Using BizHawk or snes9x (any version) when I go into the game's Options, the audio for some reason gets lowered down. It then keeps like that through the whole game. The background music gets pretty low and some sound effects are barely audible (like the character's voice when they swing their swords with a power up). The only way to prevent this is never going into the game's options (but that way I can't switch to the Hard difficulty).
What's funny is that ZSNES doesn't have this problem, nor when I use BizHawk or snes9x on my other computer (a laptop, as opposed to my desktop computer). Also, I recorded a short .wav of the game through BizHawk and and while it plays low on my desktop computer, it plays correctly on my laptop. (wtf???)
This seems to be mainly a problem with my desktop computer, but I don't understand why it doesn't happen with ZSNES. And what does going into options have to do with anything? It's like a mix of computer and emulator bugs.
This is frustrating me to no end. I need some help.
UPDATE:
Okay, I connected two different speakers to my laptop and the problem happened, so seems like this game just doesn't like speakers. ZSNES for some reason is fine with them, though. Another way to fix the issue is changing the game's audio to "mono".
Maybe the speakers I got are cheap. Do you guys have any speakers recommendation? Preferably one that doesn't suck.
Just tried it in higan v100, it definitely changes the audio somehow. Maybe similar to how Star Ocean / ToP or the Winamp plugin SNESamp did "surround sound". Maybe try with headphones?
Maybe you have some hardware decoder connected / enabled that tries to extract some additional channels from the audio.
So it's not only me. I was starting to get worried I was the only one in the world with this problem. By the way, I just tested the game on real hardware (booted up my SFC with sd2snes) and it played correctly there.
creaothceann wrote:
Just tried it in higan v100, it definitely changes the audio somehow. Maybe similar to how Star Ocean / ToP or the Winamp plugin SNESamp did "surround sound". Maybe try with headphones?
Sadly, I have no headphones nearby at this time. Do you happen to have one with you? If so, could you please test the game with it to see if the problem persists? If the audio is good, then I will go buy a set tomorrow.
creaothceann wrote:
Maybe you have some hardware decoder connected / enabled that tries to extract some additional channels from the audio.
I'm not sure how to check this out. Where should I look?
I just tested the game on real hardware (booted up my SFC with sd2snes) and it played correctly there.
If the game changes some stereo-related audio options then you need to listen to the TV with headphones, too. Listening to the built-in speaker(s) is not enough because there may be only one, or they may sound like one because of the distance.
Gamer Maiden Sonia wrote:
Sadly, I have no headphones nearby at this time. Do you happen to have one with you? If so, could you please test the game with it to see if the problem persists?
I can hear a change after entering the options, both with and without headphones.
Here's the audio of the menu cursor changes before and after going into the options menu. After loading it into Audacity it seems that for the second set the sign of each sample is inverted (1 becomes -1 etc).
Gamer Maiden Sonia wrote:
creaothceann wrote:
Maybe you have some hardware decoder connected / enabled that tries to extract some additional channels from the audio.
I'm not sure how to check this out. Where should I look?
Depends on the soundcard manufacturer / software. Try the Windows audio preferences in the control panel.
Also make sure that the speaker balance is centered. Press Win+R, enter "sndvol", click the speaker, go to the "levels" tab, click the "balance" button. Both L and R should be set to the same value.
I can hear a change after entering the options, both with and without headphones.
Here's the audio of the menu cursor changes before and after going into the options menu. After loading it into Audacity it seems that for the second set the sign of each sample is inverted (1 becomes -1 etc).
I don't know anything about this game and didn't bother to look it up before replying, but what you're describing sounds similar to Dolby Pro Logic encoding. With Pro Logic, if the waveform of samples on the left and right channels are 180 degrees apart (for example if you take a mono track, split it into stereo and invert the left or right channel) the audio will be played on the rear surround speakers. It also sounds kind of weird via normal stereo speakers because both sound waves would cancel each other out being exact opposites.
If a game supports Dolby Pro Logic, this could explain why that happens. If not, at least the explanation was useful?
I still didn't get around to testing headphones on the TV, but I figured out that if you focus the whole audio on one speaker (i.e: Left = 100 / Right = 0 or Left = 0 / Right = 100), then I can listen to the game's audio properly. But if I leave things balanced (both L and R with the same value), then those audio problems happen.
As I mentioned before, leaving the game on monaural also fixes the issue, but I guess I will just leave it on stereo with the audio focused on a single speaker.
I still didn't get around to testing headphones on the TV, but I figured out that if you focus the whole audio on one speaker (i.e: Left = 100 / Right = 0 or Left = 0 / Right = 100), then I can listen to the game's audio properly. But if I leave things balanced (both L and R with the same value), then those audio problems happen.
As I mentioned before, leaving the game on monaural also fixes the issue, but I guess I will just leave it on stereo with the audio focused on a single speaker.
