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Author Topic:   Music has vanished

David Short posted 03-26-99 10:19 AM ET

Hmmm. My music has vanished.
It was there in version 1.0.
It was there in version 2.0.
I started a game as Santiago and got no music.
Applied version 3.0 ... no music.
Reinstalled version 1.0 and then
reapplied 3.0... no music.
All my other sounds/multimedia work
fine....
If this has been addressed before my apologies, I did search the message board but I cannot seem to get the search function to work. If there is a technical FAQ I missed it.
The more I play the game, the better it gets.
dfs
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 03-26-99 11:01 AM ET
What's the sound card? Try copying the \fx folder from the CD onto the hard drive (which it is normally done on a typical install). Also, try setting EAX and DS3D to 0 in the alpha centauri.ini file.
jkm
firaxis games
Evk posted 03-28-99 02:38 AM ET
This game has MUSIC? I thought it just had ambient sounds and speech.
TenMoons posted 03-28-99 02:29 PM ET
I've had much the same problem with music.
I originally did a custom install of SMAC with neither sound nor AVI files installed to the hard drive. The game ran well, and sound effects, music, and movies all played nicely from the CD. Then I installed patch 2. Gack, no music! I fiddled with game settings and the INI file, uninstalled and reinstalled sound drivers and DirectX drivers, checked multimedia settings, etc. Outstanding game, but, gack, no music!
By then, patch 3 was available, which I installed. Gack, still no music! Having tired of mentally producing the sound of Bill the Cat bringing up a hairball every time I loaded the game, I began systematically uninstalling and reinstalling the game, with or without sound files, with or without the patch, and testing each combination. The end results were as follows: (1) SMAC v.1, music with or without sound files installed to hard drive; (2) SMAC v.2 or 3, music IF AND ONLY IF sound files were installed. Well, OK, but, gack, 90+ mg!
While investigating the music problem, I had noted that the CD did not appear to contain anything resembling CD audio files or MIDI sequences. However, the \fx folder DID contain what appeared to be a bunch of individually wrapped musical notes. Hmm. Knowing that SM's games tend to take a "Look here first, then look there" approach to file locations, I then tried deleting all obviously non-musical files from the \fx folder on the hard drive (specifically, all those beginning with "cpu" or "fac"), as well as the \voices folder. Voila! The music played, and all the little people in the magic box still talked to me! And for only 31 mg!
Much better, but I've still got a couple of questions:
(1) Whuzzup with the music? Is there some way I can get it to play without that last 31 mg sitting on my hard drive? (I've got an SB AWE64--yes, it's set to wave effects synthesis--and a rather generic 24X CD drive.)
(2) Barring that, is there perhaps a list of JUST the files I need to play the music? The drones and I like the music. It makes us happy.
David Short posted 03-29-99 10:58 AM ET
Ten Moon,
Thanks for confirming what I saw. I too went through multiple patches,
installations/reinstallations, and directory misdirection.
In the end I do now have a stable version of AC with multimedia features intact, but lord help me if I could tell you exactly which of the tweaks I performed did the trick.
My "stable" solution includes not having a copy of \fx on my hard drive. I don't really notice the cd access time.
It seemed to me that part of my solution was exiting the game with the music turned off and then turning it back on when I entered again, but that would be silly.
dfs
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Author	Topic: Music has vanished
David Short	posted 03-26-99 10:19 AM ET Hmmm. My music has vanished. It was there in version 1.0. It was there in version 2.0. I started a game as Santiago and got no music. Applied version 3.0 ... no music. Reinstalled version 1.0 and then reapplied 3.0... no music. All my other sounds/multimedia work fine.... If this has been addressed before my apologies, I did search the message board but I cannot seem to get the search function to work. If there is a technical FAQ I missed it. The more I play the game, the better it gets. dfs
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 03-26-99 11:01 AM ET What's the sound card? Try copying the \fx folder from the CD onto the hard drive (which it is normally done on a typical install). Also, try setting EAX and DS3D to 0 in the alpha centauri.ini file. jkm firaxis games
Evk	posted 03-28-99 02:38 AM ET This game has MUSIC? I thought it just had ambient sounds and speech.
TenMoons	posted 03-28-99 02:29 PM ET I've had much the same problem with music. I originally did a custom install of SMAC with neither sound nor AVI files installed to the hard drive. The game ran well, and sound effects, music, and movies all played nicely from the CD. Then I installed patch 2. Gack, no music! I fiddled with game settings and the INI file, uninstalled and reinstalled sound drivers and DirectX drivers, checked multimedia settings, etc. Outstanding game, but, gack, no music! By then, patch 3 was available, which I installed. Gack, still no music! Having tired of mentally producing the sound of Bill the Cat bringing up a hairball every time I loaded the game, I began systematically uninstalling and reinstalling the game, with or without sound files, with or without the patch, and testing each combination. The end results were as follows: (1) SMAC v.1, music with or without sound files installed to hard drive; (2) SMAC v.2 or 3, music IF AND ONLY IF sound files were installed. Well, OK, but, gack, 90+ mg! While investigating the music problem, I had noted that the CD did not appear to contain anything resembling CD audio files or MIDI sequences. However, the \fx folder DID contain what appeared to be a bunch of individually wrapped musical notes. Hmm. Knowing that SM's games tend to take a "Look here first, then look there" approach to file locations, I then tried deleting all obviously non-musical files from the \fx folder on the hard drive (specifically, all those beginning with "cpu" or "fac"), as well as the \voices folder. Voila! The music played, and all the little people in the magic box still talked to me! And for only 31 mg! Much better, but I've still got a couple of questions: (1) Whuzzup with the music? Is there some way I can get it to play without that last 31 mg sitting on my hard drive? (I've got an SB AWE64--yes, it's set to wave effects synthesis--and a rather generic 24X CD drive.) (2) Barring that, is there perhaps a list of JUST the files I need to play the music? The drones and I like the music. It makes us happy.
David Short	posted 03-29-99 10:58 AM ET Ten Moon, Thanks for confirming what I saw. I too went through multiple patches, installations/reinstallations, and directory misdirection. In the end I do now have a stable version of AC with multimedia features intact, but lord help me if I could tell you exactly which of the tweaks I performed did the trick. My "stable" solution includes not having a copy of \fx on my hard drive. I don't really notice the cd access time. It seemed to me that part of my solution was exiting the game with the music turned off and then turning it back on when I entered again, but that would be silly. dfs