Doom 3 engine problems.

[miffy495]

So, I was wandering EB earlier this week and saw that they had Quake 4 used for about $15. I'd been meaning to play it for a while now, so I figured why not. Installed it, started to play. Problem is, I encountered the same thing that had been bugging me in the Prey demo a while back, but even worse now. The audio cuts out every once in a while and starts to loop back on me over and over. I don't see why this is happening, as my hardware specs are more than enough to handle this thing. (athlon 64 3200+, Geforce 7800GTX, 3 gigs RAM, X-Fi soundcard, etc) I realized that when I played Doom 3, it was on my old PC, so I installed it and sure enough had the same problems. So the audio glitch is isolated to Doom 3 engine games.

I've been checking around the last couple of days to find a solution, as it doesn't really feel like the kind of thing that's usually brought up on the Thumb. As a last-ditch effort to get this thing to work, I'm turning to you guys. Has anyone else encountered this problem with the engine? Could you fix it, and if so, how? All I could find was something about turning down the DirectX hardware accelleration, which doesn't seem to help. Thanks, all.

[Wrestlevania]

The audio cuts out every once in a while and starts to loop back on me over and over. I don't see why this is happening, as my hardware specs are more than enough to handle this thing. [...] Has anyone else encountered this problem with the engine? Could you fix it, and if so, how?

I've only ever encountered what you describe during heavy data loads, i.e. when a level loads up and your computer begins to draw the graphics. Audio gets cropped into a 1/4 soundbite which loops until the machine has finished caching textures and other assets.

Are you saying this continues throughout the level once it's started at some seemingly-random point during play?

All I could find was something about turning down the DirectX hardware accelleration, which doesn't seem to help.

OK, which hardware acceleration did you knock down?

[ysbreker]

And could you post the driver versions you've got for your graphicscard and soundcard?

Oh, and what mother board do you have? Did you install the latest drivers for it?

[Nick]

Probably best if you just post a whole DxDiag report.

Start -> Run -> dxdiag

Once it's finished click the Save All Information button ans then copy the text here. Or if it's a bit large just post up the .txt file.

[MrHoatzin]

Carmack is a big OpenGL whore, or did he go back on his open source voodoo and just go the DirectX route for the Doom 3 engine?

[elmuerte]

directx is more than just direct3d

there's also directsound, some prefer it over openal, don't know what doom3d does.

[miffy495]

Sorry, the accelleration that needed to be turned down was the DirectSound hardware accelleration. My drivers are all the official ones and up to date. Version 91.31 for the video card, 2.09.0001 for the soundcard. My motherboard is an ASUS A8V-E Deluxe, with the latest drivers.

Dxdiag tells me that directx.cpl is a debug version and "may run slower" than the retail, so I'm going to try a re-install of DirectX and hope for the best. Thanks for the advice, everybody.

[SiN]

@Kingz:

Carmack is still an ogl whore ... but he uses directinput & directsound, just not direct3d.

@miffy:

Rather obvious, but are your sound card drivers up-to-date? the D3 engine used some crazy Creative EAX stuff, so if your drivers are old, thats probably why the sound is glitching up.

SiN

[miffy495]

Yeah, they are up to date. I've been messing with the direct sound settings and I think I've got it figured out. Somehow turning up the directsound hardware accelleration helps, when everything I read was saying "you must have it set too high. Turn it down and you should see better preformance." I've now got it maxed out and it's only bothering me around points where the game saves now. This is tolerable, so I'm now enjoying the game. Thanks to everyone who helped out.

[elmuerte]

I never understood that, turning down hardware acceleration always produced more issues for me.

[brkl]

Wait, why didn't you have Hardware Acceleration all the way up to start with?

[miffy495]

It was on Standard, which is a notch down from the top. I've just never bothered to tweak it before, so it wasn't maxed out.

[elmuerte]

but it's maxed out per default

[miffy495]

Hmmm... I may have set it back a few months ago when the Prey Demo was giving me trouble and just forgotten about it. I did find all those pointers, but as I'd already beaten the demo I wasn't sure if I'd taken their advice or not. Allow me to check.

...

Yup, I still get the stutter in Prey. Oh well. At least the game I'm playing now runs fine. From the sounds of things, Prey isn't really worth buying the full version anyway. Maybe when I can get that for $15, I'll let this concern me. Until then, I'm happy.

[Wrestlevania]

From the sounds of things, Prey isn't really worth buying the full version anyway. Maybe when I can get that for $15, I'll let this concern me. Until then, I'm happy.

I'm a dedicated FPS slut, but I'm having to force myself to play Prey--it's that lame.

[hitoshi]

I'm a dedicated FPS slut, but I'm having to force myself to play Prey--it's that lame.

Interesting tidbit - i don't consider myself an FPS fan, but i've picked up every decent shooters in the past years. I've never ever waited for Prey, but after playing a little bit with the preview version, I felt absolutely thrilled. In my opinion, Prey is farly the most exciting and innovative FPS since - don't know, Half life? True, the levels and the whole game is pretty straightforward, the feeling is a little bit the same when playing with Doom3, but it's a lot more interesting. The ideas, like changing gravity, walking on the walls, using portals is pretty good, not to mention the presentation - the story is a little weak, and the scripted events are a little bit annoying, but the level design is awesome, especially when you are halfway in the game: it's when the true fun starts. It turned out to be good, not to mention it gave me back the hope and faith for / in DNF..

It could have been better, that's true, the features we've seen back in '98 are missing, and now, Valve is going to play those cards - but it can be solved. That's what sequels are for, aren't they?

[brkl]

Ugh, I need an actual sound card and those new X-fi things seem to be exactly what I'm looking for (apparently really good for headphones), but they're so damn expensive. I'll wait a year or something :/

[miffy495]

Hmmm... mine only cost me $120 Canadian about 8 or 9 months ago. The Xtreme Music (read: chapest) one. Kinda pricey for sound, but it really was a noticable difference. Plus, when you compare it to how much every other possible upgrade to a computer would run you, (RAM excluded. But really, once you reach a certain point, adding any more is just pointless at the moment) it's pretty damn reasonable. Do they do the same massive markup in Europe on components that consoles get slammed with?

[Wrestlevania]

[The] level design is awesome, especially when you are halfway in the game: it's when the true fun starts.

Well, maybe I'll have to press on a bit further then.

I've just reached the part where you fly those attack pod things for the first time; am I about halfway through?

[Prey] gave me back the hope and faith for / in DNF.

I believe Prey has been pretty successful commercially, so I'm going to be bold and suggest that 3D Realms are now pouring all their resources into Duke Nukem Forever. Who knows--perhaps we might even see a surprise Christmas 2006 release?!!

[hitoshi]

I've just reached the part where you fly those attack pod things for the first time; am I about halfway through?

Yes you are, the levels will start to grow rapidly.

I believe Prey has been pretty successful commercially, so I'm going to be bold and suggest that 3D Realms are now pouring all their resources into Duke Nukem Forever. Who knows--perhaps we might even see a surprise Christmas 2006 release?!!

According to Shacknews, the DNF team is formed by only 20 people - sorry, minus one, yesterday, Keith Schuler left 3Drealms. The DNF project ship is not sailing as smoothly as it should be: it's frightening, but ten years have elapsed since the announcement of the game and there's still no public progress. I don't think that it will be released anytime soon, not in this year especially.

[brkl]

Do they do the same massive markup in Europe on components that consoles get slammed with?

It's usually $x -> x€. I could get the bulk version of XtremeMusic for about 80-90€, but it seems to have really sparse connectors. I'd really like one of those 5 1/2 inch panels.

EDIT: Wow, some silly bugger is selling the panel from an X-FI FATALITY card with the remote and all the fiddly bits. I could get that and a bulk XtremeMusic, it'd be like a Platinum or whatever.

[brkl]

Lost the damn auction