Music is incredibly quiet

[GWXerxes]

Apologies for what follows and I'm happy to provide any additional information as requested.

I'm running FastDoom 1.1.4 on a 100mhz 486 with a SoudBlaster CT1740. The volume for music is incredibly quiet and I'm unable to bring the volume up to a reasonable level with the built in FDoom Music/Effects sliders at full deviation. I've tried both the SoundBlaster and AdLib selections in FDSetup for music playback. This happens with all supported Doom WADS. The playback functions of the card seem okay.

The SoundBlaster CT1740 been tested with other games as well as the built-in diagnostic tests included with the SB16 utilities for DOS and there's no volume differences between music and effects. I'm not sure how to proceed with further troubleshooting, so I'm posting here

[RedIce25]

Are you using the line out port on your sound card and in that case could try using the speaker out port instead?

I also seem to remember that there is a program included when installing Sound Blaster drivers that lets you increase the audio volume that the sound card outputs.

[GWXerxes]

Defiantly using the speaker port on the card. It's running into a set of amplified Tandy MMS-10 Speakers. I've adjusted using the Sound Blaster Mixerset program and verified that both Voice and MIDI channels are set even at their defaults. The built-in diagnostic DIAGNOSE.EXE shows that there's no noticeable output level difference between the two.

Issue isn't present in any other games or applications that use both music/sound. FastDoom seems to be the only application affected

[viti95]

@GWXerxes could you try this fdoom.exe executable? I've disabled the internal mixer configuration in the Apogee Sound System for SBPro and SB16 cards, so it will use the volume levels already set on the card.

fdoom116_nomixer.zip

[GWXerxes]

@viti95 Thank you for the executable. I A-B tested it with the stock fdoom.exe from the latest release. There does not appear to be a difference in the music volume. If anything the sound effects got slightly quieter while the music stayed at low volume. To get the music and sound effects at an equivalent level I'm required to set the music slider in the game options to max, and the sound effects slider to about 10%

I only had a few minutes to test today at my DOS machine. I'll hopefully have more time after Labor Day. The DOS machine in question sits in my office at work as a part of a living computer display. I can't imagine my coworkers appreciate hearing E1M1 and gunshot noises repeatedly during the work day : )

I'll report back when I've done some extra testing!

Thanks!

[viti95]

Here’s a new version that attempts to fix this issue. Could you test it?

fdoom116_nomixer_v2.zip

[GWXerxes]

Apologies for the late replies. I've tested both new executable and have a more detailed explanation of the symptoms I'm experiencing.

The music volume is only imperceptibly low once FastDoom is first started after a cold boot. After restarting FastDoom the music is much louder, but still low. I took a video that I hope demonstrates that. The volume will stay louder until a cold reboot. A warm reboot will have no effect. I have the same symptoms with the stock FastDoom executable as well as the first patched executable in post 3233045050. The second patched executable in post 3250103159 just has imperceptibly low volume across warm and cold reboots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_8AW5L0l-8