Irritating noise in OS X ThinkTanks Demo

#1 Mike, can you try listening to some of the sounds outside the game. It would be interesting to know if it is the sounds or the sound player.

In answer to your question, we have seen some sound issues on the mac, but these problems are specific to particular machines. Problems often seem to occur on dual processors like your own. My fear is that there are simply driver issues (both graphics and sound) on these machines.

clark

#2 My response to clark's post was originally by email, quoted below. But for the benefit of others who may be experiencing the same issue, I will respond here from now on.
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Thanks tor the prompt reply Clark,

I took the game out of full screen mode and did as you suggested, even when outside the game I get the same noise - a kind of low pitched, growly type of buzzing, it only happens in the left channel. The right channel sounds ok.

Mike

#3 Hmmm...just so that we can compare apples to apples, can you listen to g1.ogg (the first part of the green soundtrack) and see if you hear the same thing? I checked that one on my system and don't hear any static. Also, let me know what sound app you are checking it on. I'm using zinf on the pc.

#4 Ok, I misunderstood what you said before, when you said outside of the game. I thought you meant have the game running in the background and listen whilst in another program.

Anyway, I just downloaded Ogg Vorbis QuickTime Component 1.0d8 and played g1.ogg with the quicktime player and it sounds fine. No distortion.

Sorry for the confusion

Mike

#5 I also posted this problem on Planet ThinkTanks forum, one of the users there gave me a link to a more up to date OpenAL. This has fixed the distortion problem and the music is clear of distortion, however, now I can't hear any sound effects.

Any suggestions ?

Mike

#6 Interesting that the new OpenAl driver fixed part of the problem for you. Perhaps you would have better luck with the sfx if they weren't also in ogg format. Check out http at www dot bravetree dot com slash TT slash ttdat dot sit (web safe formatting there... :). That contains the ThinkTanks data files in a less compressed format. Try pulling out some of the wav files there and dropping them into the corresponding folder (e.g., place foo.ogg in the same folder as foo.wav). Keep the old ogg's there for everything to work correctly. But presumably if you do this, the game will use the wav version and that might work better for you. Obviously, the ogg lib is a bit touchy on the mac, but it's getting better.

#7 I followed your advice Clark - put all the wav files in the same folder as the ogg's, not replacing anything. No luck, I even tried just using the wavs and oggs downloaded from Bravetree - replacing the originals, again no luck.

Oh well, thanks anyway. btw, I'm now really into this excellent game - if I get the full game is there likely to be any difference?

Mike

#8 You might try renaming the old data folder to data2 (so it is not seen) and copying the one in from the link I posted. This may or may not work for the demo, though, because the demo does some content control so that it can't be hacked.

In terms of the full game working better, it's always possible, but probably not the case. I believe we're dealing with dual CPU driver issues, so there isn't a lot we can do AFAIK. Have you tried any of the other GarageGames games? In particular, Orbz, Lore, and Marble Blast also use OpenAl and Ogg Vorbis, so if I'm right they should have the same problem. The one thing the full game may allow that the demo doesn't is the ability to do the full data directory swap, which might solve the issue you're seeing.

Hope that helps.

#9 Another idea is to check out chud:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8506

This will let you disable one of your dual cpu's from a control panel. Check to see if that fixes the problem. Let me know what the result is, so that I can advise others who contact support.

#10 >Another idea is to check out chud:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8506

This will let you disable one of your dual cpu's
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Nope, that didn't work either, I already had chud installed for another reason.

Anyway Clark, thanks for the suggestion

Mike

#11 I just had this problem crop up on my dual-450 G4 running OS 10.4.3 but in Orbz. (Found this thread by searching.) I installed the Ogg Drop and the Ogg QT components the other day and had the Orbz game sounds turn faint and fuzzy (like hearing through a fan). I deleted all the ogg files I could find that had just been installed but that didn't help. Finally reinstalled the old OpenAL (1.2?) framework that had gotten my Tiger sound working (from the Lore thread) but now I have no sound either. I was guessing that the ogg installations were leaving files somewhere that I couldn't find. Anyone have a list of what files are installed where? Or has that already been ruled out as the issue.

I've now tried installing a yet older OpenAL framework 1.0.8 from this thread < http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=19695 > and now I have my sound back--but it's the fuzzy one again.

Is this issue being tracked in one general location that I should be posting at rather than in a specific game thread?

_Rich_