gamedevlists-windows

RE: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Tom F. <to...@mu...>]

Sound driver problems. Who would have thought it? :-)

Sound driver quality ranges from bad to appalling. Most code I know always
uses software mixing and the fewest number of features possible. By all
means have an "advanced" panel so the user can re-enable all the
3D-surround-sound-hardware-accellerated loveliness, but make it advanced,
not default, because it's so flaky, and the flakiness is so random. Better
to get basic 2D sound without hisses and crackles and distortion on all
platforms than get really cool sound on some and BSODs on others :-(

It's usually sound driver and/or motherboard driver related.


Tom Forsyth - purely hypothetical Muckyfoot bloke.

This email is the product of your deranged imagination,
and does not in any way imply existence of the author.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eero Pajarre [mailto:epa...@ko...]
> Sent: 13 September 2002 18:56
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?
> 
> 
> I have written a simulator which uses the DirectSound3D
> to position several sound efects around the user.
> Typically the simulator is used in a 4 channel
> setup so I found the 3d interface useful.
> 
> I have compiled it using the dsound which was
> included with VC++ 6.0, which must mean something
> quite old. I do my graphics in OpenGL so I have
> not had the need to follow the latest DirectX versions.
> 
> The simulator works ok with Windows 98 and Windows ME
> using SB Live and Live 5.1 soundcards, but with
> WindowsXP there are serious sound quality problems.
> 
> Also when testing with the Creative speaker test program
> I think I hear something wrong with the sound on the
> Win XP machine.
> 
> Has anybody seen (heard) this before. Should I be looking
> for a driver, DirectX, or application bug?
> 
> 
> 			Eero
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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RE: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Tom F. <to...@mu...>]

Changing PCI slots forces the IRQ arbitration to be re-done, so it solves a
suprising number of conflicts on all sorts of cards.

This combo is (a) incredibly common and (b) prone to problems. Randomly
installing drivers and moving PCI slots usually eventually sorts it, but
it's all just voodoo, and in some cases I've had to simply turn hardware
sound accelleration off completely, so DSound is doing the mixing in
software and using the legacy (but reliable) WaveOut stuff.


Tom Forsyth - purely hypothetical Muckyfoot bloke.

This email is the product of your deranged imagination,
and does not in any way imply existence of the author.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eero Pajarre [mailto:epa...@ko...]
> Sent: 18 September 2002 19:53
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known
> problems?
> 
> 
> Jon Watte wrote:
> 
> > Interrupt sharing not working? That's so lame. What is the 
> sound and 
> > graphics cards, so I can avoid one of them? :-)
> > 
> 
> Nvidia (Geforce 4) based graphics, and Creative (SB Live) soundcard,
> easy to avoid ;-)
> 
> Seriously, I don't really know what was happening, except 
> that changing
> to a different PCI slot apparently fixed it. (actually according the
> the motherboard docs there should not have been direct 
> conflicts in the
> original slot either). It is quite possible that I am doing something
> wrong with DirectSound, and it just has worked so far.
> 
> I will also finish my OpenAL backend, in my tests it at least 
> had different
> problems.
> 
> 
> 		Eero
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 

Re: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Eero P. <epa...@ko...>]

Tom Forsyth wrote:
 > Sound driver problems. Who would have thought it? :-)
 >
 > Sound driver quality ranges from bad to appalling. Most code I know always
 > uses software mixing and the fewest number of features possible. By all
 > means have an "advanced" panel so the user can re-enable all the
 > 3D-surround-sound-hardware-accellerated loveliness, but make it advanced,
 > not default, because it's so flaky, and the flakiness is so random. Better
 > to get basic 2D sound without hisses and crackles and distortion on all
 > platforms than get really cool sound on some and BSODs on others :-(
 >
 > It's usually sound driver and/or motherboard driver related.


Because of my specific requirements, downgrading from the 4-channel audio
was not really possible.

But I was sort of lucky, I happened to notice that the screen mode
which was used correlated with the sound problems. This made me suspect
interrupt issues between graphics and sound card. Moving the sound
card to a different PCI slot seems to solve the problem.

For me this is an ok fix at the moment. (I understand that for
a typical game providing a reliable fallback alternative is
a must)


			Eero

RE: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

> But I was sort of lucky, I happened to notice that the screen mode
> which was used correlated with the sound problems. This made me suspect
> interrupt issues between graphics and sound card. Moving the sound
> card to a different PCI slot seems to solve the problem.

Interrupt sharing not working? That's so lame. What is the sound and 
graphics cards, so I can avoid one of them? :-)

There's really no excuse for spending more than like 50 microseconds 
in an interrupt handler these days.

Cheers,

				/ h+

Re: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Eero P. <epa...@ko...>]

Jon Watte wrote:

> Interrupt sharing not working? That's so lame. What is the sound and 
> graphics cards, so I can avoid one of them? :-)
> 

Nvidia (Geforce 4) based graphics, and Creative (SB Live) soundcard,
easy to avoid ;-)

Seriously, I don't really know what was happening, except that changing
to a different PCI slot apparently fixed it. (actually according the
the motherboard docs there should not have been direct conflicts in the
original slot either). It is quite possible that I am doing something
wrong with DirectSound, and it just has worked so far.

I will also finish my OpenAL backend, in my tests it at least had different
problems.


		Eero

RE: [GD-Windows] DirectSound(3D) and Windows XP, known problems?

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

> Nvidia (Geforce 4) based graphics, and Creative (SB Live) soundcard,
> easy to avoid ;-)

Yeah. I'll mark that combo as "not supported". Thanks.

:-)

That aside, I've had horrible experiences with SB Live drivers 
on Windows XP. The update that you can get from Microsoft Update 
was worse than anything else I've tried, and the latest download 
from soundblaster.com isn't a whole lot better. Blech.

Cheers,

				/ h+