Sick Puppy Custom Sounds

[Chalenge]

Thank you. This sound might be too complex for onboard sound. After what Vudu reported and now you, I am thinking I may have to simplify the engine sounds in some cases.

I'll see if I can find a Realtek ALC892 chip and check what you are hearing, anyway.

@Randy, no insult taken. I set out to produce realism and I will put that up against fantasy any day.

[olds442]

To be honest on board sound has really gotten better than it used to be. For example the only reason I use a external DAC for headphones is due to impedance issues. VIA and realtek chips have come along way with 108db SNR on my VIA chip for example. Most sound cards are actually worse than onboard (cough the ones that say "gaming" on them). For example I had a creative 3d recon soundcard and not only did it color the sound way to much it had a LOWER SNR than my on board. it has a 98 db SNR compared to my onboards 108 db. Needless to say a promptly took that crap back. Really if you want a sound card you need to buy a slightly older on that works over PCI rather than PCIe as PCIe for some reason always have sound buffer sync issues and on overclocked systems its really bad. External DAC or onboard is the only way you should use sound for headphones a PC, modern soundcards are junk.

[Chalenge]

I disagree and for good reason. While you are correct that a lot of the low-end sound cards are junk, the upper end is also the only way you can get any kind of 3D position processing to work well. It is possible that your use of the word "most" is correct, but only because I do not know precisely how many junk cards are made. Also, the sound buffer sync issue is a Windows issue. I know for a fact it is not an issue with Mac, and probably not an issue for Linux. If you overclock you would probably be better off learning how to modify the buffer for better performance. The only real way to avoid the buffer problem is to not use Windows. Since that is not an option the best thing a gamer can do is spend a little money on a sound card that offloads the sample conversions from the cpu to the sound card or sister-audio processor. I am not aware of an onboard sound chip that does that. You can also completely avoid the buffer issue even with Windows by moving to an ASIO interface, but then there is no 3D position processing at all (except of course the standard DirectX CPU bound processing). The best solution I have found is using a top-end Sound Blaster card that offers 3D position processing on card (the latest also offer separate 128 voice positioning) for sound output, and an ASIO interface for vox input. Doing that removes the vast majority of latency issues.

I tested the P-47D25 engine sound using a Realtek ALC1185 without an issue. It runs at 500MHz, which is a slight improvement over the ALC892. The reason I suspected a complexity issue is because ammo reports a 10 second interval, but the sound is only eight seconds in length. I really want to explore the track interval compressing further, but if it leaves onboard users out then I have to let it go.

[olds442]

I for one like to keep my sounds true to their source, hence why I don't use a soundcard with a bunch of features. A external DAC works fine for me, the buffer sync issue has to due with the creative chips being originally PCI devices then had to be modified to PCIe. In some systems the timings get all screwed up and leads to a bunch of sound repeating or no sound at all (say for example when coming out of sleep).

Also I find that no soundcard can fix the fact that the PC is a dirty place for analogue sound (lots of distortion from EMI from DC fans that work of PWM and such) so really the only thing I could do was get a digital output from HDMI (which can't have distortion from EMI) and then use a external DAC and AMP to get clean sound. Even my old X-FI titanium HD had the issue with EMI distortion so for me soundcards are useless. But I guess it depends how much stuff is in your PC.

[Chalenge]

While an eternal DAC will remove the latency issues for the most part (there is still going to be some you can never notice) there is no DAC that I am aware of that does 3D positioning. When you said "bunch of features" you clearly meant the 3D positioning, which is exactly why you want to use a sound card. The timings issue can happen if you have a lot of bloat-ware and "dial-home" programs that open on their own. This is why it is so important to remove the junk Dell and other companies install, and to prevent apps from updating on their own. I cringe every time someone says the game minimized, because I know they have something in the background. Oh, and then there is the dreaded driver that has not been updated since the dawn of the PC. That can cause all manner of havoc, which is why every time you update any program on your PC you need to go through every device and make sure your drivers are up to date.

The only other thing I can think of that you might have been experiencing is audio anomalies that come about as a result of conversion of audio to 48KHz. The problem is that the X-Fi chipset is supposed to have abandoned that process, so you should not have experienced that with the card you mentioned. The only time I have seen this happen is when the onboard audio chip remains active while using a X-Fi. That is never a good idea as has been pointed out many times. PWM will not interfere with audio, except if the fan is cheaply made with a noisy motor. Just buy Scythe fans and be rid of that problem. The only other really bad source of noise I can even imagine is a cheap PSU, or a faulty case switch. The point being that any noise inside your system is an indication that something needs to be sorted out.

[Chalenge]

Something you might like to play with is the RightMark Audio Benchmarking software.

http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml  (for the sake of your ears turn your speakers down and take headphones off before running tests)

This last January Anandtech attempted to put together a benchmark test for motherboard solutions (after several of us requested something of the sort), but at this point have yet to be successful at producing something that give consistent quantifiable results, so we are still waiting for that. They did report that this software is probably not a good testing method because the hardware being tested creates the testing environment, so to speak. You can read what they had to say:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7709/retesting-the-asus-rampage-iv-black-edition-audio

[olds442]

It seems on the niki and various other planes the breaks are too loud (they are the default sound).

[Chalenge]

I was never able to determine the brake type for certain aircraft, so they have no sound of their own. In the root directory I have renamed the brake.wav sound to brakes.wav, so if you just remove the 's' that sound will fill in for the missing brake. And of course you can choose from the other aircraft that have either hydraulic or pneumatic.

[olds442]

it seems the p47s (especially the d11) have very quite engine start ups.

[ebfd11]

Well I am gonna give it a try.. I have Mistu's Rangers and Ticktocs .. just from what i heard they sound good.

LawnDart

[Chalenge]

it seems the p47s (especially the d11) have very quite engine start ups.

Cleaned up for patching this next week. So, there will be new 47's and 38's both.

[Baloo]

anricipating that

[Chalenge]

The P-38 Patch is available in .exe and .zip form.

[-ammo-]

P-47 patch too?

[Chalenge]

It's coming, ammo. I'm still working on getting them just right.