CFS2 audio problems?

[PlanetTamer]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. It's nice to see people still playing and working on this classic game!

CFS2 works great on my PC, I'm currently running Windows 7. There is one small problem with the audio however - when landing on a carrier, or flying close to a ship, I get static noise interference.

I solved this when using XP by altering the audio hardware acceleration (as per CFS2 tweak guide from 2001!), but I can't do this in win 7.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any advice much appreciated.

thanks!

[Allen]

Had this in my XP. With ships it wasn't bad but tanks will drive your crazy. Same BS on my Win7 as well. If no one knows of a true fix than you can just remane the ship.wav, xship.wave and do the same for the track.wav and xtrack.wav. They are found in the SOUND folder.

[PlanetTamer]

Great, thanks I'll try it. So rename to newship.wav or similar? Cheers

[PlanetTamer]

I tried several variations of this fix and have found that renaming ship.wav and xship.wav to ship1.wav and xship1.wav gets rid of the static, but also the ship sound effect. This is far less annoying than the buzzing though, thanks again ��. if anyone knows how to fix this and keep the ship sound effect that would be great!

[UncleTgt]

I have several installs on WIN 7 Home Premium & do not have this issue with the stock sim ship soundfiles you mentioned.

Therefore, it could be hardware related. Can you play these sounds with Windows Media Player without hearing static?

Are your sims installed outside of the programs folder? If so, you should be able to access (and edit) the cfs2.cfg file. The only entries I see that relates to sound in any of my cfs2.cfg files is:

[PREFS]
...
HEAR_COCKPIT=1
HEAR_ENGINE=1
HEAR_NAVIGATION=1
...
RADIOS_25_KHZ=0
SOUND=1
...
SOUND_FADER1=0.700000 --------think these are volume settings for engine, radio etc
SOUND_FADER2=0.200000
SOUND_FADER3=0.600000
SOUND_FADER4=0.700000
SOUND_FADER5=0.700000
...


[SOUND]
Channels=1
SamplesPerSec=11025
BitsPerSample=8
...

Maybe comparing any of these settings would help?

[bearcat241]

If you are sitting on the defo 'mono' sound settings designed for older computers, you might try changing the settings to stereo, which take advantage of newer hardware. These are the configs i've sampled over the years:

//[SOUND]
//Channels=1
//SamplesPerSec=11025
//BitsPerSample=8

//[SOUND]
//Channels=1
//SamplesPerSec=22050
//BitsPerSample=8

//[SOUND]
//Channels=2
//SamplesPerSec=22050
//BitsPerSample=16

[SOUND]
Channels=2
SamplesPerSec=44100
BitsPerSample=16

//[SOUND]
//Channels=2
//SamplesPerSec=48000
//BitsPerSample=16

Any set with "Channels=2" is a stereo set, with Channels=1 being mono. The set in boldtype is my current config across all CFS2 installs and it works fine in both WinXP and Win7.

[PlanetTamer]

Thanks, the files play fine in media player. I'm pretty sure I've got it set to stereo but I'll check and compare with these settings, cheers! Getting some carrier landing practice in while testing this anyway ��

[RichNagel]

Sorry for bumping this old thread, but I've always had the same problem. All of the ships and moving vehicles (trucks, jeeps, tanks, etc...) cause this ANNOYING static sound issue. I've noticed that SOMETIMES they sound fine, but most of the time the problem is there.

BTW, it's been like that on all of my Windows XP and Windows 10 PCs.

[Worthless]

Many thanks for this thread. I've noticed this same buzz often in CFS2 and wondered what caused it. Now at least I know how to hit the off button.

[RichNagel]

Now at least I know how to hit the off button.

I myself tried various things, mostly editing the audio files. I tried changing the sample rate, bit rate, as well as adjusting the volumes down by 50% (thinking maybe they were "clipping" within the game). No dice though... no matter what I did, the static/popping/clicking was still there.

Something to be thankful for though: At least the aircraft engines sounds don't do the same thing.

P.S. Another one that has the same problem, the sound effect that you hear when in 'rocket cam' mode for fired rockets ("rocketlp.wav"). I haven't checked the bomb drop sound ("bomblp.wav"), I have a hunch it would exhibit the same problem (when viewing the falling bomb in 'bomb cam' mode).

[Allen]

Rockets when using Bomb view have the same problem as Ship and Tanks.

[RichNagel]

Did some more experimenting, and here's a weird one:

I noticed that when I increased the "Simulation Rate" to anything higher than "Normal" (e.g. "2x Speed", "4x Speed") the sound effects sound CORRECT.

When I decreased the "Simulation Rate" to anything lower than "Normal" (e.g. "Half Speed", "Slowest") the sound effects have even MORE static/pops/clicks.

I don't know what this proves or disproves (?), but it's interesting nonetheless.

Like I replied previously, I have ALSO tried editing the sound files: Changing them to 8-bit, changing the playback rate (higher AND lower), and changing the sampling rate (higher AND lower)... but nothing seems to help.

(Edit) P.S. IIRC the rain sound effects ALSO suffer from the same problem.

[Allen]

Vary strange. I would say something with CPUs being faster now but even I had problems with XP so no idea.

[RichNagel]

Vary strange. I would say something with CPUs being faster now but even I had problems with XP so no idea.

I have a hunch that it's something to do with CPU speed. Tried another test:

I started out on an a carrier. The 2D panel was on the screen. I could hear the staticy sound from the carrier. I then brought up the 2nd panel (the throttle), and the static disappeared.

I was thinking, the more on the screen, the less the framerate. So I checked the framerates (SHIFT+Z) while doing the above. On my rig the framerate is about 60-ish FPS or so with just the 2D panel, and drops to 50 FPS with the throttle panel also displayed (note that I'm running fullscreen on my W10 rig, and NOT running the game in a window like many folks do).

After more experimenting I found that anytime the framerate was no more than 50 FPS or so the static sound was gone.

Shame that the program doesn't have a MAX_FPS=## setting LOL.

[Allen]

Sadly can't find any warper or DDRAW plug-in that will work with CFS2 that could cap the frate rate to 60.

[aussie]

If your monitor has the option to run at 50Hz that will cap the frame rates to 50.

Cheers
Aussie

[RichNagel]

Sadly can't find any warper or DDRAW plug-in that will work with CFS2 that could cap the frate rate to 60.

Yeah, it's a shame. I looked to, no luck.

If your monitor has the option to run at 50Hz that will cap the frame rates to 50.

Unfortunately it doesn't, only 60Hz. That being said, CFS2 would have to support VSync in order for that to work (I think).

[aussie]

Hi RichNagel,
VSync doesn’t come into it. My monitor runs in either 50 or 60Hz at 50Hz it caps the FPS to 50 and so on.

Cheers
Aussie

[Allen]

I did find something called dxfpscap https://github.com/slartibardfast/dxfpscap HOWEVER it disables hardware acceleration even on Windows 7 PCs and disable manual text edits too.

Tried dgVoodoo2 an an attmept to get hardware acceleration working on Win10 PC in the menu but this is vary unstable (bugs and lock ups)

Every DDRAW.dll I have tried won't start CFS2 or locks up after main menu.

What we need is a DirectX7 wrapper that can cap frames there are DirectX8 and 9 wrappers but they don't work with CFS2.

This says RivaTuner Statistics Server and Bandicam may be able to cap the FR.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Gl...e_rate_capping

[aussie]

Hardware acceleration and 32bit screen res enabled on Win10.





Cheers
Aussie

[Allen]

Saying it is an Win10 problem is a misnomer. It is really a Video Card problem that happened to show up for us with Win10 but it also happened to real late Win7 and 8 PCs with real new (at the time Video Cards). Your Vid Card is around 2012/2013 and 2/3 years before Win10 and isn't effected but what is an common problem by 2015/2016.

My RX580 is grayed out in game but able to be on by manual cfs2.cfg editing.

[aussie]

Saying it is an Win10 problem is a misnomer. It is really a Video Card problem that happened to show up for us with Win10 but it also happened to real late Win7 and 8 PCs with real new (at the time Video Cards). Your Vid Card is around 2012/2013 and 2/3 years before Win10 and isn't effected but what is an common problem by 2015/2016.

My RX580 is grayed out in game but able to be on by manual cfs2.cfg editing.

Mine suffered the same problems yours does and used to be greyed out too. I looked around for a compatible DXWrapper and found this Releases · elishacloud/dxwrapper · GitHub
It works perfectly and now I can also see the plane in the change modify window and can change settings without need to re-edit the cfs2.cfg

Cheers
Aussie

[Allen]

Seen dxwrapper tried to use it but no idea how it works. Care to share your setting, configs .etc?

The documentation is garbo for dxwrapper IMO. I can open the cnc-ddraw .ini and it will tell me what every flag dose. Shoving all of the .inis for all of the dlls into a common .ini is also hell. No idea what flag is used by what .dll.

[aussie]

When you DL it and copy ddraw.dll, dsound.dll or winmm.dll from the Stub folder to the main CFS2 directory. Copy dxwrapper.dll and dxwrapper.ini to same location.

Open dxwrapper.ini and set the compatibility section as below

[Compatibility]
Dd7to9 = 0
D3d8to9 = 0
DDrawCompat = 1
Dinputto8 = 0
DisableGameUX = 0
DxWnd = 1
EnableDdrawWrapper = 1
EnableD3d9Wrapper = 0
EnableDinput8Wrapper = 0
EnableDsoundWrapper = 1
HandleExceptions = 0
SingleProcAffinity = 0


I'm experimenting with other options but haven't had much luck yet. Also, it doesn't like windowed mode so run it in full screen


Cheers
Aussie

[Allen]

What kind of problems are you having with Windowed mode?