Sound in Wasteland

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:47 am

Hi,

The game Wasteland plays fine in the emulator and the sound works fine for a while and then just quits. Only way I can get it to work again is to close and reopen CCS64 and then reload the game.

Any suggestions on what might fix this?

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:28 am

Ensure that you have Sound Device set to Default Sound Device, not Windows MCI WaveOut.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:33 am

Yes I did check that already.

Are there any other settings that I can try to change? I installed the latest drivers for my machine (Realtex High Defintion Audio) as well but the sound problem still occurs. I can play for a half hour sometimes and then it just suddenly stops working. Strange.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:39 am

It sounds to me like some sort of driver buffering problem. Perhaps try re-installing DirectX 9.0c again. Or, perhaps the updated sound drivers have a buffer problem (you could try rolling them back)?

I will run CCS64 V3.5 continuously for a while, to see if it is a sound buffering problem with it, but I've not had such a problem - it's normally a driver issue.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:57 am

The problem was occuring before I updated my drivers. I just downloaded direcx9.0c and installed it so I will see if that helps.

Thank you.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:09 am

Would the screen size or the speed have any affect on this? I bump up the speed to 150% to speed up load times and play with the windowed X 3 setting.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:15 am

Yes, it would affect things overall. The higher settings you have, the more CPU-intensive the emulation becomes. So, if your graphical requirements have increased, it leaves less CPU power for the sound overall. So, try reducing your graphical settings, and see if the sound is better. Remember, the C64 was only an 8-bit machine, so anything more isn't really adding value to the emulation itself - it's just a case of what your hardware can handle.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:43 pm

I have had CCS64 V3.5 running on its own continuously now for about 1 hour, and the sound/graphics haven't stopped (with the screen-saver disabled, so no interference from that); so I don't believe the problem to be relating to CCS64 itself. As I said, I think it is more of an OS/driver issue. I am using:

Penitum IV 3.4 GHz
1 GB RAM
Windows XP SP-2
DirectX 9.0C (October 2007 SDK Release)
ATI Radeon X600 SE (Driver Version 8.162.0.0)
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Advanced MB

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:07 pm

Would lowering the pixel resolution setting help? Like maybe running at 640X480 instead of windowed X3? I just don't want to have to play the game in a tiny window if I dont have to.

Great now I have the setting set up to where the screen is black and restarting it does the same. I tried setting it to like 320X280 or something like that. I might have to uninstall and re-install because I just get a black screen when I start now.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:58 pm

Yes, try a full-screen resolution (less intensive), or Window 2x (which I use all the time and find it adequate). Just have a play about with the settings. When I set Window 3x, even my CPU dies...

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:25 am

It acts the same for me regardless of screen size. I play it on 640x480, 800x600 or windowx2 and it the sound eventually stops working.

Oh well i guess I can play it without sound :cry:

Would any other settings on the sound page be worth messing with? SID chip settings or sample freq etc..... I don't know what any of them do so not sure if they would help.

I have also switched the game to play on the north american NTSC (65x263). Im assuming I have the north american version of the game but don't know how to tell.

Post by **Stuart Toomer** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:33 am

It definately seems like some sort of OS/driver issue. But, if you are using the most up-to-date software, then you can't do any more.

Have you tried changing the Sound Frequency to a lower number of Hertz, and/or a lower number of Bits? If that still makes no difference, then I'm afraid I'm out of ideas.

As a last resort, eventhough it's highly un-likely to make any difference, try another crack of the game.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:10 am

Ok, I will give that a go and see what happens. I am also going to try and run it on our other PC and see if that makes a difference.

Thank you for all your assistance. I am still having a great time playing the game even though the sound is a bit frustrating. I think Im going to register my copy of this product, gotta keep things like this alive.

Thanks again.