Improving your MSTS sounds

scefhwil · Post by **scefhwil** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 9:28 pm

Since discovering the Sound Test Interface some of the 'innerds' of the Sound Management System (sms) have been exposed, and we users can benefit.

Did you know that regardless of your sound card (Â£5 or Â£100) the same resource setup is used? The main implication of this is that by default the sim uses 40 3D and 20 2D streams/voices/buffers (whatever the correct terminology is) ie the ability to play independant sound simultaneously. (Note: If your sound card suppords hardware accelaration then these buffers are used in preference over software ones).

That means max 60 simultaneous sound for all. Seems alot? Well maybe for the default sounds but if you are using any of the loco/coach/wagon sounds I have been involved in developing then not. Player loco takes up 11, each coach 3, (10 coach train = 41), an AI loco 3, wagons in a passing train 2 each (20 wagon traffic = 43). Add to these background, environment, and track sounds, 60 ain't enough and sounds have to be dropped.

Well you can have more! If your sound set up is at High and performs ok then try the following. Go to the Global folder and make a backup copy of soundcfg.dat. Open the original one for editing (unicode stuff applies). Look for this line near the bottom

SoundSystem ( 5, 40, 20, 31457280 )

The 40 sets the 3D buffers, the 20 sets the 2D buffers. Leave the 20 as it is as the cabview sounds all require 2D buffers. Increase the 40. I have been using 200 for a good few weeks without any problems and no noticeable loss in performance. My line is

SoundSystem ( 5, 200, 20, 31457280 )

I don't know how many simultaneous sounds my sound card can play but it is more than 60 for sure. Maybe it's less than 200, but I can't tell.

Give it a go. Of course your PC spec will be different to mine so I can't guarantee anything, but I do only have a 1.33 Athlon, 512 Mb RAM and a Â£10 5.1 CMedia chip based sound card. If things go funny go back to the default settings.

Stuart

SteelixB · Post by **SteelixB** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 9:40 pm

I'll give it a go

...

mikesimpson · Post by **mikesimpson** » Sat Oct 12, 2002 9:52 pm

Hi Stuart,

I see you only increase the level 5 to 200 channels, would there be any benefit in increasing the other levels?

7andY · Post by **7andY** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 12:37 pm

Yep - I see the logic, but you do not say if this tweak actually makes any difference - does it?

Cheers 7&Y

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 1:48 pm

7andY wrote:Yep - I see the logic, but you do not say if this tweak actually makes any difference - does it?

Cheers 7&Y

The tweak definitely makes a difference. I am unable to hear all of the sounds refered to by scefhwil without it.

scefhwil · Post by **scefhwil** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 4:06 pm

7&Y,

I have deliberatly avoided making a specific claim about improvement because the degree will depend on a number of factors. If you are using sounds that are (in terms of the sms complexity) closer to the default setup then benefits will be less. It may also be sound card dependant, but as I only have one, cheap, sound card I can't make much of a judgement. Personally I have found it a great improvement. I can have my player loco sat in a station and have both a frieght and a passenger train pass by. I can hear noises from each loco, coach and wagon. This would not be the case with the default setup.

Mike,

I have only said to increase the level 5 to 200 because I recon that if you aren't able (or choosing) to run the sims sounds at their highest level anyway then why try to improve them. If you look at the default sms's you will see that as a rule SG5 has more streams defined than SG3 which has more than SG1 which has more than SG0. (Note: SG2 and SG4 aren't used by MSTS). But, that said, there should be an improvement in terms of more simultaneous sounds being played for all the SG levels.

You might also notice that by default the only difference between the SG levels is the last number in the SoundSystem() line. This specifies the amount of memory allocated to the sms system. From my observations so far in the Sound Test Interface the 30Mb (ish?) specified for SG5 is more than enough. But I have a highly aliased sound setup (ie no duplication of wav files occurs) so my observations may not be representative. I have happily run my system with 64Mb allocated to SG5 and had no stability or performance problems.

Stuart

mikesimpson · Post by **mikesimpson** » Sun Oct 13, 2002 10:36 pm

Thanks for the quick response Stuart, I will have a fiddle with these. FYI I am convinced your LoadAllWaves, especially on the Global Sounds is a big improvement.

isambardkingdombrunel · Sun Oct 27, 2002 7:26 pm

Makes a huge difference,i have a SoundBlaster PCI 128 card ,which isnt exactly cutting edge ,but i can hear sounds now that i didnt know existed in the sim before.

IKB.

phill70 · Post by **phill70** » Sun Oct 27, 2002 11:44 pm

I have just tried it out, what difference!!
i also just have a PCI 128 soundcard
fantastic

Thanks

Glyn

phill70 · Post by **phill70** » Fri Nov 15, 2002 12:23 am

i would recomend everbody to do this.

csantucci · Post by **csantucci** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 9:39 am

Easy to do, and with great effects. I am recommending it here.

Carlo Santucci

ChrisEllis · Post by **ChrisEllis** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 12:19 pm

unfortunatly i cannot hear any diffenerence, but then again my sound card is not performing well at the moment

newalex · Post by **newalex** » Sat Dec 21, 2002 4:24 pm

scefhwil wrote:Since discovering the Sound Test Interface some of the 'innerds' of the Sound Management System (sms) have been exposed, and we users can benefit.....

Hi Stuart,
I would like to thank you very much for this major improvement about the TS parameters

The Edouard team published a week ago the Duplex trainset which is the last tgv evolution on the French railway network and the very sophisticated sounds involves some limitations due to TS Sounds Management!!!
The Duplex site is here:
http://perso.club-internet.fr/staned/pr ... k/tgv.html
With your parameters, now, there is no (related) limit and it is fantastic!!!
Thanks a lot!!!
Newalex

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat May 21, 2005 2:07 am

scefhwil wrote:I have only said to increase the level 5 to 200 because I recon that if you aren't able (or choosing) to run the sims sounds at their highest level anyway then why try to improve them. If you look at the default sms's you will see that as a rule SG5 has more streams defined than SG3 which has more than SG1 which has more than SG0. (Note: SG2 and SG4 aren't used by MSTS). But, that said, there should be an improvement in terms of more simultaneous sounds being played for all the SG levels.

Back to an old post!

Stuart, are you saying in the conclusion that there should be an improvement by increasing the values in Levels 3, 2 and 0?

.

staticxfreak · Post by **staticxfreak** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:56 pm

Hmmmmmmmm, mine was already set to that in the first place

Atomic Systems

Improving your MSTS sounds

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