Sound Repeat Issue (Thunder)

[Orbalgus]

Hello, I'm having a bit of an odd sound issue.

 

The sound mods I'm running are Oblivion Stereo Sound Overhaul, More Immersive Sound Edited, Weather Inside, Symphony of Violence, and Natural Weather (Ryu Doppler's Unofficial Test Fix). OSSO states it doesn't conflict with MIS or NW, so I'll just take it as truth. My sound issue is outside, so I'm mostly writing WI off. Symphony of Violence just deals with combat, but I listed it for completeness' sake.

 

My problem is that, during thunderstorms, it repeats the same sound file for the thunder every single time - specifically, the amb_thunderdistant_07 and amb_thunder_07 files for distant and close thunder respectively, which are both part of OSSO's files. I've been running these mods together for about a week now with no issue. Load order had been changed, a few new mods added, and they still worked fine. However, I use Wrye Bash, and I use save profiles. I started a new profile recently, and thus a new game, and the thunder sounds have suddenly began repeating. I checked my other save profiles, and the sound repeats for them now as well. I'm not sure what would really be causing it to play this one sound file and ignore both NW and MIS - not to mention the rest of its own files - entirely, but my love of storms is quickly growing to irritation.

 

I've run BOSS in case it's a mod-order issue, tried with and without archive invalidation, and stared angrily at my monitor, none of which has done anything to help. I'm pretty stumped. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Jenrai]

Right off the bat you might want to check the endorsements/uploads threads and any threads on here or the Bethsoft Forums regarding your sound mods to see if this is a known issue, if you haven't already. I'm thinking thats a whole lotta sound mods, and they are bound to have some degree of conflict.

 

If that doesn't help, my personal thinking would be to check out your hardware first. Mainly because I'm better at troubleshooting that than I am mods probably, but hey.

Do you use an onboard sound system, or a soundcard? Either way, check see if there is driver error, or newer drivers available for your sound system, and make sure (if you have a soundcard) that your onboard sound is disabled through your BIOS. You can disable it in windows, but windows (particularly XP - dunno about Vista/7) has an entertaining habit of deciding your don't know what you are doing and re-activating it, without telling you. If you're around... oooh 2000% certain you've no conflicting mods, then you definately have a hardware/driver problem. Reinstall the drivers. (Do a complete uninstall of them first. I know your computer will tell you thats not a smart thing to do, but it is, trust me. Hell, your computer will quite happily toddle off and find the original drivers for you anyway if you break something)

You're likely to have problems running a desktop without a soundcard anyway, simply because of how much of a resource hog Oblivion (particularly when its modded, and definately when its modded to a large extent) is. Onboard sound needs to fight, for lack of a better terminology, everything else on your motherboard for critical resources, and because Oblivion is gobbling up those resources anyways, its gonna loose that fight. Usually via a second round knockout to your graphics system. Once more in English? Oh, ok then - most Oblivion (or any game, for that matter) sound problems start in graphics-intensive situations, rather than sound intensive ones, unless theres a problem with one of the actual sound files. But the end of that situation rarely (if ever) ends the issue.

 

Suggested mod conflict test/fix:

1 - Disable offending sound mod.

2 - Make a clean save. Ideally indoors. Even disabled, that mod will still affect your game, unless you install it via BAIN or OMOD. (Clean Save = Go somewhere you know the mod doesn't affect, save, deactivate the mod and overwrite the save)

3 - Update your Archive invalidation.

4 - Playtest. Do any other sounds loop? If no, sorry to say it but you were either overworking your system or you had a mod conflict.

5 - Re-enable the mod. Does it start again? Does it start straight away (or at least as soon as the effect should play)? Or does it not start until, for example, you hit something when outside in a Storm? If it starts when you hit something its a combat conflict, likely with that combat sounds mod you mentioned. But honestly... it could be with anything that affects combat. It doesn't necessarily have to be another sound mod.

 

If the looping stops after a clean save, its a mod conflict, and you're likely better off without that mod. If you figure its an absolute must have, you're going to need to start going through your sound mods one by one to find out whats on the other end of the conflict. If you don't find it, start going through other mods. Its quite possible that mods that don't even touch your sounds folder can do this - like opening menus with more than one weather mod installed has a nasty tendancy to change the weather. I know, its a known glitch with some of them, but I've also copped for it running two because I thought I'd give it a whirl (liked the storms on one, the fog/mist on the other) and neither had that glitch when running solo. Ho hum.

 

Good luck matey, hope you get to the bottom of it.

Jenrai

[Orbalgus]

So, after a lot of digging, I've discovered it's an issue with vanilla Oblivion. Oblivion, during a storm, picks one thunder and one distant thunder sound effect, and then repeats them. It randomizes the two sounds chosen every time you enter an interior cell, then exit back out into the storm. I've confirmed this myself. I never noticed this before because I played a thief character for the time I've had these mods and almost exclusively spent time either hopping around between buildings or fast-traveling. Thus, when I made my new character, whom I have been walking everywhere with, the looping became violently apparent.

 

While I've found a mod that adds some randomization, it apparently won't function with Natural Weather / Natural Environments. So, that's a no-go, and unless I find a compatible mod (or figure out how to make my own), I'm mostly just out of luck. Still, I'm glad I discovered the issue.

 

Thank you for the advice, by the way - it was very detailed and I appreciate the effort to help!