X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

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X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 11:10

Hey all,

Reinstalled X2 yesterday and am loving it all over again. Obviously it plays *beautifully* with all settings up as I'm using a computer from the distant future, relatively-speaking lol. However, I do have one issue... Whenever voice audio - and just voice audio it seems - plays, I get stuttering. Not a huge issue, however, as pilots comm you quite often during combat, it's making it a less than smooth experience.

I've read several old posts about this and my audio drivers etc. are all up to date of course, as is DX. However, I wonder, as the game was Windows XP era, are there any specific actions to solve this in Windows 10? I don't want to go around installing older codecs etc. randomly, as that might cause issues with everything else. Needless to say, I only have an issue with X2 and do remember how reliant the older X games have been on using very specific codecs for audio.

Any advice welcome, though I imagine very few people are currently active in the X2 community.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 11:36

Yes, make sure that Win10/11 DirectX 12 has included (which it should have) all the legacy DirectX 9.0c files needed to play old XP era games. That should ensure that all the right obsolescent DirectSound facilities should work for X2.

The other thing is to check not so much that useful codecs are missing, but that ones damaging to early X games are not present. Here's an extract from the advice Sticky that may help:
  • "Codec Issues.

    Codecs are pieces of code similar to drivers that ensure that video and audio are handled in a way that suits the application being used. The X-games are written to expect and use standard Windows Media Player (WMP) codecs. Many other applications, media players & converters and codec packs that you can install, sometimes without even knowing such as with film DVDs that auto-install players, bring along their own different brands of codecs. The well-behaved ones are used only by their respective parent applications but unfortunately some are written to appear as replacements for the WMP ones at all times, probably to save their applications having to use codec detection and management code.

    Some codecs are known to cause issues with X-games by being called instead of WMP ones. These can cause blank screens at gamestart, no music and/or voices, garbled or noisy sound in-game, or lags and low frame-rates while playing. Some bespoke codec suppliers, like Ffdshow, can be set so as not to use their codecs with X-games and there is a Sticky Thread at the top of this forum to advise how to do that. Others can only be prevented from harming X-games by being removed through uninstalling the application or codec pack (eg k-lite, CCCP, etc) that installed them, else they will be reinstalled by the application if individually removed.

    The list of known codecs harmful to X-games includes, but is not restricted to, Ffdshow, Haali, Nero, ULead, Cyberlink, MainConcept and Viscomsoft. Typically it is specific audio and/or video codecs that cause issues such as the MainConcept/Magix mpegin.dll."
Additionally: ProgDVB and DivXMedia apps might also cause codec issues with early X games.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 13:00

Thanks for the tips. This PC is just for gaming, so I have no additional codecs installed at all. I'll double-check the DX9 stuff - is the web installer version ok, or does it get files that are too new? I assume it's fine. Think I already have that installed, but will check.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 17:17

I can check your codecs for you if you want. Run a DxDiag and save the output as text to your desktop. From that, about halfway down the DxDiag textfile, just copy the bit titled as below but stop just before you get to 'Video Compressors' and paste that into a new post here:
  • ------------------
    DirectShow Filters
    ------------------

    DirectShow Filters:
    WMAudio Decoder DMO,0x00800800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,10.00.19041.1288
    ... etc
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 21:19

Thanks for the offer, much appreciated. I think I've solved it though, just testing now and not noticing the judder - but do need a few more tests to be 100% sure.

Basically, while I already had the DX9c redist (June 2010) installed, I did wonder if perhaps something might have overwritten things. This W10 build is quite old, being first installed in November 2019. So, I simply ran the installer again, then launched the game. I've had comms from various Pirate ships as I attack them, and the judder seems at the very least less. The combat test I just did was quite hectic though, so I need to be sure it's all good.

Edit: The issue certainly seems improved, but there's still an FPS hit. Gonna keep playing for a bit, then will snag that DXDiag.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sat, 8. Oct 22, 22:33

Here's the DXDiag stuff you asked for, I'll just paste it in directly, as it's not that long:

------------------
DirectShow Filters
------------------

DirectShow Filters:
WMAudio Decoder DMO,0x00800800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,10.00.19041.1288
WMAPro over S/PDIF DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,10.00.19041.1288
WMSpeech Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMSPDMOD.DLL,10.00.19041.0001
MP3 Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,mp3dmod.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Mpeg4s Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp4sdecd.dll,10.00.19041.1706
WMV Screen decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvsdecd.dll,10.00.19041.0001
WMVideo Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,wmvdecod.dll,10.00.19041.1110
Mpeg43 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp43decd.dll,10.00.19041.1165
Mpeg4 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mpg4decd.dll,10.00.19041.1165
DV Muxer,0x00400000,0,0,qdv.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Color Space Converter,0x00400001,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
WM ASF Reader,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.19041.0001
AVI Splitter,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
VGA 16 Color Ditherer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
SBE2MediaTypeProfile,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder,0x005fffff,2,4,msmpeg2vdec.dll,10.00.19041.2075
AC3 Parser Filter,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,10.00.19041.0329
StreamBufferSink,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
MJPEG Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
MPEG-I Stream Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
SAMI (CC) Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
VBI Codec,0x00600000,1,4,VBICodec.ax,10.00.19041.0746
MPEG-2 Splitter,0x005fffff,1,0,mpg2splt.ax,10.00.19041.0329
Closed Captions Analysis Filter,0x00200000,2,5,cca.dll,10.00.19041.0001
SBE2FileScan,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,10.00.19041.1865
Internal Script Command Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
MPEG Audio Decoder,0x03680001,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
DV Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,qdv.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Video Mixing Renderer 9,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder,0x00200000,2,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,10.00.19041.1865
ACM Wrapper,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Video Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
MPEG-2 Video Stream Analyzer,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Line 21 Decoder,0x00600000,1,1,,
Video Port Manager,0x00600000,2,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Video Renderer,0x00400000,1,0,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
VPS Decoder,0x00200000,0,0,WSTPager.ax,10.00.19041.0001
WM ASF Writer,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.19041.0001
VBI Surface Allocator,0x00600000,1,1,vbisurf.ax,
File writer,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,10.00.19041.0001
DVD Navigator,0x00200000,0,3,qdvd.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Overlay Mixer2,0x00200000,1,1,,
AVI Draw,0x00600064,9,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Microsoft MPEG-2 Audio Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,10.00.19041.1865
WST Pager,0x00200000,1,1,WSTPager.ax,10.00.19041.0001
MPEG-2 Demultiplexer,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,10.00.19041.0329
DV Video Decoder,0x00800000,1,1,qdv.dll,10.00.19041.0001
SampleGrabber,0x00200000,1,1,qedit.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Null Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,qedit.dll,10.00.19041.0746
MPEG-2 Sections and Tables,0x005fffff,1,0,Mpeg2Data.ax,10.00.19041.0001
Microsoft AC3 Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msac3enc.dll,10.00.19041.0001
StreamBufferSource,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Smart Tee,0x00200000,1,2,qcap.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Overlay Mixer,0x00200000,0,0,,
AVI Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
AVI/WAV File Source,0x00400000,0,2,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Wave Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
MIDI Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Multi-file Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
File stream renderer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder,0x005fffff,1,1,msmpeg2adec.dll,10.00.19041.0001
StreamBufferSink2,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,10.00.19041.0001
AVI Mux,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Line 21 Decoder 2,0x00600002,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
File Source (Async.),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
File Source (URL),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746
Infinite Pin Tee Filter,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,10.00.19041.0001
Enhanced Video Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,evr.dll,10.00.19041.0546
BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter,0x00200000,2,0,psisrndr.ax,10.00.19041.0001
MPEG Video Decoder,0x40000001,1,1,quartz.dll,10.00.19041.0746

WDM Streaming Tee/Splitter Devices:
Tee/Sink-to-Sink Converter,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,10.00.19041.0746

Cheers.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 12:35

That's all fine; in fact it's exactly the same list as mine.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 13:41

Alan Phipps wrote:
Sun, 9. Oct 22, 12:35
That's all fine; in fact it's exactly the same list as mine.
Hmm, wonder what might be causing the stutter when voice comms play then? I'm out of ideas as no other titles exhibit similar behaviour, though X2 is the oldest game I play currently bar Forged Alliance. I don't recall having this issue back when X2 was the current X title.

If you have any thoughts on what I might try next, I'd welcome them. Could it be something simple like the bit-rate settings for audio in Windows? I dimly recall that could pose problems? I'd rather not globally tweak something that has no impact on other titles, but I may tinker to see if it has any effect.

Edit: Tried setting the sound in Windows to 41,000 KHz, and 16Bit, which was a very old tip, but it makes not difference, despite W10 defaulting to a significantly higher setting. Will keep tinkering...

Edit 2: Other (again, rather old) posts suggest running the game in XP SP3 compatibility mode. Trying this breaks the launcher for me.
Last edited by Scoob on Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:06, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:05

What is your speaker layout? Old X games with DirectSound on modern OSs do not like surroundsound (eg 7:1 or 5:1 - I use quadraphonic with 'fill speakers' for these) and definitely no longer support EAX if you have that game option on.

Just a thought, but also avoid using 3rd party surroundsound or EAX emulators for them.

I think you said that your sound driver was updated (make sure it from your sound device manufacturer and not a Microsoft generic one), but also check that you don't have too many different sound devices and their drivers on the go at the same time. (You can disable devices and drivers in Device Manager, Sound/Audio Devices and right-click on any device you don't use in the listing for a disable/enable pop-up. Don't worry about mistakes in Sound Devices as it is easily reversed the same way.)
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:19

Same speakers I've always had, over 20 years old now! Cambridge Soundworks 2.1, (2 speakers plus Sub) never felt the need to change them. These are the same speakers I played X-Btf on at launch!

The GPU (3070) is also an audio device of course, as is my Monitor oddly enough. However, the only enabled audio device is the motherboard's built-in Realtech stuff. Speakers and Mic, that's it. Note: there are no drivers installed for those other audio devices either - I removed them ages ago... unless Windows has sneakily reinstalled them...for disabled devices...

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:22

Nice. I meant the speaker layout in your sound device control panel settings rather than your actual speakers though.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:46

Alan Phipps wrote:
Sun, 9. Oct 22, 14:22
Nice. I meant the speaker layout in your sound device control panel settings rather than your actual speakers though.
Yeah, sorry, that's unchanged too just stereo with sub.

I've re-downloaded the latest Realtek drivers and have run the installed to remove all current drivers (technically the same version) an install fresh. We'll see if that has any impact.

Edit: Oddly, after re-downloading the same latest Realtek drivers and installing them. The date-stamp for the drivers has changed from 2019 (when I built this PC) to 2017! Wonder why what's essentially the same installer - albeit a fresh downloaded copy, just in case - now has a different time-stamp? Darn weird!

Edit 2: Latest drivers broke my microphone...not even gotten around to testing X2 yet *argh!*

Edit 3: Looks like the drivers needed one additional reboot on top of the two it'd already done. Lol, this shouldn't be complicated! back to testing X2 now... what's the betting nothing has changed after all that? lol.

Edit 4: Still no difference after all that, going to read through suggestions again and see if I've missed something. This is a very odd issue and none of the older (pre Windows 10) fixes appear to work, like setting the bit rate lower, using Win XP SP3 compatibility mode etc. Drivers *are* the latest directly from Realtek's own driver download page. Very weird.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 15:41

Good luck Scoob, because I'm out of ideas now.

Wait, really silly idea. Just as a test, enable Nvidia sound, disable Realtek and connect your sound via your graphics card to your monitor speakers. Now see if the lag on speech still happens. If it does then revert everything and I have no idea. If there is no lag, then suspect your Realtek sound and maybe try to get a different (newer?) Realtek HD Audio Codec driver from such as Windows driver cache. This is the one I have:
  • Driver Name: RtUsbA64.2307.sys
    Driver Version: 6.3.9600.2307 (English)
    Driver Attributes: Final Retail
    WHQL Logo'd: Yes
    Date and Size: 10/11/2021 01:00:00, 473696 bytes
    Other Files:
    Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Although it says USB in the title, I have my surroundsound directly connected by individual pair channel cable plugs to my mobo sound output sockets.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 15:52

Alan Phipps wrote:
Sun, 9. Oct 22, 15:41
Good luck Scoob, because I'm out of ideas now.
Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to try to help. I think I might just live with it for now, or I'll spend all day tinkering (and getting nowhere) rather than playing. It really is quite nice coming back to X2 after all these years, such a different game to the newer titles, and even X3 in many ways. Sorta liking the "on rails" flight model, I'd totally forgotten about it. I keep trying to compensate for drift that isn't there lol.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 16:02

Hmm, a further thought that it might not be audio at all. Is the lag whenever anything causes speech, or just when you have the cartoon character little dynamic face windows open for comms? It might be more a graphical issue to do with displaying those dynamic mini-windows if the latter case.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 17:18

Alan Phipps wrote:
Sun, 9. Oct 22, 16:02
Hmm, a further thought that it might not be audio at all. Is the lag whenever anything causes speech, or just when you have the cartoon character little dynamic face windows open for comms? It might be more a graphical issue to do with displaying those dynamic mini-windows if the latter case.
I was actually thinking the same thing, though I did check the regular Monitors (F5) and having something displayed there gives no issues at all. It's *only* that little comms window / audio that causes quite major stutter for a fraction of a second - enough to knock you off course when dogfighting, when the game catches up.

Game experience is otherwise perfectly smooth - I've limited it to 60fps - so these anomalies are very obvious during a fight. I really don't know what else to try at this time. I installed from the original EUR/AUS CD's I have, then applied the appropriate updates. I don't know if there are any other updates available at all that might help. As mentioned, trying Windows XP SP3 Compatibility mode - an older suggestion for those with Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.n - just causes the Launcher to partially lock-up and the game won't launch.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 17:34

I did some further forum searches about X2/X3 comms window problems and the bad news is that in the threads I found talking about similar issues and with links to tools or articles that helped posters to fix them, the links are expired and dead. :(

There was some talk about reinstalling Windows Media Player and other even more radical reinstallations, but that may seem problematic for a small gain.
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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Sun, 9. Oct 22, 17:38

Thanks for looking anyway.

I had been playing a little Farham's Legacy (X3) a little while back, and experienced zero issues similar to this. I suspect X2 is simply too old and the fixes are outdated. I'm not sure what else I can do at this point.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Thu, 13. Oct 22, 17:15

I had some time to play around with this again. I thought I'd try to get the *EXACT* driver version you have, either though a slightly newer one (.2342) is available. I did initially try that newer driver, but the installer refused to update from the much older (2017!) driver the "latest" files directly from Realtek applied. I've now installed those exact same drivers - exact version match - an it's basically broken things even worse. Windows Device manager now says "High defininition audio devices" rather than "Realtek". It's also added the dreaded Sonic Studio crap back in...gonna purge everything!

Driver version 6.0.9088.1 appears to be the only version that will install, newer versions it just exits the installer saying my current drivers (said older ones) are the best. Weird.

Edit: btw, I did see your comment on trying a different audio device - such as the one on my monitor - as a control test. Not done that yet as, I didn't see your edit until later, but I will try it. It's tricky to rock the boat on a machine that's perfectly fine for everything else, indeed, I've caused myself a headache just trying to update the drivers...had total audio fail after the last attempt - not just silent, an actual error when trying to play any sound - that was fixed by just "turning it off then back on again" in terms of uninstalling and re-installed the exact same set of drivers.

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Re: X2 The Threat, fps drop when voice plays (W10)

Post by Scoob » Tue, 18. Oct 22, 17:49

Thought I'd post an update. I've not solved the issue, but I have some additional observations that suggest it's *not* the sound, but the video that pops up - as speculated earlier in the thread.

To test this, I asked my ship to attack a Pirate Ship that I'd already stripped the weapons off using the Ion Distruptor. I then set in the ship menu, while my ship autonomously attacked The Pirate Ship - still using Ion Disruptors. It didn't take long to get the usual dialogue from the target, but this time of course *just* the audio - the video wasn't displayed as I was in the ship scree. I did not notice any judder, the spinning ship animation remained smooth while the dialogue played.

So, it does indeed appear to be the videos that are the culprit, but I don't know what I can do about that. My DX is all up to date and I cannot apply anything older of course - such as that which came on the CD - as windows block the process. If there's any way I can get this annoying fps drop when a video plays to go away, I'm open to it. I understand I can delete the mov files in the game's folder, but that will prevent other things working too.

Does anyone understand the video codecs used by X2 to play these videos?

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