Sound issues

[Kampe24]

Hello, I've been back to the game for a while now and everything has been great.  However about a month ago something happened and all of my sounds in game are now distorted.  I can still here a lot of the sound queues, but they sound like they are coming from the next room.  Almost as if dynamic sounds are trying to play even though it's not set up to work that way.  I have updated all my drivers and I've even reinstalled the game, but I'm unable to fix the sound issues.  Does anyone know of a fix for this problem?

[GM Tock]

Is the option for 3D Sound lit in the in-game Options screen?  If so, turn that off to return to 2 channel sound. 

 

Otherwise, there may be a sound feature from your computer that picks up on "Environmental Audio" or EAX support that CoH uses, but shortly fell off the radar after 2005 in most hardware manufacturers.  You'd have to dig into your sound settings to see if/what has changed.

 

A good 90% of computers these days use motherboard embedded audio.  If there is nothing about environmental or 3D audio in your system settings, don't be surprised.

[Kampe24]

No the 3D is showing as N/A.  I wasn't able to find anything in my settings about Environmental Audio.  The only thing that has changed recently is I had to get a TP Link blue tooth adapter because the one built into the motherboard had a range of about 2.5 feet.  The drivers for that are up to date though.

[GM Tock]

Unless headphones are in use under Bluetooth, that's likely not it.  (If it is, let us know, there's some stuff to try.)

 

When updating drivers, is chipset drivers included in your routine?  (Depends on the computer: most models will come from the OEM, some systems such as Gaming PCs that are custom built, you'll visit the Motherboard manufacturer site.)

[Kampe24]

Yes I'm using the headphones in Bluetooth mode.  I was playing some tonight and noticed it happens more when I'm in a group.  Almost like there are too many sounds and the game can't decide which ones I should be hearing.  When I'm by myself the music and sound effects are fine.  The computer came from a company that builds PCs to your specs.  I've updated everything with Windows Update.  Haven't gone to the manufacturer of the Mobo.  The on board Bluetooth is disabled and only the TP Link that's in a USB slot is being used.

[GM Tock]

Bluetooth devices have a list of supported profiles: handsfree with the worst quality, headset (AM quality audio), and A2DP (CD-quality audio).  How old is the TP-Link Bluetooth dongle and headset?  (If they're both recent, it's likely they're fine.  If one's older than the other, I'd check to make sure both support A2DP.)

 

Profiles is a match-game: to get A2DP working, both the dongle and headset have to support the profile.

 

 

[Kampe24]

The dongle is about a month old.  My headphones are about 3 years old.  I'm not sure how to check to see what modes are supported or even how to select the mode. 

[GM Tock]

That's probably not it then.  It'd have to be a huge mismatch or one of the components being bad quality, which is easy to test with other things to rule that out: if you got another bluetooth headset to try on the USB Adapter, or pairing the headset to your phone and seeing if something happened with them.

 

Chipset Drivers would cover the sound card (Bluetooth is an output device, the sound card still processes the audio regardless) if you still want to give those a shot.

 

If you're unafraid of trying an "at your own risk" fix, @BlackSpectre shared an article not so long ago regarding using OpenAL Soft to try to restore 3D Audio to City of Heroes on modern hardware without trying to use modern peripheral soundcards.  (Most of which are either PCI-Ex 1X and weird to use, or USB and laggy.)  https://gnd-tech.com/2020/08/how-to-enable-3d-audio-in-directsound3d-and-openal-games-without-a-sound-card/  -- I did it on a Windows system and it seemed to make the game sound less muddled, but it's hard to know if it's using the library or not since City of Heroes uses the Windows Audio system defaults.  (Multiple sound devices?  Select it in Windows, in-game Options just has volume and that's it.) Worth a shot.  There's no uninstall, except for following the directions backwards.

 

I used these instructions on my Windows system: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Sound_card#Universal I don't advise using the instructions for specific audio hardware, as most of those 'helper apps' are reaching a decade old or longer.  (That RealTek tool was out when Windows Vista walked the earth and majestically ate leaves out of the tops of trees.)

 

Edited March 30 by GM Tock

[Kampe24]

Sorry it's been a while since I've replied, I've not had much time to play.  I updated all the drivers for the chipset and the audio card and I'm still having the issue.  At this point I think I'm just going to deal with it because all things considered it's not that big of a deal. Thank you for trying to help me though.

[Captain Fabulous]

Do you have an app for the headphones? There are probably a ton of settings available, would be worth taking a look. There might be some kind of sound effects processing enabled. You could also look in the Windows Sound options for the headphones, see if there's anything in there.

[American Decoy]

I don't know if this will help.  

 

I have just added Razer Kraken v3 headphones with Razer 7.1 Surround Sound app.  Now I have Surround Sound on my headphones, except in CoH.  My system's motherboard does not support 3d sound, and CoH does not offer 3D sound option.  If I use the surround sound software settings on my system and app settings, I miss some of the CoH sounds.  So, I do not run Razer 7.1 Surround Sound when playing CoH.

 

Long story short, I had to check computer settings, app settings, and game settings to find the setup that works on CoH.

[Kampe24]

17 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Do you have an app for the headphones? There are probably a ton of settings available, would be worth taking a look. There might be some kind of sound effects processing enabled. You could also look in the Windows Sound options for the headphones, see if there's anything in there.

I don't think an app for my headphones exist.  They are just generic Anker Soundcore Q10 headphones.  Everything was fine until I started using the TP link adapter.  The adapter fixed larger issues that I was having so if I just have to deal with this issue that's what I'll do.

[Captain Fabulous]

3 hours ago, Kampe24 said:

I don't think an app for my headphones exist.  They are just generic Anker Soundcore Q10 headphones.  Everything was fine until I started using the TP link adapter.  The adapter fixed larger issues that I was having so if I just have to deal with this issue that's what I'll do.

I checked and you're right, no app for the Q10, just the Q10i. And I'm betting there is no app for the TP Link adapter, but there should be some stuff in the Windows Bluetooth settings.

Is there any value in switching to your mobo bluetooth when you want to play CoH and then back to the TP link for everything else?

[Kampe24]

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

I checked and you're right, no app for the Q10, just the Q10i. And I'm betting there is no app for the TP Link adapter, but there should be some stuff in the Windows Bluetooth settings.

Is there any value in switching to your mobo bluetooth when you want to play CoH and then back to the TP link for everything else?

I had to disable the mobo bluetooth in order to use the TP link.  And it didn't function correctly anyway, only worked from about 2 feet from the tower and was quite frustrating.

[Kampe24]

So I don't know if anyone is still interested in this issue but I found the solution.  I had to go into Control Panel, click on devices and then right click on my headphones.  Then under the services tab there was a checkbox for Handsfree Telephony.  Once I unchecked this box it resolved my issues.  Apparently the computer treats the headphones as a hands free device and mutes some sounds so that you can hear what's important if you were on a phone call.  Hope this helps anyone else who is having this issue.

[GM Crumpet]

5 hours ago, Kampe24 said:

So I don't know if anyone is still interested in this issue but I found the solution.  I had to go into Control Panel, click on devices and then right click on my headphones.  Then under the services tab there was a checkbox for Handsfree Telephony.  Once I unchecked this box it resolved my issues.  Apparently the computer treats the headphones as a hands free device and mutes some sounds so that you can hear what's important if you were on a phone call.  Hope this helps anyone else who is having this issue.

glad you worked it out. sometimes its the most ridiculous things