[X3] A tool to fix your directshow codecs (sound problems and performance)

Silvery · Post by **Silvery** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 05:29

Good job MadBoris, you've made a great tool! It's simple, user friendly and effective at the same time, rare combination.
I tried DShow Viewer on Windows 2000 Server and it worked. I didn't run the file checker tool but other functionality worked almost perfectly. The only problem I encountered when I did the following steps:
1. I ran DShow Viewer
2. loaded the graph
3. ran X3 (in windowed mode)
4. attached to X3
5. closed the attach window
6. tried to load the graph second time (X3 was running)
and after that DShow Viewer silently closed. I ran it again and it worked fine, but this time I didn't try to load the graph second time.

I found that my codecs are in a good order, also I found that standard Messenger service attaches itself to the X3, thus X3 starts to depend on about dozen network and security dlls. So, this is yet another reason to disable this service. I'm not sure but Remote Registry service might have the same effect.
About EAX.dll. I have non-Creative on-board sound card that supports EAX in some way. When I enable EAX support in the game the EAX.DLL appears in the attach window, this dll is located in windows/system32 directory and I think that it was installed with the sound card drivers. I believe that it is a safe assumption that this dll is needed for non-Creative sound cards to properly support EAX and I would not suggest to remove/rename this dll for owners of non-Creative sound cards. It would be better for people who experience slowdowns with enabled EAX to simply disable it in the game. It might be that they sound cards are not very efficient when emulating EAX.

P.S.: the only feature I really miss is an export of content of the DLL grid in Attach Window to a text file or something like that.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 05:37

Silvery wrote:P.S.: the only feature I really misses is an export of content of the DLL grid in Attach Window to a text file or something like that.

Thanks for all the great feedback. The Export function is already integrated in the new version. Copies the grid to the clipboard for immediate pasting and exports to text as well. A few other goodies are planned and in the works, today I was re-writing manuals.

I have a 2000 server box I may test it on. I need to get more platforms supported, probably 2000, ME & 98.

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback.

strude · Post by **strude** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 05:40

robprime wrote:So I read in your programs little info window that I should track these down and rename them. Won't that break the modem?

I don't even have a modem and I have those files. I did have a USB modem that hasn't been plugged in for months, but thats it.

Silvery · Post by **Silvery** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 05:42

I'm not sure that the problem I described is a Windows 2003 Server problem. It might be a general problem as well.

Tracker001 · Post by **Tracker001** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 05:57

MadBoris wrote:To answer our question...
The main first post of this topic has been given a facelift and revised, dated in top left with todays date.

It unfortunately demands people devote a little time to it, to get their heads around it. I really couldn't avoid that.

OK
And as I see all through this thread MANY THANKS.

And as I have said ,some were in this fourm,
that X3 may have it's faults.
But for us who want to LEARN and better our selfs
this is the place to do it.

And agine MANY THANKS to the MAD BORIS and the other
peep's that know the majic box .
Thanks for the knowlage and insite.

Oh by the way ; The tweeking that I have done , has improved
performance. Just taking small steps for now with it.
But never have been afraid to hard boot with the power switch.

Please no warnings that this is a bad idea . I know what
mite happen . Been doing it for yazzera's

Brand-X · Post by **Brand-X** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 07:39

MadBoris,

This is excellent, much easier to understand. More logically and clearly presented. Good job, dude.

I looked for those two unimodem files that have been showing up on peoples machines. I searched all the entries in the dropdown box of DSFManager and didn't see them. That means that they are not direct show codecs, right? They could still be codecs, tho? Or even not codecs, right?

Windows properties say they are application extensions, without naming any application, created Sep 2001. for whatever that's worth. I tried to dl that filMerit prog but got really high dl speeds- 10 to 12 kbps over dial-up- off two different sites, and WinRar says files unexpectedly terminated. I probably have disabled some necessary comms service, messing around w/fsAutoStart.

Running filechecker was rather amusing because I have XP Sp1.

1835 total files in module

101 compared in sys32 & drivers

78 in dll cache

inconsistencies in sys32- 960

inconsistencies in dll cache- 1191

Impressive, eh?
More inconsistencies than there are files in module. Hmm, can't find the proudly beaming smiley.

19 of the green highlighted entries showed error, 18 dll and 1 dvr.
You reckon I can just find the updated versions and overwrite the old? Or would that cause an explosion of some sort? I really don't want to update to Sp2.

Rob

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 6. Jan 06, 07:54

robprime wrote:MadBoris,

This is excellent, much easier to understand. More logically and clearly presented. Good job, dude.

Glad to hear it, I put some time into it.

That means that they are not direct show codecs, right? They could still be codecs, tho? Or even not codecs, right?

They are not directshow codecs, but I don't know what exact role they have on your machine. Have you tried renaming them for fun and games.

inconsistencies in sys32- 960
inconsistencies in dll cache- 1191

Impressive, eh?
More inconsistencies than there are files in module. Hmm, can't find the proudly beaming smiley.

Well, that's why I said Tool Checker required SP2

. I will have to check my fuzzy math though, I thought I'd be dealing with single digits

You cannot go on those results at all with SP1, disregard anything your seeing, I totally wasn't preparing to deal with SP1. That part of the tool is still in it's infancy, just an infant, and you guys are prodding it, trying to make it eat solid food, make it run when it hardly crawls. Sheesh

Hoops71 · Post by **Hoops71** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 00:43

Gah! After running the prog as described I found 1 bad codec/file (Tabhook.DLL) so I neutralised it and lo and behold no more freeze!(Played for about 3 hrs with no freeze). BUT now after about 10 seconds of play (after using autosave) my FPS goes down to 2 or 3!!

Ive now tried practicaly everything to get this bl**dy game to run and Ive had enough.Guess its time for E-Bay....thanks Ego

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 01:15

Well, maybe your save is bad, try start6ing a new game for testing. Some people have found turning off autosave can help. Sounds like you are almost there.

You reporting that hook file maybe very helpful to others.

Thanks

Hoops71 · Post by **Hoops71** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 11:11

No probs m8,its YOU who should be thanked!

I'll try a previous auto save and then if that doesnt work turn Auto save off. Once again thanks for all of your hard work Boris.

grays · Post by **grays** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 11:19

Some help if you can please. The game runs reasonably until I get into a large fire fight.

The graph was fine, all green but the attach X3tool pulled up the following reds

IMM32.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 WINDOWS XP IMM32 API CLIENT
LPK.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 LANGUAGE PACK
USP10.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 UNISCRIBE UNICODE SCRIPT PROCESSOR
SRVWVDRV.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 UNIMODEM SERIAL WAVE DRIVER
UMDMXFRM.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 UNIMODEM TRANSFORM MODULE
NVIEW.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 UNIMODEM TRANSFORM MODULE
PSAPI.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 PROCESS STATUS HELPER
NVWRSENG.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 NVIDIA NVIEW DESKTOP AND WINDOW MANAGER
PATROLPRO.DLL C:\PROGRAM~\BILIP~ WINPATROL DLL HELPER
MSCTFIME.IME C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 MICROSOFT TEXT FRAMEWORK SERVICE IME
NVWDDI.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 NVIDIA NVIEW DISPLAY DRIVER LIB
CLM1SPLTER.AX C:\PROGS\CYBERLINK CYBERLINK MPEG SPLITER
FRAPS.DLL C:\FRAPS FRAPS

I'm a novice at this and really dont know where to start.

running on

Windows XP SP2
AMD XP 2500
2x 512mb RAM
256Mb 6600GT
Gigabyte kt700 with On Board sound
All video, mobo and chipset drivers are upto date along with WMP10. Didnt know where to start with the ACE Codec pack

hutchim · Post by **hutchim** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 17:59

same story as above.
all green when first run but when i do the attach thing with x3 in wondowed mode etc the following reds popped up.
C:\windows\system32\serwvdrw.dll
c:\windows\system32\vmdmxfrm.dll

if anyyone can help i'd really appreciate it.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 19:22

grays wrote:Some help if you can please. The game runs reasonably until I get into a large fire fight.

For that reason, it's best to only focus on the splitter, it's the only file directly connected to DirectShow audio.

clm1splitter is part of PowerDVD and probably other cyberlink software as well. I had run ins with it, you should get the proper splitter working with X3. I would familiarize yourself with the opening topic, how I explained to use DFSMgr. In this case raising "MPEG I Stream Splitter" to preffered, or just a bove, should do the trick. The rest of the files don't worry about since your not having major issues. Your slower processor may have a part to play with fire fights, but the splitter also has an effect on the game.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 19:26

hutchim wrote:same story as above.
all green when first run but when i do the attach thing with x3 in wondowed mode etc the following reds popped up.
C:\windows\system32\serwvdrw.dll
c:\windows\system32\vmdmxfrm.dll

if anyyone can help i'd really appreciate it.

I don't know a definitive answer on the effect of the serwvdrw.dll or it's function for sure yet, it may be functioning with some hardware on your PC.

vmdmxfrm.dll - this file is completely unknown to me, you may want to check properties on it and see if it's audio related.

If you are not experiencing any major problems and since no codecs are showingg up, I would say you are probably good to go.

Spaj · Post by **Spaj** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 20:06

Just wanted to say thanks to Madboris for this tool. I've been able to quickly identify and remove several inconsistancies, and as a result, the random freezing of my game has fallen from 'unbearable' to 'infrequent' allowing me to play on.

Thought it was only right to say thanks!

grays · Post by **grays** » Sat, 7. Jan 06, 21:41

Thanks MadBoris. Apologies for not fully reading your initial post as its self explanatory.

Did as you said with the MPEG splitter but no real difference. Also running the new benchmark tool resulted in 5fps differnce between min res and low settings to max res and high setting with AA on etc with all variations between. Averaged about 25 fps. This points to the CPU as the bottleneck as you guessed. Thanks for your excellent tool and help. Maybe it will be "Sir" MadBoris in the new year for recognition of your work.

Egosoft, my expectation of the game was only outweighed by my disapointment at its current state. My rig meets all the expectation of the recommended settings yet is still unplayable. I really dont want to fork out £300 for a new mobo and CPU just to play this. Its a shame as I am still a devotee of X2.

Nickster2395 · Post by **Nickster2395** » Sun, 8. Jan 06, 06:23

Everything for me works flawlessly except the Speech is REALLY delayed or there is no speech at all. I have fully read and followed the first post, still nothing.

When i right-click on the "SPEECH - Entering systems......" and click 'play' it plays voices flawlessly, but when i go in-game i get no voices at all.

[ external image ]

when i try to lower the merit of "ASF ACM Handler", after reboot, I get:

[ external image ]

when i press ok, then SPEECH box dosn't even show up at all:

[ external image ]

=========

AMD 3200+
RealTek AC97 Audio
ATI Radion X850 XT PE 256 MB
1GB PC 3200 RAM
DirectX 9.0C

==========

HeinzHarald · Post by **HeinzHarald** » Sun, 8. Jan 06, 14:50

Nickster: try (re)installing Windows Media Player 10. The preferred speech codec for X3 probably isn't installed, or an old version, or isn't registered properly. WMP10 should to fix this.

Nickster2395 · Post by **Nickster2395** » Sun, 8. Jan 06, 16:57

it works! ty ty ty

wish i knew this yesterday before i worked on it for about 10 hours

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sun, 8. Jan 06, 20:22

Nickster2395 wrote:it works! ty ty ty

wish i knew this yesterday before i worked on it for about 10 hours

That's why my initial topic page has this section:

Basic Pre-Requisites(Be sure these are handled before proceeding):
It is imperative that you rule out all other possible issues before proceeding to assume codec’s to be your only issue.
Use Driver Cleaner and get latest drivers for your video card and sound card.
Reinstall DirectX9c from the game CD/DVD and Media Player 10 from Microsoft.
Download latest motherboard drivers this can be very crucial especially with onboard sound cards.
If you have built-in onboard sound, just know that latency issues may affect performance at the very least.

Unfortunately, their are two ASF ACM Handler speech problems. One that is easily fixed and one that isn't. Since your ASF ACM handler was dxmasf.dll, right away that tells me DirectX 9 issue that will be resolved with Media Player 10 reinstall, which uses wmpasf.dll for ASF ACM Handler. Luckily you had the easier one.

Glad you got it working.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[X3] A tool to fix your directshow codecs (sound problems and performance)