Music skips in 32 bit mode

[ManicMatt]

If I start a dialogue with an NPC while there is music playing, the music jumps for a second.

Looking for answers via the search feature, I see that 2 people have had the same problem, and the only solution found was to degrade the game from 32 bit to 16 bit. However that makes my game look crap where gradients/lighting are used.

The only mentions of it were very brief anyway. Does anyone know of a way round the slowdown? It's not like  my PC is shit! It can play half life 2 with the high resolution skins, but not play some music properly? Is it to do with the engine?

[Pumaman]

Do you mean it just skips once when you start the dialog, or does it skip several times whilst the dialog is going on?

[ManicMatt]

Hmmm mostly when the dialogue options appear at the bottom of the screen.
Not EVERY time, but about 80% of the time. That's including when the dialog 'returns' to the options.

Can you help?

EDIT: It doesn't seem to do it whilst people are actually talking

[Pumaman]

Can you try this new engine and see if it helps at all?

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acwin.zip

just place it in your AGS folder and then save your game in the editor.

If it doesn't help, how large is your game? Would it be possible to upload it for me to experiment?

[ManicMatt]

Shucks! That didn't work!

Without the speech and music, it's 18.2mb big.

I could leave just the one song in there, where the fault occurs.

If you don't mind downloading something that size, where would you prefer I upload it to? (I know I can trust you, I wouldn't send my game file to just anyone)

EDIT: You know, I keep testing it, and I swear the rate of skips has decreased from 80% to around 50%

[Pumaman]

How fast is your PC, and what type of music are you using? (MP3, OGG, WAV?)

[ManicMatt]

i am using ogg, for size effiency. EDIT: Shit! it's mp3, my bad. I thought I'd changed them.

My PC:

AMD Athlon 64 processor
3000+
1.81GHz
512mb ram

that all the details?

I thought maybe MSN was taking up all my cpu memory, but upon restarting the problem still occurs

[Theme]

FlyRider
Member   
   Re: 800x600, 32-bit true color game--just how slow would it be?
« Reply #8 on: 02 Nov 2005, 22:01 »    Reply with quote
I'm doing that, and when testing the game I noticed that the music skipped while changing room. I tried running the game in 16-bit mode and found that the skipping was gone. Speed was also increased. I want to have the ability to use alpha transparency though.
Isn't there another way around?

Exsecratus
Member
   Re: 800x600, 32-bit true color game--just how slow would it be?
« Reply #9 on: 02 Nov 2005, 22:59 »    Reply with quote | Modify
test this:
ctrl + alt + del to open task manager
go to the process list and find your game process there
right click with mouse define a priority higher than normal
game should run faster with this
o/

AGS runs slow with my computer, the music doesnt play in the right timing because the game runs slower and thats the only way I get to work normal

I have a atlhon 1Ghz
512mb
gf4mx400

o/

[Barbarian]

Another thing to try may be to try adjusting the "hardware sound accelleration level" setting.Ã,  One way to do this would be to click on "Start" then "Run", in the run box enter in: dxdiag

When the "DxDiag" utility is running, click on the "Sound" tab, then you should be able to see a slider to adjust this setting. If the accelleration is already on "Full", then try reducing it a level at a time to see if it might help resolve the problem.
The "dxdiag" command is also useful for seeing what version of DirectX you're running along with other system-information details, as well as for testing video and audio.

Are you using the most current drivers for your audio card as well as the most current version of DirectX?Ã,  Though that might not be the problem, but at least it's worth a try (make a system-restore checkpoint though before making such changes is wise practice of course).

It's also possible that another process running in the background (eg: such as an anti-virus program) could be causing such a problem as well.

Best of luck.

[ManicMatt]

Alright, I tried both techniques and the effect was the same. (Although it was funky to go all the way down to no sound acceleration and hear the music all fuzzy!)

It's nothing to do with the default MCI device is it in AGS setup?

I'm using some creative labs sound blaster thingy.

Even so, Barbarian's advice lead me to the discovery as to why my computer goes to 100% usage sometimes. (No no, it's nothing to do with the game's problem) This particular problem seems to occur when my bluetooth adaptor fails to fully recieve a file transfer from my phone. I ended the process and the PC was fine. (BTStackserver.exe) But this is a seperate problem (now temporarly fixed and yes, the game still has the problem) but seeing as this is the AGS forums I'll ask my techhead friend how to stop the bluetooth adaptor from being shite.

So... any other ideas? Have I got too many in game commands going on in the game? Could that even slow it down? Animated background, animated whilst idle NPC whom you talk to and get the slowdown every other time, and a non-default font being used in the dialogue options.

[Pumaman]

Is starting a dialog the only time at which you get music skipping? Does it happen to you when changing rooms or at other times?

[Elliott Hird]

^ He said it's every time the game shows the dialogue options, I think .

[ManicMatt]

Like Elliott said, only when the dialogue options appear. But the rate at which it does it is inconsistent. Sometimes it'll be fine, other times it'll do it quite often. I tried setting up the music in a room with another character to talk to but the same thing occured.