After finishing Terran Conflict and finally getting to Albion Prelude, I've started experiencing the same music problems as I did before, except they're even worse this time. I am regarding to the beloved ffdshow codecs and their uncertain nature when it comes to cooperating with the X games. The sticky post states clearly that we should always disable them, but that never resolved the sound problems for me- for example in Terran Conflict the ffdshow audio codecs were defaultly disabled and I had to enable them to get rid of those problems. But with Albion Prelude, it's more complicated than that...
When they are enabled, most sectors won't play their music automatically (either after entering them or undocking from a station), and I have to unfocus the game window for the music to start playing. The menu theme begins with an annoying high-pitched noise at the beginning. If I disable the ffdshow codecs, my menu plays just fine and all the sector music starts playing automatically when it should, except the music quality is somewhat degraded. I can immediately tell, especially in the Terran sectors, whether I am getting a 192kbps playback as I should, or a much lower quality instead, way below that value.
Mentioning the bitrate, I think it happens only for the 192kbps tracks, since the menu music (320kbps) plays just fine with the ffdshow enabled or not- except the beginning noise. Tracks such as Neptune, Aldrin, Mars, Asteroid belt or Saturn/Jupiter are all being played in a lower quality than they should, judging by how they sound after being played directly off the soundtrack folder through Winamp (even without EQ), or with ffdshow on. The 320kbps tracks, such as X3TC intro (Aldrin 2), Mercury, Pluto, Moon, or Hub still remain their quality with ffdshow enabled or not. But that's definitely not the only factor, because the battle track with a 192kbps quality (added in X3AP) is played just fine, while the beautiful Seizewell track (Peace 7) with the same quality and same frequency of 48kHz is being played in an unbearably low quality and with a loud background noise.
I don't think it's caused by the 5.1 setup, which works correctly by the way- UI sounds in the center speaker only, others in surround. And I don't know of any other codecs which could cause the problems, since as video and music players I use only VLC and Winamp, without installing any unnecessities to it.
I would be grateful for anyone who could help me trace down cause of this and finally let me enjoy X3 Albion Prelude in it's full audio quality!
DxDiag
Music not playing in it's original quality
Moderators: timon37, Moderators for English X Forum
Music not playing in it's original quality
"If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars" - Carl Sagan
Newer Realtek High Definition Audio Codecs are available.
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Alan Phipps
- Moderator (English)
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"I don't think it's caused by the 5.1 setup, which works correctly by the way" I don't see how it can really be working correctly since Win8 does not support the game's DirectShow surround sound channels that were designed for XP, the OS standard when the X3 engine was developed. Have you tried a different speaker layout? I find RealTek's quadraphonic with 'fill speakers' checked to be a vastly superior speaker layout to that of 5.1 for X3 games.
One thing you can try is to use a free online format converter to convert all the in-game music mp3 files to wma format. That action has improved X3 music quality for many players with such sound quality issues. (Back up the sound files elsewhere before conversion just in case!)
I would definitely disable Ffdshow with X3TC and X3AP, or even have the Ffdshow codecs removed along with whatever installed them.
One thing you can try is to use a free online format converter to convert all the in-game music mp3 files to wma format. That action has improved X3 music quality for many players with such sound quality issues. (Back up the sound files elsewhere before conversion just in case!)
I would definitely disable Ffdshow with X3TC and X3AP, or even have the Ffdshow codecs removed along with whatever installed them.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.
Thanks for letting me know about newer drivers! Just finished updating and moving my settings over to the new one through registries.
About the quadraphonic layout, I was not able to notice any difference in terms of quality or surround immersion, except the UI sounds weren't coming from the center speaker but rather just the front stereo.
Tried converting the Seizewell track through Audacity, and the sound quality did indeed improve by this, but it's being played from the center speaker only. I'll try some online tools later aswell and see if there is any difference.
About the quadraphonic layout, I was not able to notice any difference in terms of quality or surround immersion, except the UI sounds weren't coming from the center speaker but rather just the front stereo.
Tried converting the Seizewell track through Audacity, and the sound quality did indeed improve by this, but it's being played from the center speaker only. I'll try some online tools later aswell and see if there is any difference.
"If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars" - Carl Sagan
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Alan Phipps
- Moderator (English)
- Posts: 30425
- Joined: Fri, 16. Apr 04, 19:21
I could still hear the quality difference with the WMA + quad setting. It sounded very similiar, but hasn't quite reached the original one (or the ffdshow quality, which plays the music correctly). But then again I don't want to sacrifice the functionality of my middle speaker because of that, mainly for the convenience of disabling it through the sound system control pod, to instantly get rid of all UI sounds and listen to music only.
I am conducting all those tests with ffdshow disabled, but I think I'll need to stick back to it again, at least until there arises another potential fix. I must admit that all the crashes I've EVER experienced with the X games were caused either by incorrectly installed mods, or by a rare error message mentioning the "ffmpeg.dll" which is probably obvious where it's leading to. But I've been able to get rid of the sector music not playing automatically by letting ffdshow resample everything to 44.1 kHz, and even fixed the beginning noise of the menu track by adding less than half a second of silence to it.
Perhaps the sound processing may be revised in the upcoming X3 update, although I understand that it could be far from viability since it would surely require a lot of changes to the old engine. Well, at least I can hope for all those problems to be rid for good when I finally finish AP and get to Rebirth
I am conducting all those tests with ffdshow disabled, but I think I'll need to stick back to it again, at least until there arises another potential fix. I must admit that all the crashes I've EVER experienced with the X games were caused either by incorrectly installed mods, or by a rare error message mentioning the "ffmpeg.dll" which is probably obvious where it's leading to. But I've been able to get rid of the sector music not playing automatically by letting ffdshow resample everything to 44.1 kHz, and even fixed the beginning noise of the menu track by adding less than half a second of silence to it.
Perhaps the sound processing may be revised in the upcoming X3 update, although I understand that it could be far from viability since it would surely require a lot of changes to the old engine. Well, at least I can hope for all those problems to be rid for good when I finally finish AP and get to Rebirth
"If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars" - Carl Sagan
I'm using Win 8.1 and it supports both 5.1 and 7.1 quite well in both TC and AP in the sound control panel. Then again, I've also installed the runtime version of DX 9 in addtion to the standard DX 11 that comes with Win 8.1.Alan Phipps wrote:"I don't think it's caused by the 5.1 setup, which works correctly by the way" I don't see how it can really be working correctly since Win8 does not support the game's DirectShow surround sound channels that were designed for XP, the OS standard when the X3 engine was developed. ...
Helios01, have you tried installing the latest DX 9 runtime?
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Yes, I have the newest DX9 runtime. But I think I've settled down with the ffdshow being used in TC/AP, and I really don't understand what's all the fuss about- it works fine in my opinion (or at least for me).
Anyways, I already got my Rebirth, so I think I'll survive the few weeks on AP, at least if it keeps running like this
Anyways, I already got my Rebirth, so I think I'll survive the few weeks on AP, at least if it keeps running like this
"If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars" - Carl Sagan