Sound Issues

[darkarchon]

Hey guys,

I don't know if it's a known issue, but I guess so and also think many players had the same problem; I'm speaking about the missing sounds when too many things happen. I guess the crysis engine has less voices to address so it just doesn't play some sounds when they happen (like overheat warning, rocket impacs, laser blasts, ac fire/impact, etc. etc.).

Are there any plans to fix this by raising the voice count or something? I just feel like I'm missing something in the game when I don't have audial response.

Greetings

[Raptor Khatib]

hey Dark from what little reading I have done it sound like the game's sound engine is being a bit over worked. I know fully of what you mean and I'm pretty sure the Dev's are working on a fix. There is definitely overloading going on in the engines sound channels. But thats about as much as I can say.

[KingLeerUK]

Yes, we are having some sound issues, primarily from the large scope of assets included in the game.  On maxed servers (32 players) the issues are more prevalent than on servers that are restricted to 24 or fewer players.  That said, there are are number of things I will be optimising and reorganising for a future patch/release that should help most users live within the channel limits of their soundcards and still be able to engage in 32 player environments.

For the time being, I have suggested the usage of the s_MaxChannels 128 cvar as a workaround to make Crysis allocate more resources to sound playback.  This can be run for each gaming session in the console, or can be added to an autoexec.cfg file placed in the root Crysis installation directory.

If you opt for the autoexec.cfg method, the syntax for use in the file is:

Code: [Select]

s_MaxChannels=128

[Raptor Khatib]

thanks King I'll try your suggestion tonight after I get done the first draft of my English essay tonight.

[XxstelxX]

ok i could not get MWLL to run stable with my audigy 2 sound card. I have used this card for a long time and ran many games including crysis with it. I had to switch to onbaord sound Asus motherboard. Works better but get crashes after a while and sound goes wierd and game freezes everytime this happens. I have all the latest updates for sound video and motherboard drivers. Rig is a AMD x2 5000+ at 3.2 with 2 gig memory corsair xms , 8800 gt 512 BFG OC. Runs any game out there. Isn't it funny that mechwarrior has had sound issues from like netmech DOS and netmech 95 all the way through till now. oo yea windows 7 ultimate , and have tried lowering it to 16 bit 41000 or whatever lowest setting and still same thing for audigy and onboard sound.

[Sgt. Jer]

Yes, we are having some sound issues, primarily from the large scope of assets included in the game.  On maxed servers (32 players) the issues are more prevalent than on servers that are restricted to 24 or fewer players.  That said, there are are number of things I will be optimising and reorganising for a future patch/release that should help most users live within the channel limits of their soundcards and still be able to engage in 32 player environments.

For the time being, I have suggested the usage of the s_MaxChannels 128 cvar as a workaround to make Crysis allocate more resources to sound playback.  This can be run for each gaming session in the console, or can be added to an autoexec.cfg file placed in the root Crysis installation directory.

If you opt for the autoexec.cfg method, the syntax for use in the file is:

Code: [Select]

s_MaxChannels=128

I was having issues with the sound dropping out as well, this fixed it.

TY KingLeer!

[Iron Brain]

ok i could not get MWLL to run stable with my audigy 2 sound card. I have used this card for a long time and ran many games including crysis with it. I had to switch to onbaord sound Asus motherboard. Works better but get crashes after a while and sound goes wierd and game freezes everytime this happens. I have all the latest updates for sound video and motherboard drivers. Rig is a AMD x2 5000+ at 3.2 with 2 gig memory corsair xms , 8800 gt 512 BFG OC. Runs any game out there. Isn't it funny that mechwarrior has had sound issues from like netmech DOS and netmech 95 all the way through till now. oo yea windows 7 ultimate , and have tried lowering it to 16 bit 41000 or whatever lowest setting and still same thing for audigy and onboard sound.

That is a VERY OLD sound card.

At any rate, its my understanding that Crysis uses a completely software driven system for the sound in the game. A very very very poor choice. The sound engine was made by a 3rd party.

Is there any conceivable way this game could be changed to use OpenAL? I see absolutely no reason to opt for software audio over hardware at all. It may sound a tiny fraction better in some cases but the extra latency of using software is showing up in this game. It should be noted that vanilla Crysis CERTAINLY had this same issue. A very stupid problem and a result of awful design.

I know its a log shot and i dont know anything about the audio tek in this game but is it possible?

[KingLeerUK]

At any rate, its my understanding that Crysis uses a completely software driven system for the sound in the game. A very very very poor choice. The sound engine was made by a 3rd party.

Is there any conceivable way this game could be changed to use OpenAL? I see absolutely no reason to opt for software audio over hardware at all. It may sound a tiny fraction better in some cases but the extra latency of using software is showing up in this game. It should be noted that vanilla Crysis CERTAINLY had this same issue. A very stupid problem and a result of awful design.

I know its a log shot and i dont know anything about the audio tek in this game but is it possible?

Crysis uses the FMOD sound engine for its audio rendering.  It's actually a very nice engine and super easy to work with (for the most part) as well as being pretty light on the CPU and hard disk unless you are attempting to render massive real-time audio effects as controlled by in-game parameters.  I've kept this in mind in working on the MWLL project and have generally kept sounds to less than 0.2% CPU usage per sound event, something I'm pretty proud of given the massive palette required for the mod.

Crysis does use an older version of the FMOD engine (2.x something) and I do wish that I could use the latest version of FMOD Designer (4.x) due to some additional optimisations and features.  Unfortunately Crysis won't play nice with the new version and I have no expectation that they ever intend to patch in support for it.  I don't know what version of FMOD is supported by Crysis Wars, but I'm hoping that it is one of later ones, having much better emulation, debug and cone designer tools and not prone to randomly crash when I replace a waveform in a sound instance and forget to focus click before doing a preview (GAH!)

Trying to "hack in" OpenAL support would be a massive effort (and probably near impossible with just the modSDK) for very little, if any, gain.

[2nd_Avatar]

Hey KingLeerUK!

Problems aside, I think the sounds in MWLL are coming along nicely. May I suggest adjusting the AC2, and AC5 levels (volume) down a little for future release. They seem to be a good deal louder than most of the other sounds. It may just be my system but, I thought I'd ask.

Also:

For the time being, I have suggested the usage of the s_MaxChannels 128 cvar as a workaround to make Crysis allocate more resources to sound playback.  This can be run for each gaming session in the console, or can be added to an autoexec.cfg file placed in the root Crysis installation directory.

If you opt for the autoexec.cfg method, the syntax for use in the file is:

Code: [Select]

s_MaxChannels=128

Do we need to also add con_restricted 0 to the autoexec.cfg? I'm not sure how to tell if it's working or not.

Thanks...

[Albain]

Hey KingLeerUK!

Problems aside, I think the sounds in MWLL are coming along nicely. May I suggest adjusting the AC2, and AC5 levels (volume) down a little for future release. They seem to be a good deal louder than most of the other sounds. It may just be my system but, I thought I'd ask.

Also:

For the time being, I have suggested the usage of the s_MaxChannels 128 cvar as a workaround to make Crysis allocate more resources to sound playback.  This can be run for each gaming session in the console, or can be added to an autoexec.cfg file placed in the root Crysis installation directory.

If you opt for the autoexec.cfg method, the syntax for use in the file is:

Code: [Select]

s_MaxChannels=128

Yes

Do we need to also add con_restricted 0 to the autoexec.cfg? I'm not sure how to tell if it's working or not.

Thanks...

[KingLeerUK]

Hey KingLeerUK!

Problems aside, I think the sounds in MWLL are coming along nicely. May I suggest adjusting the AC2, and AC5 levels (volume) down a little for future release. They seem to be a good deal louder than most of the other sounds. It may just be my system but, I thought I'd ask.

Also:

For the time being, I have suggested the usage of the s_MaxChannels 128 cvar as a workaround to make Crysis allocate more resources to sound playback.  This can be run for each gaming session in the console, or can be added to an autoexec.cfg file placed in the root Crysis installation directory.

If you opt for the autoexec.cfg method, the syntax for use in the file is:

Code: [Select]

s_MaxChannels=128

Do we need to also add con_restricted 0 to the autoexec.cfg? I'm not sure how to tell if it's working or not.

Thanks...

You don't need it if you are putting the cvar in an autoexec.cfg file.

As far as AC2/AC5, yes they are deafening and I know why, but I'm waiting on some code support (Keeper) to make the magic happen.

[Iron Brain]

At any rate, its my understanding that Crysis uses a completely software driven system for the sound in the game. A very very very poor choice. The sound engine was made by a 3rd party.

Is there any conceivable way this game could be changed to use OpenAL? I see absolutely no reason to opt for software audio over hardware at all. It may sound a tiny fraction better in some cases but the extra latency of using software is showing up in this game. It should be noted that vanilla Crysis CERTAINLY had this same issue. A very stupid problem and a result of awful design.

I know its a log shot and i dont know anything about the audio tek in this game but is it possible?

Crysis uses the FMOD sound engine for its audio rendering.  It's actually a very nice engine and super easy to work with (for the most part) as well as being pretty light on the CPU and hard disk unless you are attempting to render massive real-time audio effects as controlled by in-game parameters.  I've kept this in mind in working on the MWLL project and have generally kept sounds to less than 0.2% CPU usage per sound event, something I'm pretty proud of given the massive palette required for the mod.

Crysis does use an older version of the FMOD engine (2.x something) and I do wish that I could use the latest version of FMOD Designer (4.x) due to some additional optimisations and features.  Unfortunately Crysis won't play nice with the new version and I have no expectation that they ever intend to patch in support for it.  I don't know what version of FMOD is supported by Crysis Wars, but I'm hoping that it is one of later ones, having much better emulation, debug and cone designer tools and not prone to randomly crash when I replace a waveform in a sound instance and forget to focus click before doing a preview (GAH!)

Trying to "hack in" OpenAL support would be a massive effort (and probably near impossible with just the modSDK) for very little, if any, gain.

Grate work on keeping the CPU ut down. My problem ist hat if they had used OpenAL it would be running on a sound card instead of the CPU. To be blunt, I really dont care how good the tools are. If it doesnt sound good it doesnt matter. If drops audio like it does in Crysis then its just plain broken AFAIC. And no, it do not believe it sounds as good as older games using Direct Sound or OpenAL. Not to say that this sounds bad, it just doesnt have the directional positioning i would like.

Crysis had a significant hardware burden on modern computers when it was released. Deciding to add to that burden by rendering the audio on the CPU is beyond me. Compromising that decision by simply cutting the audio channels is just unacceptable. To think that a game with the technology of CE2 cant even render all of the audio in its flag ship title is nothing short of lunacy.

I blame EA, and the homosexual lawn gnomes across the street.

[Rockstone]

s_soundenable 0
s_soundenable 1 fixed the problem

[fatlazyhomer]

Could someone please make an autoexec file and attach it for those of us who dont know how? Thanks, much appreciated!

[(TLL)KitLightning]

The autoexec.cfg is located in the root of your CRYSIS folder.
1. Copy the autoexec.cfg as a backup, and rename it autoexec.bak.
2. Rename the autoexec.cfg to autoexec.txt and open it in Notepad.
3. Edit as necessary and save.
4. Rename the file to its original file-extension.