Game cd-audio does not play in game. Plays fine in winamp.

[Ratha]

Operating System: Win98se
Burning Software: Clonecd 4.2.0.2
Anti-virus Software: Pccillin 2000
DAEMON Tools Version: 3.41

The I-Magic game Malkari, plays perfectly fine from a cd-image made by clonecd 4.2.0.2, except for the fact that the cd-audio does not play during the game. However, i can play it perfectly fine with various cd-players in windows.

I dont believe this problem is specifically daemon tools, i believe i also checked with clonecd's sheepdrive, and i believe the results were the same. I checked using digital and analog audio, with and without emulation, but for some reason, the image's music does not play in the game when mounted. However dumping the original cd into the drive allows it to play.

I seem to remember somewhere reading something about issues if the mounted drive was not the lowest letter for your cdrom drives, that it might be looking to a different drive for the cd, but that dosnt *seem* to be the case here. I put in an audio cd into my drives, thinking maybe it would read them instead of its own (mounted cd) Didnt read it when in the game.

I have not tried burning the image to a cd to check to see if it plays fine from the copy. This game is a rather old game, 98/99 i believe. It appears to use bad sectors as some form of protection, or atleast thats what clonyxxl 2.0.1.5 says.

Does anyone have any ideas?


Ratha

[Ratha]

Well, i burnt the image to a cd, and it does not appear to be a problem with the image. What it does appear to be is some sort of bug involving windows multimedia controls under the cd-music tab.

The cds play music when in the cdrom drive which is selected in that tab, but will not play when it is not selected as the default audio playing drive. However, when i set it to one of my virtual drives, it will not play.

The option to select digital audio is greyed out, i dont know why exactly, since i can select to mute or unmute digital audio playback in volume control properties, and digital audio seems to playback fine. Also, winamp will play audio back from any drive, nomatter the setting in that multimedia control, physical, or virtual.

The cd-player in windows, however, will only playback audio from the Malkari cd when one of my two physical drives is selected (E or F) And it will only play back the audio in the game when the cdrom is in the selected drive. Apparently it does not work for/with virtual drives. Maybe this is some form of analog audio issue?

If anyone has more information about this, or can provide any help, id sure appreciate it.


Ratha

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Probably also worth mentioning is that im running a soundblaster live with the latest drivers for this operating system, dated 99. I should 'upgrade' to the onboard audio to see if that dosnt resolve the problem, im told the onboard audio is much better anyway.

[Copytrooper]

Well, your problem is that you need WDM drivers for digital audio output in case analog audio via Daemon Tools fails. So check whether you can get WDM drivers for Win98SE either for the Soundblaster or the onboard sound, then disable analog audio in Daemon Tools, and enable digital audio in multimedia tab (in control panel) for each virtual drive.

[DevX]

Most likely your CDROM must have lowest drive letter. most games don't do not accept other CDROMs.

[Ratha]

Well, the problem dosnt appear to be daemon tools audio selection, it works perfectly fine with nearly every other game i have tried it with, i always use digital audio for all my music cds, music cd images, games, and game images. Has always worked fine i believe..

This game works in any physical cdrom drive i put it into, as long as i set that drive to be my default music drive in control panel media properties.

I have the latest drivers for my soundblaster installed, they were released in 99 or 2000 i think. But perhaps i will still consider updating to my onboard sound on my next reinstall, when i rip out the sb-live.

Anyway, if anyone has any more ideas, i would appreciate any other suggestions, and will take the current ones into consideration and look around a bit more for drivers and whatnot.


Ratha

[Copytrooper]

The option to select digital audio is greyed out, (...)

Which option do you mean? With this option greyed out in multimedia options (in control panel) you can NOT use digital audio, you also have to disable Daemon Tools' analog audio option in order to use digital audio!
Also consider the hints VeNoM386 mentioned, which can also be a problem.

[Ratha]

Ive seemingly found the resolve to my previous problem. But for some reason or another, digital audio does not work with DT. Im pretty sure it did at one time, but i could be wrong. My only conclusion is that maybe the drivers for my SB-Live! do not support digital audio playback.

But if thats the case, why can i draw, and (seemingly) play digital audio from my CDRW? A bug with the volume control settings maybe? That could help to explain why when i have both analog and digital cd-audio un-muted that i get what seems to be two channels of the same thing, playing back in sync and making it sound out of phase.

Also, when i check the box in volume control properties under advanced: "Digital output only" cd-audio plays only digital cd-audio from drive F. So... needless to say, i am quite confused. Digital audio dosnt work for DT, but it does work for my CDRW?

My previous problem was that i had my DAD set to a physical drive, instead of my virtual drive, and i also had DT digital audio enabled. So when i would change one, or the other, it didnt give me any cd-audio playback.

Anyway, if anyone would want to know, heres a playtable ive constructed to show what works and what does not after quite some testing, back and forth, with all settings i could test with.

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Drive setup:
E - DVD w/analog connection (to Auxilery port on SB-Live!)
F - CDRW w/analog & 2 pin digital connection (to SB-Live!)
G - DT Virtual drive
H - DT Virtual drive

DAD = Default Audio Drive
DT = Daemon tools
VCP = Volume Control Panel
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Cd player audio playback:
E - Auxilery only.
F - Analog & Digital.
G - WAV playback, DT w/analog only.
H - WAV playback, DT w/analog only.

NOTES:
1: VCP settings have no effect on virtual drives, with exception to WAV volume.
2: DAD drive setting does not matter.
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Winamp 2.91 playback:
E - WAV playback.
F - WAV playback.
G - WAV playback.
H - WAV playback.

NOTES:
1: VCP settings have no effect, with exception to WAV volume.
2: DAD drive setting does not matter.
3: DT settings do not matter.
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In game playback:
E - Auxilery.
F - Analog & Digital.
G - WAV playback, DT w/analog only.
H - WAV playback, DT w/analog only.

NOTES:
1: VCP settings have no effect on virtual drives, with exception to WAV volume.
2: DAD drive setting must be set to drive in operation to get cd-audio playback.
------

Here are the facts:
1: DT will not play digital cd-audio.
2: DAD must be set to drive in operation, in order to get cd-audio playback while in games.

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There are no WDM drivers that i know of for the SB-Live!, being as old as it is, and it not having been updated at all recently. Im beginning to believe the upgrade to the onboard audio would really be an upgrade, ive been told the onboard audio for the Abit NF7-S 2.0 motherboard im using is really good stuff. I suppose we will see soon eh?

Any further help to my being unable to play digital audio in DT would be appreciated, has to be a driver issue, or something in windows not being enabled. Oddly enough, i think in win98 (non SE version) i could enable it.. or if it even had that option. I was sure that i enabled that option on one of my windows installs.



Ratha

[Copytrooper]

Oddly enough, i think in win98 (non SE version) i could enable it.. or if it even had that option. I was sure that i enabled that option on one of my windows installs.

I don't think so, 'cause you need WDM drivers for digital audio, and AFAIK Creative does NOT have any WDM drivers for OSs below Win98SE - including Win98 first edition!

[Ratha]

You know, you are probably right about not having WDM drivers for win98 platform.. i googled around to see what was out there, there seemed to be a few things, but really, ive come to the conclusion that im just going to tear the SB-live out and hope that the onboard sound dosnt give me any problems. I mean afterall, the sb-live is 4 years old now, and my onboard sound is less than a year, and ive heard its pretty nice so i think that makes up my mind for that. I cant think of anything id really miss anyway, except to be able to record "What U Hear"

I dont know if other sound drivers have that option, but i like being able to record the audio passing through my soundblaster. Kinda neat for places that play music that you cant download or save from. That would be the only thing id miss.


Ratha