Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

After the embarrassing confession that I never did board games or miniatures, here comes the even more embarrassing one that I am one of the, what, one in 50 guys who actually has the background music ON when playing.<img src=icon_smile_shy.gif border=0 align=middle> And since I am in the confessing mood, I have to admit that "Hull's Victory" is about the thing I love best, with "Rule Britannia" a narrow second.
But. <img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle> Here is my next computer problem too. Since some days, the music is repeatedly interrupted when something happens in the game, like defensive fire, or searching for the next stack, or when I start another program (mail &c.). It just hangs for a split second. It's absolutely unnerving for a musical guy. My battle performance suffers. It's the same in ALL games that play wav.s - BG, 1776/1812, Corinth ... What can I do?
This has not happened before. My machine is only some months old, has ample RAM, more than half of my disk space is free. I have installed DirectX 8.1, have run a virus check with the latest definitions, DirectX says everything is fine with my sound system - yet it happens time and again. <img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle>
I hope there are computer freaks out there who have an idea how to solve this. Any input is much appreciated, save "turn the f...ing music off!" <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>


<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Dierk,

Well, I'm especially fond of the one.. don't recall the name, but "My Boy is gone for a Soldier" or something like that... I don't remember to check names, but I do play the music. (on a related note, I LIKE the music in Eckmuhl, so sue me).

Sounds like a sound card issue. I have something similiar on occasion when I get 2 sounds at once, one from within the program, one from outside (like an incoming message on AIM). Generally though, I can't hear other sounds other than a "click", because of my sound card. So, I guess my thought is, do you have any non-game sounds getting in the way?

Gary McClellan
Private
36th Infantry
1812-R

Gary, do you mean it's a <b>hardware</b> problem? With an almost brandnew machine?

Also, no, it's not non-game sounds, it's more game sounds - for instance defensive fire <b>can</b> make the music hang. Also, it's getting worse ... for instance now even the frontend sound of the old BG games has begun to stutter (is that English?). <img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Check your connections from your CDROM. Perhaps the connection is loose and causes intermittent outages. It is also very possible that other programs working in the background, like browser/email could interrupt the sound, like when a new email comes in. It would be only a very short gap, generally. It would happens when resources are being heavily used by the game, the sounds and the background.

You didn't say HOW MUCH RAM or which operating system you use. But, to check, run the SYSTEM Monitor and observe the processor load or RAM available, during the time you have the gaps. A little detective work could show that more RAM is needed or less activity while playing games is needed, for theat OS and RAM you currently have.

I doubt it is Directx, at all.



<b><font color=red>Ernie Sands
Col, 3rd East Kent,CCC
LtCol,1 Konig,VIII,AdR
BG,CO XXIII Corps AoO
President, Colonial Camp Club
Sch,183Inf,VIII,PzC
Pvt B Co, 3/3-MBC </b></font id=red>

Ernie, it's a Intel Pentium III 850, Win ME, 128 MB RAM, of which I should at any time use only very little. Anyway, the point is that nothing was wrong with it until some days ago. Also, as for the CD, I have installed the sound files on the C drive to keep the CD from running all the time, so this can't be it, IMO. As for browser/e-mail, since I have dialup connection I don't have them running while playing. It happens even if nothing but the game is active (admittedly it might get worse if the e-mail program is open, even if not checking for mails).
I thought it was a memory resources problem in the beginning (which made me uninstall some things I had installed lately), but actually I doubt that the old BG games, which afterall would run on Win 95, even with the background music on could ever use a significant fraction of 128 MB RAM. Am I mistaken? System ressources monitor says I am using not 40% of the memory, but I'll keep checking it. Thanks for the help anyway. <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Dierk,
I guess too that this is an Direct-X problem. The best way seems bo be to deinstall the games and install them again. This should help. Your hardware should be able tha handle all without problems.

<font color=gold>Major, 1. Regiment (Royal Scots)
Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

Edited by - Stefan Reuter on 12/09/2001 13:49:08

Stefan, DirectX is 8.1 installed only today. Why would all games crash at the same time?

Ernie, I watched this now while playing an ACW BG game. The processor activity peaks at 75%, but the average is well below 50%. Anyway, the background music alone, with no game activity, is a constant 10%, but I can still make the music tremble on this level when, say, opening a second window, and still processor activity is less than 15%. Am I right to conclude that this is not a system ressources problem?
Could it be a lose connection from soundcard to system? (Does a portable <b>have</b> a soundcard in the sense of a physical item?)

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Dierk,
DirectX changing something in your configuration after installing. Don't ask my what. Try it with a new installation of one game. It's not to much work. If this help you can continue with the other games.

Direct-X is a great miracle. I'm sure even Microsoft don't understand what happens<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=gold>Major, 1. Regiment (Royal Scots)
Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

Dierk,

It may be an operating system issue. ME is unstable...it has a history of unreliability. We replace it on any machine we come across at my work. You may want to consider returing to Win98 SE or going to Win2000 Pro. Just a thought...you are having a lot of problems...

<HTML>
Lt. Col. Hamilton, New York Militia</HTML>

Rich, how is that done? Can you install an older OS on top of a more recent one, or does that involve formatting C and losing everything on the drive?

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Stefan, I'll try this tomorrow, I am desperate enough by now <img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle> ... still, even non-game sounds have begun to be interrupted by now. (If the situation deteriorates further, do you think the machine might suddenly go up?<img src=icon_smile_shock.gif border=0 align=middle>)


<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Dierk,
the last hope for Windows OS are FORMAT and new installing. Save all you need and begin new. Yes, I know, it's terrible. But I had this "fun" several time the last yeart. But there is light on the end of the tunnel. With Win2000 I never had this problems. A nice OS.

Stefan

[gold]Major, 1. Regiment (Royal Scots)
Royal North American Corps[/gold8)]


Edited by - Stefan Reuter on 12/09/2001 17:58:44

OK But they say BG Chickamauga doesn't run with 2000.
What made you chose GOLD for your signature? I thought scarlet was our color. <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>

Chickamauge is the only game I saw till now which running not with "2000". For this and possible other one I have a second partition with "ME" ... but I don't like ME.

After my problems with my right eye (several "visits" in the hospital) the last two years I have problems with the colors red and scarlet. Therefore I prefer gold:(

<font color=gold>Major, 1. Regiment (Royal Scots)
Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

Oops ... hope you know the good from the bad guys anyway. <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=red>Capt. Walter
4th Regiment "King's Own"
AdC, Royal North American Corps of 1812</font id=red>