[469b] About switching to the "deprecated" Galaxy driver

[TankBeef]

Ok, so first of all, before anyone asks, I reported on April what I am about to explain, here:
https://github.com/OldUnreal/UnrealTour ... issues/317
But...there may be a workaround, who knows, let me begin. I am using OpenAL with 469b. Right now the sound is, let's say, "decent", not spectacular, but it does its job. I also get a lot of flood in the log with the lines "Warning: ALAudio: PlaySound alSourcef setting error: Invalid Value".
So, I tried switching to Galaxy. It is said that the driver is "deprecated", but many are recommending it, so I did. It does sound louder and crisper, but..
1-Some sounds "disappear". With the minigun for example, it is very noticeable, there is an intermittent muting.
2-The weapons sound louder than the music, but the announcer's voice is too low.
3-Take a umx like mayhem for example, play it first with OpenAL and then with Galaxy. Those who know music, please check the part with the E5 C5 B5 riff. There is definitely a difference in the "mix", some instruments are quieter or muted. (Ok, it's the part that starts a 1:30, just in case, play the umx in VLC or any player and you will quickly notice the missing parts).
Now, I have tried a lot of ini changes, disabling 3D, surround, reverb, modifying latency and channels, not much changes. At least the three issues mentioned are still there.
So, please, what can I do? Any suggestions? Should I keep using OpenAL and ignore the error flood for now? Thanks in advance.

[rjmno1]

That galaxy driver gives also a error when you are quiting the game,openal wil do the trick for you.That driver does not gives you a error when you are quiting the game.

[OjitroC]

So, please, what can I do? Any suggestions? Should I keep using OpenAL and ignore the error flood for now? Thanks in advance.

It's difficult to give advice on this - I use Galaxy as I can't use anything else (the OpenAL with 469b doesn't like my Windows version or vice versa) - I don't get the problems you mention though I don't have the music volume up so perhaps I wouldn't. I do get a weird and annoyng whistling sound when using the Pulse Gun AltFire (and with one or two other non-default weapons) and, whilst it sounds OK, I don't think the Galaxy with 469b is quite as good as the one with 436 or 451.

Having said all that, I suppose it comes down to you weighing up which audio driver casuses you the least annoyance - slightly lesser sound quality + log spam versus slightly higher sound quality but gaps in sounds. If the gaps in sounds are particularly annoying then perhaps go with the decent sound quality and log spam (the latter doesn't affect in-game enjoyment and will only be an irksome issue if it is voluminous and you look through the log regularly).

That galaxy driver gives also a error when you are quiting the game,openal wil do the trick for you.That driver does not gives you a error when you are quiting the game.

I don't get an error from Galaxy when quiting the game - perhaps you should report it as a bug?

[TankBeef]

Thanks OjitroC. Not sure, but I think I read somewhere that you use some sort of "windows emulator" on a Mac, am I correct? Anyway, that is why I personally keep using the OpenAL, it causes me the "least annoyance", like you said. Oh, and I had forgotten that Buggie reported the PlaySound alSourcef error , so i guess that will hopefully be addressed at some point.

If the gaps in sounds are particularly annoying then perhaps go with the decent sound quality and log spam (the latter doesn't affect in-game enjoyment and will only be an irksome issue if it is voluminous and you look through the log regularly).

So, the log spam wouldn't cause memory, lag or connection issues? Just asking, cause I am not sure.

[OjitroC]

Not sure, but I think I read somewhere that you use some sort of "windows emulator" on a Mac, am I correct?

Yes, my UT (plus Unreal Gold, Unreal II and a couple of Quake versions) runs on an iMac with Wine (in a Wineskin wrapper) using basically a Windows version equivalent to XP. It enables me to run other windows programs (that will run with that version of Windows) so I can use UModTool, UTPT and other similar stuff. UT 451 in Wine came ready to go from the now defunct Unrealism Zone (the UT for Mac site) and meant I didn't have to find another means of running the UT 436 that I had on my previous (Windows) machine.

So, the log spam wouldn't cause memory, lag or connection issues? Just asking, cause I am not sure.

I don't think it causes memory lag or at least I've never noticed any even with very large (a couple of hundred or more MB) logs - perhaps it would if the log got very, very, very large. I don't like log spam (that is thousands of the same or similar line) as it makes it difficult and time consuming to find anything unusual in the log after playing a new map or using new ScriptedPawns for example. As for connection issues, I don't know TBH as I don't play online.

[TankBeef]

Ok, I apologize. Today I discovered that I have the same Galaxy issues with my 436 install, all settings are default. I closed the report at GitHub, since it is not 469b related. For now will continue with OpenAL, since most of it issues are log spam.
EDIT: Oh btw, on OpenAL, I had the sound attenuate set to FALSE. When I changed it to TRUE, that tiny change made a world of difference, wow. Now I really like it. I did not pay much attention to that at first, but indeed the sound was too flat, and this makes it more dynamic and interesting, at least in my case.