Intro Speech

[WaltC]

Playing with the latest Exult (as of 3/22/14), and for some reason the speech in the BG intro will not play, whereas the speech in the SI intro is perfect. I saw the note about the introsnd.dat file being corrupt, but apparently that's not it, because when I boot U7BG normally (run it outside of Exult) the same file renders the speech without a problem.

Any suggestions? (This is a *small* thing, really, because that dumb intro speech in BG has always been one of the dumbest, cheesiest elements of the game...) Still, it's just the principle of the thing...

[Dominus]

We have had reports about this but never got behind the reason why.
Before you do anything else, can you copy your exult.cfg into here?
http://exult.info/docs.php#exult_config_location

And let me look up the old thread and where it stopped being debugged...

[Dominus]

http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=373901#p373901

[Dominus]

do you have the complete rights for the file? read/write/execute?
What is the case of the file? All upper (INTROSND.DAT), lower (introsnd.dat) or mixed cases (e.g. IntroSnd.dat)?
Sorry for only being able to continue shooting in the dark

[WaltC]

Thank you very much, Dominus!...yes, I thought about the rights and will check again, and it's all caps, 528,033 bytes actual size (not "on disk" size)--

Rights--it turns out all I had were read&execute, read rights--I've set it to full control and will try again and get back here with the result ASAP.

[Dominus]

Thanks and please copy/paste the contents of your exult.cfg

[WaltC]

D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_The_Black_Gate


(default)


sqsfxbg.flx




(default)




D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_Part_2_Serpent_Isle


(default)




0




yes



yes


gs




yes


gm



yes


0




yes


0



1.0000


yes


default


no




yes



no


22050


yes




yes


no


no


yes


no


no


yes


no



0


normal


original


no



8


double


yes


100


yes


yes


yes


yes


-1


0




2


SuperEagle


yes


no



1.00


1.00


1.00





0


0


0



0


0




1152


864



Aspect Correct Fit


Point


yes


10

[WaltC]

Stdout

Exult version 1.5.0svn
Built at: Mar 12 2014 08:04:37
Compile-time options: USE_FMOPL_MIDI, USE_MT32EMU_MIDI, USE_EXULTSTUDIO, HAVE_ZIP_SUPPORT, HAVE_OPENGL
Compiler: gcc, version: 4.6.2

Platform: Windows Unknown NT Version 6.2 Build 9200
Exult path settings:
Data : data
Digital music : data\music

Looking for 'blackgate' at 'D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_The_Black_Gate'... found game with identity 'FORGE'
Looking for 'serpentisle' at 'D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_Part_2_Serpent_Isle'... found game with identity 'SILVER SEED'
Looking for 'forgeofvirtue' at './forgeofvirtue'... but it wasn't there.
Looking for 'silverseed' at './silverseed'... but it wasn't there.
Black Gate : not found (\.)
Forge of Virtue : found
exult_bg.flx : found
Serpent Isle : not found (\.)
Silver Seed : found
exult_si.flx : found
Checking rendering support
Windowed 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
640x480 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
720x480 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
720x576 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
800x600 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1024x768 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1152x648 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1152x864 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1280x720 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1280x768 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1280x800 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1280x960 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1280x1024 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1360x768 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1360x1024 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1366x768 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1440x900 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1600x1200 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1680x1050 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1776x1000 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1920x1080 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
1920x1200 8 bpp ok 16 bpp ok 32 bpp ok
Creating AudioMixer...
Audio opened using format: 22050 Hz 2 Channels
Timbers Precached: On play only
OGG Vorbis Digital Music: Enabled
Trying: `Windows'
1 Midi Devices Detected
Listing midi devices:
-1: Microsoft MIDI Mapper
0: Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth
Using device -1: Microsoft MIDI Mapper
Success!
Midi Output: Enabled
Starting a BLACK GATE game
Game path settings:
Static : D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_The_Black_Gate\static
Gamedat : C:\Users\J\AppData\Local\Exult\blackgate\gamedat
Savegame: C:\Users\J\AppData\Local\Exult\blackgate
Patch : D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_The_Black_Gate\patch

Opening digital SFX's file: "/sqsfxbg.flx"
Resetting AudioMixer...
played intro
Gamedat identity FORGE
Reading usecode file.
Support for SI Paperdolls is enabled.
Support for SI Multiracial Avatars is enabled.
Loading /exult_bg.flx...
Loading default keybindings
Opened socket for Exult Server on port 5351
Cheats enabled.
Finding path to schedule for sage
Finding path to schedule for peasant
Finding path to schedule for peasant
Destroying AudioMixer...
Destroying MidiDriver...
Creating AudioMixer...
Audio opened using format: 48000 Hz 2 Channels
Timbers Precached: On play only
OGG Vorbis Digital Music: Enabled
Trying: `Windows'
1 Midi Devices Detected
Listing midi devices:
-1: Microsoft MIDI Mapper
0: Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth
Using device -1: Microsoft MIDI Mapper
Success!
Midi Output: Enabled

[WaltC]

stderr

Warning, trailing slash in path: "\"
Warning, trailing slash in path: "\"

[WaltC]

Dominus,

Thanks so much for your responses--so quick... I hadn't expected to hear anything for days if at all...so thanks again...!

I read through the other thread--it pretty much boils down to doing what we've done here...Everything else in the game is great and works as advertised and I'm having no difficulties...I don't see anything jumping out at me and I guess you didn't, either, but that's A-OK.

It must be just some quirky little thing--I'll keep working with it and if anything clicks I'll let you know, of course.

Gotta' get back to Exult....! It's great!

[WaltC]

One last thing...The static sound effect in the intro is heard fine, and the ogg sounds/music are heard clearly, and when the head begins to talk (lips are moving) there is no text displayed, so evidently Exult thinks the speech & sound are playing normally.

That's it--out of ideas--now back to the game...

[Dominus]

Do you have anything in Patch : D:\Ultima VII\Ultima_7_The_Black_Gate\patch ?

[WaltC]

OK, for the moment, anyway, problem is solv-ed, as Clusoe might say.

I am now getting speech in the BG intro through Exult! Heh... Weirdness abounds--OK, I was looking through my drives (almost 3TB's of capacity over several partitions and ~70% filled)--when lo and behold I found another Ultima VII installation directory that evidently I had installed long ago and forgotten about--it was just sitting there. So I said what the heck and copied over the INTROSND.DAT to overwrite the one I'd been using--(which worked fine with the intro speech, remember, with my regular DOSbox version of the game(!))--and now *speech* is working through Exult, as well! Go...figure....

I think the "corrupt file" theory is actually--has to be, the right one, even though this doesn't make a lot of sense as I cannot see why the intro speech would work in vanilla U7 but not in Exult running the same files *if* the INTROSND.DAT file is corrupted--as the file ought not work at all under any conditions if that is the case--I would think!

Anyway--thank you so much for looking into it today! Ultimately I did solve it through the original suggestions made in the original thread you pointed me to that advocated overwriting a corrupt file--because I found another identical file installed to another drive that worked--even though I've never seen a corrupt file work like this--partially, that is...! Strange. I could find no observable difference in the files--capitalization, actual size, file date, and of course *source*. Except one didn't work with 1.5 Exult and the other did!

Thanks again, Dominus! (BTW, to answer your last query--I don't even have a patch directory...) It's always better when things return to the predictable norm, isn't it?

[Dominus]

Ok, now I wasted hours watching the intro...

Things I found out:
- if I leave audio and video settings to their default and only change the window resolution it *seems* that playing at 1440x900 is fine wile 1600x900 is not, resulting in no intro speech (this doesn't seem to apply to your cfg)

- add to that it seems to not "flush" correctly when you leave the BG menu, go back to the Exult main menu and then back to the BG menu. -> so any change you do in the setup means that you should restart Exult to see if the intro now works

What this means to you:
if you delete in your exult.cfg the whole video (everything in between and including and ) and audio (everything between and including and ) section and then start Exult your intro speech should work.

[Dominus]

Ha, posted at the same time

[WaltC]

Same time! This thread/subject is full of anomalies, eh? Thanks again for your help!

[Dominus]

Malignant fixed some timing issues which hopefully does away with the issues I observed. Need to test again but not right now since I just got up

Thanks for bringing it to attemtion again!

[WaltC]

Hey, Dominus...Malignant may be onto something after all... It's just stopped working...Lol! Well, there goes theory #3214: "When a file is both corrupt and not corrupt simultaneously, the following things may occur"....Heh... This isn't quantum mechanics, so it can't be on and off, or yes and no, or true and false, at the same time...!

It's really, really not a big deal at all for me. I'm having a ball running through this game, again, this time with Exult! I've always been this way, though...my wife keeps hoping I'll outgrow it...but I tend to fixate on the smallest problems that come to my attention until I get them solved....Arrrrrgh... Thanks yet again, and you guys know that your efforts are greatly appreciated from my quarter!

[WaltC]

!! Success!! Heh...

Dummy here (that's me), wrote that last note before checking to see if a new snapshot had been released! Works great, so far! Thanks much!

I also really like the "Show Mods" feedback on the Menu page.

The speech has worked twice in succession, now, so I will reboot just for the heck of it and run it once more just to triple check...I'll wager it's fixed--looks like malignant got to the root problem!

"If you no hear from me again on this topic, it mean everything copacetic, Kemosabee"....

[Dominus]

Take a look at http://log.usecode.org/exultlog.php?log=22Mar2014 my conversation with myself about this problem...
And then after I spent hours with this a**** problem, Malignant came to the rescue

[WaltC]

Still working perfectly--it's definitely fixed... Your log sounds awfully familiar! Thanks so much again for the effort you guys made to finally solve this. Yea, it's such a small thing, really, in the context of the game, that probably only a few of us felt it deserved a comment in the forums. But the devil's in the details, isn't he? Back to the game!