Cine_eater Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I've checked the last few pages of this forum thread and no-one else has asked so.... I'm having problems with the radio playing music on all radio stations, the songs just constantly stutter while trying to play music but its fine when the DJ is talking, the only fix I've found that works is to press esc to menu and back to game and songs play fine until the next track, I've tried going into AC3 and changing the default audio renderer to use wav out to no avail and I've heard using ffdshow can work for vista but I'm using XP so any tips out there would be appriciated. Please help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankc Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 You can try doubling the cache size in fallout.ini iAudioCacheSize=4096iMaxSizeForCachedSound=256 Taken from http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_10.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cine_eater Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 Thanks for the post but still get stuttering, is this problem a known bug in the game itself as I never had this problem with Oblivion and a vast majority of other gamers are having the same issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankc Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 I used to have lots of audio problems in fallout3, but upping the cache size took care of the problem for me. A couple other things I can think of that could might cause radio stuttering - if you are using a radio playlist extender with songs with improper settings (varying sample rates or variable bit rates) - or incompletely installed audio drivers (a bad intel driver package made it to ms update a while back). Those have both caused me problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SecretStash Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 I too suffer from radio stutter. I think it is a combination of problems. I notice that the "Esc" method does temporarily stop the stuttering, but I think that is because it allows the game engine to catch up for a second. Usually it will solve the problem for either the remainder of the track or until I do something that is processor-intensive such as enter a new area or have 10+ NPCs shooting at me simlutaneously. I do not possess an X-Fi chip carrying sound-card and therefore my sound card offloads computations to the CPU. I think that may be why I get musical stutter when I hear my CPU fan pick up speed due to heavy loading by the game engine. (Also, I use XP, but my system is very low-spec for this game.) Strangely though, none of the 3-dog/Eden voice files have stutter, just the music does. (for both vanilla and replaced mp3s) One way I tested this theory was to crank up the game's detail and settings to create near slide-show fps, then tried the radio, the stuttering was constant, but if I stopped moving and was alone I could 'Esc' it to normal, but as soon as I so much as moved the mouse the stuttering returned. Then I lowered my settings significantly. At far below appropriate settings the stuttering was very minimal, though still present. A few 'Esc' pushes and it went away. This time I could run around freely and most encounters or VATs usage would have no effect on the radio. Still though, when a new song started or I entered a new zone I would sometimes have to 'Esc' again. This makes me think that in addition to my personal hardware shortcomings causing advanced stuttering, the initial problem lies on Bethesda's end (especially since no other game does this for me). I will try the buffer/cache adjustment and update with any improvements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cine_eater Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 Updated everything you mentioned (sound drivers and MS update)and still get stutter, I'm beginning to think there's definatly a problem with the game itself as this is the only game I've ever had sound problems with and I can run Oblivion on max settings with no noticable lag.What exactly does ffdshow do and how to use it for fallout and would this be worth trying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SecretStash Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 After upping the cache size the frequency of instances of stutter has been significantly reduced. I strongly believe that the problem lies in the way that the game engine processes sound. It must have inefficient code for handling the game's dynamic audio plus the music audio. I think X-Fi is likely to reduce the occurrence of this issue, but maybe not eliminate it altogether. Cine_Eater: Are you using onboard audio, an independent soundcard, or an X-Fi capable soundcard? I'd be curious to know the frequency of this occurrence on machines lacking X-Fi vs. those that do, as well as high-end machines vs. low end. Sounds like yours is the former. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cine_eater Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 Just a Creative soundblaster PCI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SecretStash Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Same here. SB Audigy 2 - PCI. (all drivers up-to-date. Not that SB updates their drivers all that often anyway) Anyone else that visits and reads this, please state whether you are or are not having the discussed sound stuttering, and what hardware configuration your running (ie. xp/vista, x-fi/non-x-fi/onboard). Hopefully we can narrow down possible causes on the user end of this problem, eliminate them, and then reveal what's left as the inherent software problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SecretStash Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I recently upped my cache even further to 8192/1024, Stutter is reduced even further. Still on occasion during heavy loading it will stutter though. Also, I've been using a GNR Radio 50 song expansion to uses my own music files and the creator of that mod (PimpBot420) had some helpful tips to help get the best sound out of your non-vanilla games files. It takes some time, but it is worth it. I now have custom music coming through the pip-boy, and out of all in-game radios/jukeboxes. He also lists several tips regarding sound apps and codecs that may give people sound issues and how to work around them. (I think they mostly pertain to Vista, I didn't have any of these (XP), but it's worth mentioning for others.) Here's the link to his Mod, Even if you don't want to use the mod, check out a copy of his readme.txt: GNR Radio Fixed Extended Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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