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

Bean101 · Post by **Bean101** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 14:43

This is such a great tool. When I ran it I only had one thing come up (lucky me), but fixing it improved the sound performance loads! At last I can actually hear things and I haven't had a CTD for hours (I had even after the 1.3 patch). So happy I can finally play the game I bought 2 months ago, just in time for Christmas.

Mad Boris, will you marry me? I'm neither single nor gay, but I think we can make it work.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 14:51

Bean101 wrote:This is such a great tool. When I ran it I only had one thing come up (lucky me), but fixing it improved the sound performance loads! At last I can actually hear things and I haven't had a CTD for hours (I had even after the 1.3 patch). So happy I can finally play the game I bought 2 months ago, just in time for Christmas.

Mad Boris, will you marry me? I'm neither single nor gay, but I think we can make it work.

Great! Merry Christmas. Good to know the long hours I pushed this week(weeks actually) is making a positive impact.
I like to hear the good and the bad

Sorry, just got married

raflegan · Post by **raflegan** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 15:38

thanks for the advice MadBoris, but the Symantec Outlook Express Anti Spam Hook .dll is still loaded, even if i disable Norton AntiSpam, Norton AntiVirus and Norton InternetSecurity.
I wonder why X3 would load such a .dll, i think it should only be used by Outlook Express.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 15:46

raflegan wrote:thanks for the advice MadBoris, but the Symantec Outlook Express Anti Spam Hook .dll is still loaded, even if i disable Norton AntiSpam, Norton AntiVirus and Norton InternetSecurity.
I wonder why X3 would load such a .dll, i think it should only be used by Outlook Express.

Actually X3 isn't initializing the loading of it. The Anti-Spam tool is "hooking" into it. So the cause is the Anti-Spam software still running. You may need to look at your processes to see if norton processes are still running.
Also if there is a disable check box, it probably requires a reboot anyway.

Unless I am missing something and that asoehook.dll is registered to initialize with every application, I guess that is possible.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 15:52

I just made an update to the main topic.

It's at the bottom called Addendums and Edits.
I will collate major information that is beneficial to all and that is easy to find there at the bottom of the initial topic.

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 16:17

I thought it prudent to make a point on these hooking dlls:

Programs like ZoneAlarm, Symantec, etc. that hook into the X3 process should be fixed not to hook into X3.

2 Reasons:
At the very least, they are using memory addresses.
At the worst, it's actively monitoring the X3 process for Spam or other behaviour, which I can see very easily how that can cause CTD's and freezes or other bad results.

Just thought I should make that point, that folks need to make sure that these hooking dll's aren't seen while attaching to X3.

masrock · Post by **masrock** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 17:54

Sorry to say, though the sound issue seems to be fixes, the random freeze isn't.

could we sticky any solutions to this separately, cause this thread is getting rather top heavy.

Thanks again

Masrock

BaronDeKalb · Post by **BaronDeKalb** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 22:44

Ok MadBoris i did it and here is what i found. (interesting)

On initial screen all files are correct, just white, blue, yellow.

On the attach tool i had three REDS - shown below.

RAPHOOK.DLL - H:\Program Files\Ray Adams\Ati Tray Tools

(resolution - Uninstalled ATI tray tools - Goodby Overclocking for now i quess.

) = Resolved issue.

PSAPI.DLL - H:\Windows\system32

(This is the process status helper from MS Corp - Deleting or renaming it
does no good the reason it was being connected is because of conflict
number 1 the ATI tray tools, Resolution = Resolved when issue #1 was
unistalled)

EAX.DLL - H:\Windows\system32

(This is the EAX Unified 3.0.0.0 from Creative technologies installed with
my audigy 2zs soundcard - Resolution - For now i have renamed the file
by putting "old" in front of the spelling.) Do you know Borris if this will
have any effect on the ingame EAX or the EAX settings in the Creative
Software ? -

Ok No Red now, any info on the EAX.DLL file would be appreciated though , Will go back to stress testing tonight and report Back...

Im MadBoris Green.....ARE YOU ????
Be MadBoris Green

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 22:57

Cool.

As you learned certain dll's load other dll's.

I don't think your overclocking is effected at all by that raphook, but maybe I am mistaken.

I really have no personal experience with eax.dll
I didn't install the creative software just drivers(on this OS). Eax.dll is supposed to handle eax functions but I have eax functions at the driver level and I don't have that DLL with an Audigy 1.

MadACR mentioned earlier in the thread - "watch out for EAX.DLL it is not cached though so you can rename it if you got it. Solved my CTD on PSG issue"

If I was trying to isolate freezes, I would remove everything but necessities for now, may want to also disable the eax checkbox while testing without that dll.

BTW: The version I downloaded to check out is 3.0.6.5. Not sure why yours is older.

Like your sig

Diesel309 · Post by **Diesel309** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 00:05

Thx
Just curious did you have any in game issues?
I didn't see you mention it, or are you just house cleaning making sure that things are ok ?

Sorry for the late reply bud but have been out

Anyway, yes having the PSG slow down problem. Unfortunately I don't think this is a codec issue

As the codecs are all correct, drivers all as they should be. Setting shaders to low helps so looks like a memory/cpu/video problem.

So probably a hardware upgrade may be the only solution.

Running:

Athlon 2800 XP (2084 Mhz)
1 Gb Ram (PC 3200, 400)
Radeon 9600 256Mb
Aopen AK79G 1394 (onboard Vid and Audio disabled)
Philips Aurilium External sound ( it was cheap ).

Cheers

Trehek · Post by **Trehek** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 02:29

Yay!

Ego's 1.3 patch comes out just by christmas, as did your tool which helped me isolate my in-game speech problem!

Thanks for all your work Mad! I wish I would understand all these codec things so I could do something like this.

I'm off to play with smooth performance and speech!

Merry Christmas!

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 02:42

Trehek wrote:Yay!

Ego's 1.3 patch comes out just by christmas, as did your tool which helped me isolate my in-game speech problem!

Thanks for all your work Mad! I wish I would understand all these codec things so I could do something like this.

I'm off to play with smooth performance and speech!

Merry Christmas!

Good to hear, enjoy. I'll be enjoying the patch too, in the days ahead.
Thx for posting your results!
Merry Christmas

Mr. K · Post by **Mr. K** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 04:18

Well, I'm all clear on the graph screen, but I get the following when I hook into X3 while running;

http://www.bullit.plus.com/gfx/probs.PNG

Anything here to worry about?

I do get the occasional CTD on random events but I seem to get those in just about any game, so I'm thinking maybe it's something I should just live with.

Any input would be great.

Jokey77 · Post by **Jokey77** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 14:51

Weird...

In my list now only

C:\Windows\System32\msctf.dll

appears...

If I rename it, it will create a new copy of itself automatically...
All I can do is "replace" it by some other dll-file...

My game still does those freezes, every hour...
Anyway things have become better now

Edit: everything seems to work fine, now that I boot the pc with this file "faked"... weird, weird...

I will update you, in case that this experience is of any matter...
I´m still angry about the effort I have to spend on something Egosoft should have taken care of...

Nevertheless...

Merry Christmas, Boris

You are my personal hero in here

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 16:52

Mr. K wrote:Well, I'm all clear on the graph screen, but I get the following when I hook into X3 while running;

http://www.bullit.plus.com/gfx/probs.PNG

Anything here to worry about?
I do get the occasional CTD on random events but I seem to get those in just about any game, so I'm thinking maybe it's something I should just live with.
Any input would be great.

Unfortunately, I can't see the offending codecs themselves but I wouldn't want all that. X3, ends up searching for one and finally finds one but not the prefferred.
The best is to see nothing, then you know X3 is using exactly what is in your live graph, as it should be.
My initial suggestion would be to go into dsfmgr and raise MPEG I Stream Splitter to one notch above "prefferred". then reboot and reattach. Most isssues are around splitters and sometimes wave parsers when firing weapons, that's why people should fire weapons once before attaching.
At the very least, it can effect performance.
Soon I hope to add a feature of showing what prefferred ones are being substituted and not used highlighted in green (in the attach to X3 window).
Let me know, if you still have red scroll down and get me another pic (I didn't expect some people to see long lists).

BaronDeKalb · Post by **BaronDeKalb** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 17:02

Jokey77 wrote:Weird...

In my list now only

C:\Windows\System32\msctf.dll

appears...

If I rename it, it will create a new copy of itself automatically...
All I can do is "replace" it by some other dll-file...

My game still does those freezes, every hour...
Anyway things have become better now

Edit: everything seems to work fine, now that I boot the pc with this file "faked"... weird, weird...

I will update you, in case that this experience is of any matter...
I´m still angry about the effort I have to spend on something Egosoft should have taken care of...

Nevertheless...

Merry Christmas, Boris
You are my personal hero in here

@ Jokey77
Read this....

http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/proce ... n.exe.html

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 17:11

Jokey77 wrote:Weird...

In my list now only

C:\Windows\System32\msctf.dll

appears...

If I rename it, it will create a new copy of itself automatically...
All I can do is "replace" it by some other dll-file...

We don't know if that file is bad. We want to target codecs not every DLL unless someone is having crashes and wants to rule out possibilities. Being that this tool is under two days old we just don't know the effect of these files on X3. If we start realizing that a file being removed like a hooking dll fixes someones issues, then we learned something, but we just don't know yet. If people don't have major problems they should focus mainly on codecs, later I will add files to an exclusion list in an upcoming version, after we know for sure some of these unexpected files don't effect X3. Those with major issues will probably want to find a way to clean the 'red' out, but if they post a pic or two knowledgeable folks can help out. When people have long lists of red, it's not every dll that's the problem, but can be fixed by raising a DirectShow codec merit/priority that makes X3 go a different route.

Did you save an original of it. It's a Microsoft text service module and we don't know that is evil, just "unexpected". If we learn it is evil

, I'll make sure people know, that's one reason I'm glad people are posting results and feedback so that results can be interpreted, and doing some testing on their own.
Here's instructions on a proper way to remove text services if one desires
http://www.imacat.idv.tw/tech/untxtsvc.html.en
Or check this for more:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=282599

strude · Post by **strude** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 17:28

I haven't started playing 1.3, but I've been reading along on this topic just out of interest, and running the programs to check my system. Didn't have any problems with 1.2 though. Got a few reds in the list. Some of these have already been / are being covered (msctf.dll, asoehook.dll).

I got a couple of others which might have some interest if you or someone wants to check them out. They are SERWVDRV.DLL (Unimodem Serial Wave Driver), UMDMXFRM.DLL (Unimodem Transform Module) and MSVCR71.DLL (Microsoft C Runtime Library).

I used to have a USB modem attached to the system, but now I use the LAN so there is no modem attached ever. I have also followed the other advice and raised the merit of the MPEG I Stream Splitter to the preferred value, but have not tried higher. Also have run through the instructions on removing text services and unregistering the mscft.dll file.

I would post a screenshot, but when I log onto the site it says I cannot attach files to posts. Unless I'm not doing it right, which is possible, or even likely. I have a shot here ready if someone can either tell me how to post it or activate my ability to post images.

Great program by the way. Good to be able to see whats going on and try to make some sense out of it.

Regards, Simon

BaronDeKalb · Post by **BaronDeKalb** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 17:38

MadBoris wrote:Cool.

As you learned certain dll's load other dll's.

Yes im Learning...(and i thought i was gonna play a game...)

MadBoris wrote: I don't think your overclocking is effected at all by that raphook, but maybe I am mistaken.

The ATI Traytools utility was hooking into the game in some fashion,
so until we get everything sorted, it's gone, you see the tray tools has
the overclocking function built into it, and for my card (Raydon 9500 pro)
it's not so easy to get at the clock, so until i find the hooking funtion of
the utility or some other utility that does'nt hook it's gone...

MadBoris wrote: I really have no personal experience with eax.dll
I didn't install the creative software just drivers(on this OS). Eax.dll is supposed to handle eax functions but I have eax functions at the driver level and I don't have that DLL with an Audigy 1.

MadACR mentioned earlier in the thread - "watch out for EAX.DLL it is not cached though so you can rename it if you got it. Solved my CTD on PSG issue"

If I was trying to isolate freezes, I would remove everything but necessities for now, may want to also disable the eax checkbox while testing without that dll.

BTW: The version I downloaded to check out is 3.0.6.5. Not sure why yours is older.

Ermmm

yeah it was a user update issue

, getting creative updates can only be described as (Creative)... But ALL sorted now,
everything updated and that file is no longer hooking...

(although i did notice if one has FRAPS running, That get's reported
also....)

MadBoris wrote: Like your sig

ty i like not having any more issues, at least none so far.....
i see it's not the first time you have done this type of work for a community....
maybe i'll make a fancier version as soon as the holiday is over...

i played for a bit last night without any problems, will let you know how it
holds up, thanks again for this great tool...

MadBoris · Post by **MadBoris** » Sat, 24. Dec 05, 18:06

Strude,

What sound card do you have?

The SERWVDRV.DLL is probably causing the other dll's to start.
It's a natural part of windows, but is probably a driver initialized with your specific hardware or possibly intercepting the weapons sound effects, or niether. In your particular situation, I would leave it alone, since you have no problems unless your weapons firing is really sluggish or something (you could try renaming it and see the effect but if windows reports it is locked or in use leave it be).
Thx for posting, every bit helps.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

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