left
2 - Front right
3 - Center
4 - Low frequency
5 - Surround left
6 - Surround right
7 - Surround back left
8 - Surround back right
And yes, the Center channel is screwed up!!! It acts somehow like a Surround left! That is why IronHorse hears footsteps from the left, and that is why all front sounds are so muffled. Because Center channel is OFF or it is amplifies the left channels. Correcting: Center channel acting as it should, but Center channel is very low volume while gorge healing or not active while marine shoot rifle.
>>>>>>WATCH the video in 7.1 mode<<<<<<
I can try to make a video of the whole process, but you can get that file and test for yourselfs:
Here you can get that WAV file.
I need to test it a little more (for other player's sounds, speech, ets), but Center channel needs to be fixed.
We'll need a @SamusDroid to make a spacejump to us.
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Update 1.
The gamer's speech is using 1 and 2 channels (Front right and Front left) and not Center channel, that is why it sometimes causes echoing.
Update 2
I've recorded some ambient sounds like Docking showers, Generator, Ventilation and they seem to be fine and use Center channel properly.
Update 3
Added video file above.
Gorge spit, breath, bile (launch but not the splash) bait, and walking are affected, bellyslide (inital sound) and building sounds are not
lerk bite, flapping, and spikes are affected. Spores, umbra, and the "wind" sound are not.
fade walking, swipe, and stab are affected, blink and metabolize are not.
Onos stomp and walking/jumping is affected, gore is not. Shaking is still heard
Marine footsteps, axe, rifle butt, shotguns, grenade launcher (firing), railgun (firing and charging), and all reloads are affected. Pistol, welder, lmg, flamethrower, jetpack, and minigun are not.
Taunts and voiceovers are not affected, no commander sounds seem to be affected. I have not tested either of these thoroughly.
Striking sounds (including building sound effects) are all completely audible.
I have not found any circumstance where a particular sound effect changes. Either it something is always affected, or never is.
Recorded gameplay (via shadowplay) plays all sounds properly.
I had actually thought the problem had fixed itself for a bit. I wasn't able to reproduce it with any setting that had previously had problems. Restarting my computer however caused the problem to return.
I want to say that the majority of those items you just listed are not affected for me.
Would you please attempt to investigate your setup as metroid has, and provide any data you find.
Like i posted before, i was able to reproduce this issue by changing my own sound device to another set of headphones and back again. But to fix it, all i did was reinitiliaze the surround sound switch on my headset... and it fixed it while in game.
SO when you can reproduce this issue, try resetting the sound device in your game options, and maybe try plugging it back in etc etc..
@METROID
What i need to find out is WHY center is not playing adequately for you.. have you checked your per channel volumes in your software? I know my software allows me to change each channel's volume:
Edit: have you gone into device manager and clicked on your headset and then "driver details" and clicked through the various driver files to ensure that megladon has at least one driver file in there? my logitech headset has 2 out of 6 files that are logitech (the others are microsoft)
Your headset DOES provide its own drivers as it is USB.. it is not using windows' default driver. Shouldn't be, at least.
Have you tried plugging in the headset into another usb port? (one that is not 3.0 preferably)
Also, as you can see on video, the volume of the Center channel can't be helped when shooting, because shooting is using only Front channels.
Sound Device: Speakers (2- Logitech G35 Headset) 7.1
?
Does it report 7.1?
All sounds, including footsteps are clearly biased to the right
"NOTE! (Windows only) Sound will not behave correctly unless your control panel has set the speaker mode to the correct setup. For example if FMOD_SPEAKERMODE_7POINT1 is set on a speaker system that has been set to 'stereo' in the windows control panel, sounds can dissapear and come out of the wrong speaker. Make sure your users know about this.
If using WinMM output, note that some soundcard drivers do not support multichannel output correctly (i.e. Creative cards).
If using WASAPI the speaker mode will be forced to the control panel setting, you can call System::getSpeakerMode after System::init to verify.
Only DirectSound, WASAPI and ASIO have reliably working multichannel output.
If the speaker mode is not actually supported (even though the user set the speaker mode to 7.1 in Windows) the soundcard might not be able to handle it. You will get FMOD_ERR_OUTPUT_CREATEBUFFER error. Change the speaker mode to FMOD_SPEAKERMODE_STEREO and re-initialize if this happens."
It says: For that device driver files are not loaded or not necessary.
It is using somekind of AudioEndpoint.inf
Yes, I have the latest firmware.
Still, no drivers needed.
You downmixed channels for sure...
Also, check the SoundForge audio settings and try hearing your sounds again:
Video Windows sound test