Really wierd sound effect bug on Windows XP...

I've recently had someone try my game, and they've reported having a really wierd bug. They use Windows XP (old, I know). What happens is this...

The music is really loud. Whenever the music loops back over again, SW Synth returns to the default volume, whether it was turned down or not. Has this been an issue for anyone else in the past? Has this been resolved already in a backend?

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Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy... So here's some lunchmeat... Sandwich, maybe?

I can say that it's truly wierd!
I use windows XP too and that doesn't happen to me, even on a PC from 95

Are you using a stable version or a nightly?

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"I can't buy food with glory"

I use a nightly. Speaking of which, which backend is the most suitable for fixing the bug that crashes games when the music loops over again? I suspect that whatever bug that is doing this to his computer may be the same one. Is it directx_native, or directx_native2? I'm assuming that native2 is more stable than native.

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Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy... So here's some lunchmeat... Sandwich, maybe?

I hardly ever test music backends, so somebody might correct me if I am wrong:

music_sdl - suffers from the midi loop crash, but is stable otherwise
music_native - doesn't crash on midi loops but has some other midi bugs (stuck notes, some songs slow)
music_native2 - doesn't crash on midi loops, but has some other midi bugs which are different from the music_native bugs (songs sometimes get stuck partway through)

The only difference between music_native and music_native2 is that they have different midi implementations. Everything else is the same.

So basically there is no good solution for midi on windows right now, just three different kinds of bad to choose from :(

I've never heard of such a bug before.



By "default volume", do you mean "the default loud volume", or "the volume becomes quieter"? So, did your friend try changing the volume level in Windows' mixer, or the volume meter in the OHR? If he changed the volume in the engine, I would be surprised if it kept resetting. I think changing the volume meter in the engine changes Windows mixer's synth volume directly, while if a non-midi is playing it only changes an internal volume level.

I agree that the way MIDI volume works is a bit broken, but I don't know how to improve it.

I'd be interested to know whether switching to music_native/native2 fixes the problem.

I mean the default loud volume. He changed the volume using the Windows mixer, not the OHR's volume. Every time he lowered the volume and the music looped over again, the music resets to the maximum volume.

I haven't had a problem using either native. However, when I use the natives, there aren't any sound effects, so I tend not to use them very much.

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Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy... So here's some lunchmeat... Sandwich, maybe?

Thanks, that's very helpful. And very strange... looking at SDL_mixer's source, it looks like it's Windows doing that, not SDL_mixer.

Also, no sound effects in music_native/2? Wow. Worked last time I tried it. Does anyone else have this problem?