Loud Distortion/White Noise Bug? FIX Here.

[bahoo]

The only time I heard the noise was during enemy computer moves (which I have turned on). It usually seemed to happen during naval movement.

If you haven't heard the sound, be glad, it's about enough to put you into a cardiac arrest when you first hear it.

[rjwoer]

Originally posted by Lesbaker
Another thing has just occured to me which would be interesting to cross reference with others experiences is that I had at least two Warlords units in or around the SAM units when they made the noise. Since the Warlord attached unit is a major difference to the code in CivIV Warlords, maybe this is a logical answer. Anyone else have active Warlords attached when they get the noise?
Les

I believe in 2 out of 3 games where the noise error occurred, I had a Walord unit attached to a unit somewhere (though certainly not necessarily the unit selected when the sound happened). But not all 3 games--the exception being when I used GG for the great general super specialist and the military academy building.

Still, that's not a bad hypothesis.

Originally posted by bahoo
If you haven't heard the sound, be glad, it's about enough to put you into a cardiac arrest when you first hear it.

Seconded.

[jdchambe]

the problem has started happenning for me again. this time on a small fractal map with quick game speed. I can say that this time the problem did start at about the same time that SAMs were first involved in combat. They were the AI's SAMs. I hadn't researched rocketry myself yet.

[MattPilot]

pad.



Got the same problem :/

[0d!n3oo3|Broad]

has anyone tested it in worldbuilder with placing sams or/and other units and wating for the noise?
i did it with the sam-inf and a couple of seconds later the heartattack-noise occured.
so i definetely know it's the at least the sam-inf.

[Tattila the Hun]

It's the SAM-inf fiddle animation... Anytime one of the guys scratches his neck, the sound occurs. Depending on the relative place of the guy, it is stereo or mono, stereo being louder. Or so I'd imagine.

That's a mean itch he has.

Edit: fidget, not fiddle.

[rjwoer]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
It's the SAM-inf fiddle animation... Anytime one of the guys scratches his neck, the sound occurs. Depending on the relative place of the guy, it is stereo or mono, stereo being louder. Or so I'd imagine.

That's a mean itch he has.

Does Tattila get the banana? Firaxis, do we have a fix?

[Hurin]

Happened to me the very first time I tried to press the "Destroy Production" hotkey for my spy while standing in a city building the spaceship engine (which, incidentally, isn't possible).

It then happened somewhat randomly for the rest of that game (one or two times). . . and then again in the next game (but again only during the late game).

Personally, I don't think the sound we hear is "based" on any existing sound. I think it's the sound card just plain freaking out. Though, of course, it can still be triggered by the "itch" as mentioned above.

I have an SB X-Fi in 5.1 mode (thought about changing to 2.1. . . but haven'et yet).

Will try to remember to post DXDiag when I get home.

H

[Tattila the Hun]

I tried to fiddle with the XML's, which supposedly controll the pitch and the likes of the sound "scratch", no chances. One would think it's a bug related to that particular unit... Do any other units scratch? I haven't noticed.

[jdchambe]

the idea that it might be tied to a fiddle animation seems like a good one. That is the sort of thing that would happen pretty randomly... I will try to verify that it is related to an animation like that later. I'm wondering if it might be more than one fiddle animation. Many are reporting SAMs as being a contributing factor, but I'm pretty sure the first time I saw the problem was before Rocketry had been researched.

I'm wondering about the SPY animation as well at this point....

[Tattila the Hun]

I'd imagine it's just the way scratch sound is played. I'd think some earlier units might have that, aswell. Oh, not fiddle, fidget. No musicians in the battlefield...

[Tattila the Hun]

Man, have I got a fix for you guys...

There's a typo (?) in Audio3dscripts.xml, in Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Warlords\Assets\XML\Audio-folder. Search for "yawn".


Notice how iMinvolume in "AS3D_UN_YAWN_VOX_LOW" is actually larger than iMaxvolume. Replace 75 with 50 or something, and the guy yawns as he should. (Wasn't a scratch, after all...)

Yummy banana.

[jdchambe]

yes. I see it. I'm sure the code that plays the sound is not designed to behave correctly when MAX is lower than MIN...

i wonder if people who aren't experiencing the problem have disabled the unit animations...

I don't have time to test it right now, but I rather expect that this will fix it.

[jcontre905]

awesome i havent had any sound glitches since making the change.

[jdchambe]

neither have I. I haven't had time to play, but I loaded a save that had the problem frequently after making the change and left the camera focused on a bunch of SAM units and let them fidget to their hearts content for over an hour while I continued working on my laptop.

I distinctly hear them "click" their weapons multiple times when they did fidget while I was working. But didn't here any sonic booms.

If we assume the problem was caused by the SAM fidget animation, then this has definitely fixed it.

*crosses fingers*