Author Topic: Voice coms snag (Read 632 times)

capera · « **on:** September 22, 2003, 09:56:15 AM »

For the past two weeks (no pun intended) I have been constantly losing voice coms and the only way I can get them back is to log out and back in again. This only happens in the MA. I have flown in the CT with no problems.

Anyone have any ideas as to why I would be losing voice?

capera · « **Reply #1 on:** September 26, 2003, 01:00:44 PM »

{tap...tap...tap} Anyone home?

Was kinda hoping that someone else was, or reciently did, experience this problem and be willing to offer some advice to make it go away. Nothing more fusterating than getting set up for a mission and losing voice capibilities.

AKIron · « **Reply #2 on:** September 26, 2003, 01:43:50 PM »

Surprised to hear this has been happening to you for only such a short time Cap. It's been happening to many of us for much longer.

The only word I 've seen from anyone at HTC hints at it being a sound card problem and solved by reducing the sound card acceleration. I don't think that's it.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #3 on:** September 26, 2003, 01:47:16 PM »

Iron,..the sound card acceleration is a problem with many sound cards. We didn't make it up. It has to do with many factors, but for the most part is the lack of hardware buffers exposed to the application that causes the problem.
And the problem is the amount of CPU time required to deal with sound cards that do not have the hardware buffers to handle all the sound buffers that are thrown at it.

AKcurly · « **Reply #4 on:** September 26, 2003, 02:12:51 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Iron,..the sound card acceleration is a problem with many sound cards. We didn't make it up. It has to do with many factors, but for the most part is the lack of hardware buffers exposed to the application that causes the problem.
And the problem is the amount of CPU time required to deal with sound cards that do not have the hardware buffers to handle all the sound buffers that are thrown at it.

OK Skuzzy, then tell me a sound card (brand) which will resolve the sound issue and I will buy it. I'm currently using SB live (no IRQ conflicts/sharing) and I still lose sound every 15 minutes or so (on average.) I've lost sound as I login!

curly

AKIron · « **Reply #5 on:** September 26, 2003, 02:51:21 PM »

Skuzzy, is there no way to buffer and control what hits the sound card without too great a performance hit? I have a hard time accepting that it's completely internal to the sound card as this is the only program that causes a problem with sound for me and many others. Furthermore, never saw this problem with other vox programs like Roger Wilco.

Sorry if I offended you. Did not mean to imply that you made it up. Just that reducing the acceleration has little to no effect for many if not most of us.

AKcurly · « **Reply #6 on:** September 26, 2003, 03:04:26 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by AKIron

Sorry if I offended you. Did not mean to imply that you made it up. Just that reducing the acceleration has little to no effect for many if not most of us.

Skuzzy, don't let Iron kid you. He cusses you constantly!

Seriously Skuzzy, I do want to know the sound card I can use which will usually work w/Ace High (see above post if you missed it.)

curly

Strange · « **Reply #7 on:** September 26, 2003, 03:27:41 PM »

I dunno.. Skuzzy.. been having lots of problems.. and never have had problems before and so have a few of my sqaud mates as well.

It's been spotty lately. I know it's not my hard ware.. I've never had this issue b/4.

BTW mine is a Athlon 2200, 1gig ram, 128MB 9700 ATI, Legacy Audio, Win XP

Skuzzy · « **Reply #8 on:** September 26, 2003, 03:28:34 PM »

Complicated issue. The SBLive is not the greatest card around. It has higher than (what I would call) normal CPU utilization.

But it is not the sole part of the entire problem. Many players use it with zero problems or drops in VOX. It seems tied to the combination of CPU speed, memory, OS/driver updates, and motherboard chipset. The Internet connection is suspect as well.

I never lost VOX with my old SBLive, and since I got the Audigy 2, my frame rates went up about 10-15 FPS (in all games) and I still have no issues with sound/VOX.

When you say you have no issues with other applications, it really does not mean anything. Those other apps are either dedicated to sound, or have very little CPU activity going on.
In AH, the CPU is getting used quite heavily. All the asynchronous events will collide to cause potential problems with VOX, if the system is not well balanced.

I am doing a lousy job of explaining this. What typically happens is the sound card backs up, for lack of a better defination. It does not take many sounds for this to happen. The SBLive does not expose any hardware buffers to DirectX, so DX is handling it all in software.
If two sounds hit at the same time and another tries to squeeze in, then it could cause DX to dump the buffers if the sound card cannot handle it. Bye-bye VOX.
DX controls the sound. Once we hand it a buffer, we go about our merry way.

Now, this is but one potential instance. There are many more.

Now, for what it is worth, there may be something in the Squad channel possibly related to when a squad member loses his VOX it somehow takes down everyone at the same time. I will not discount that and have talked to HT about it, but the above still holds true.

We understand the players frustration with this. I wish we could reliably duplicate the problem. To my knowledge, no one here has ever lost VOX and we have to connect to the server just like you guys do, over the Internet.

AKIron · « **Reply #9 on:** September 26, 2003, 03:48:34 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Now, for what it is worth, there may be something in the Squad channel possibly related to when a squad member loses his VOX it somehow takes down everyone at the same time. I will not discount that and have talked to HT about it, but the above still holds true.

AH HA, just as suspected, it's been Curly's fault all along.

AKIron · « **Reply #10 on:** September 26, 2003, 03:53:22 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
It seems tied to the combination of CPU speed, memory, OS/driver updates, and motherboard chipset. The Internet connection is suspect as well.

Ya know there are just about infinite possibilities there. Ya may as well add in the tide and alignment of the planets. Not tryin' to be a smart prettythang, oh wait, yes I am.

AKIron · « **Reply #11 on:** September 26, 2003, 04:13:14 PM »

Now that I've made an prettythang of myself Skuzzy probably won't even listen, didn't stop him before though so I'll keep going.

What happens when we log out of AH and back in that makes vox start working again? Is there some sort of initialization that happens then that could be reproduced just for vox via command line within the game?

capera · « **Reply #12 on:** September 26, 2003, 04:44:13 PM »

Wow....people answered my cry for help.

I know that others have lost vox in the past but I have never had a problem with it in the past....only the last few weeks. It is happening every night @ several times a night and apparently not to just myself but many others.

I have optimized my system using the "sticky" threads posted in this forum to insure I am doing everything on my end to sort out this problem. I was worried that I had something set up wrong and wanted to cover all bases.

Cause = Brand of sound card? If that was true, then it would only stand to reason that I would have been experiencing this problem for longer than two to three weeks as I have not added or taken any hardware away from my system.

As I can see from the posts above, nobody is 100% positive as to what is the cause of this problem that many of us AH members are having to endure this pesky little snag.

I do have one question for you, Skuzzy........

Is there a way to reset the sound within the game? You know, kinda jump start the dead radio battery with a command line ( eg .jumpstart my friggin vox )

That way we would not have to log out to regain our voice coms.

MetaTron · « **Reply #13 on:** September 26, 2003, 04:55:05 PM »

I use a motherboard that has sound built in and I have never lost vox. I just switched from an Epox to an DFI LAN Party KT400A. I lost vox once with the Epox and havent yet with the DFI.

Now Skuzzy can expound upon the evils of the VIA chipset.

AKcurly · « **Reply #14 on:** September 26, 2003, 05:34:28 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy

But it is not the sole part of the entire problem. Many players use it with zero problems or drops in VOX. It seems tied to the combination of CPU speed, memory, OS/driver updates, and motherboard chipset. The Internet connection is suspect as well.

I am doing a lousy job of explaining this. What typically happens is the sound card backs up, for lack of a better defination. It does not take many sounds for this to happen. The SBLive does not expose any hardware buffers to DirectX, so DX is handling it all in software.

If two sounds hit at the same time and another tries to squeeze in, then it could cause DX to dump the buffers if the sound card cannot handle it. Bye-bye VOX.
DX controls the sound. Once we hand it a buffer, we go about our merry way.

You are describing an interaction problem between hardware and software.

If the interaction can't be controlled, then it shouldn't be used. If the interaction can be controlled, then the software (AH) has a problem.

While I don't have access to hard numbers, I would make the guess that a substantial majority of users have sound problems every time they use the software.

Skuzzy, you mentioned the problem couldn't be duplicated by the HTC staff. Don't you imagine that's due to the fact they don't participate? I'm sure they login, but do they participate for 30 minutes or so? Remember, the problem we're talking about is complex and driven by multiple events possibly colliding. Sitting in the tower and saying "Iron, you must plug your j/s in before taking off" doesn't qualify as participating.

curly