Need help.

[Nightmare]

Hello. I'm new here and saw a few posts and thought you guys were friendly enough to ask for some help.

I'm no computer whiz nor am I really bad at them, but I would like some clarification.

Not sure if it is of any help; but I am Australian. ?? lol

 

I bought both X-COM: UFO Defence and X-COM: Terror From the Deep off of the Steam Store.

I have so far been experiencing some minor problems (which although you can play, it gets rather annoying)

 

Just a quick thank you for reading and your help too

Whether you do anything or not; you took time of your day to read this For that I am greatful.

First off.

UFO: Defence.

- How come the Geoscape time warp and the in-game scrolling seems a lot rougher than other times I have seen? (such as YouTube videos)

 

- Why are some Alien movements/death cry noises different to others I have heard?

Secondly.

Terror From the Deep.

- Again. Same problem here. The scrolling and total game movement seems much smoother on other instances I see it. Why is this?

 

- I get a really loud annoying, terrible cracking gargly noise when I save my game. Like someone is popping metal bubblewrap?? lol.

It doesn't seem to stop either! I have to usually save the game, abort, re-load the saved game and start over. It isn't hard to deal with but it happeneds easily twice every game if I save at the beginning and around impotant areas ( Such as treading thin lines near an Alien to Stun him lol )

 

Thank you for any help you guys give

I appreciate it

[Sunflash]

Hello. I'm new here and saw a few posts and thought you guys were friendly enough to ask for some help.

I'm no computer whiz nor am I really bad at them, but I would like some clarification.

Not sure if it is of any help; but I am Australian. ?? lol

 

I bought both X-COM: UFO Defence and X-COM: Terror From the Deep off of the Steam Store.

I have so far been experiencing some minor problems (which although you can play, it gets rather annoying)

 

Just a quick thank you for reading and your help too

Whether you do anything or not; you took time of your day to read this For that I am greatful.

First off.

UFO: Defence.

- How come the Geoscape time warp and the in-game scrolling seems a lot rougher than other times I have seen? (such as YouTube videos)

 

- Why are some Alien movements/death cry noises different to others I have heard?

Secondly.

Terror From the Deep.

- Again. Same problem here. The scrolling and total game movement seems much smoother on other instances I see it. Why is this?

 

- I get a really loud annoying, terrible cracking gargly noise when I save my game. Like someone is popping metal bubblewrap?? lol.

It doesn't seem to stop either! I have to usually save the game, abort, re-load the saved game and start over. It isn't hard to deal with but it happeneds easily twice every game if I save at the beginning and around impotant areas ( Such as treading thin lines near an Alien to Stun him lol )

 

Thank you for any help you guys give

I appreciate it

 

Hey man, welcome aboard! Just watch your step, I don't think we got rid of all the chrylisds yet...

 

I'm no expert with the X-Com programming; but if you've got the Steam version then you're probably running the DosBox'd version. Nothing wrong with that, it just usally needs a touch of tweaking. This might help a touch, has several notes in how to edit your dosbox ini files:

https://forums.steampowered.com/forums/show...p;highlight=FAQ

 

Beyond that, probably best to wait for one of the european geniuses to get on.

[Bomb Bloke]

What sort of computer power are we talking about here, and what version of Windows is it running?

 

There are different versions of UFO with different voice files. Steam uses the 1.4 set.

 

I'd guess the scrolling issues mean your PC is having trouble keeping up. There are two versions of the games included, one for use with DOSBox (compatible with more operating systems, but requires more horse power), and the CE version (tricky to get working with versions of Windows released after XP, but requires very little horse power).

 

I'm not sure how to get the CE version to start within Steam itself, as the client freezes on my machine at the drop of a hat (I think it doesn't like my slow internet speed, but I'm guessing: there's no excuse for it to go into "not responding" mode regardless).

 

But if you look in your Steam games folder ("C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense\XCOM" for UFO) you should see a file titled "UFO Defense_Patched.exe", which you can execute directly.

[Nightmare]

Haha!

Oh yeah those Chryssalids annoy me!

I got nailed on a Terror Mission where I had 6 after my 5 man team -.-

 

Anywho.

 

Currently I am running.

Microsoft Windows XP Pro, Version 2002.

 

Intel® Dual Core CPU. E4600 at 2.40GHz

2 x 2.00GB RAM. DDR1

Nvidia GeForce 9600. 1GB+ Vidya Card

 

Going to try that link that SunFlash produced then if all else fails I will try what Bomb Bloke said

 

Thanks for the help already!

Much appreciated!

[Nightmare]

Ok so flow has picked up tonnes

 

LOOOOOVING IT!

 

However on TFTD the sound still owns my ears

The crackling noise is making it so annoying to play I basically have stopped after 2 USO's downed..

[Sunflash]

Just making sure you tried this fix in TFTD? I know it says for UFO, but I understand they both run nearly the same engine, so it's worth a shot!

 

Q. How can I improve the sound quality in UFO Defense?

Thank you, johnnie!

 

This requires editing files, make sure to back them up before changing anything.

 

First locate "dosbox.conf" in ...\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense and open it with a text editor (notepad).

Replace "call ufocd.bat" with "call setup.exe" and launch X-COM: UFO Defense using Steam.

Change the sound card to "Soundblaster 16", set the Base Port to "220", IRQ to "7", DMA to "1", and the sound channels to "8". Afterwords, select "General Midi" and the default settings (the ones already highlighted.)

Open "dosbox.conf" again, and replace "call setup.exe" with "call ufocd.bat".

 

 

Q. I'm on a Dell computer, and your "Sound Improvement" resulted in no music! How do I fix that?

 

If you are running on a Dell computer that is using a SigmaTel Audio Chipset, choose "Soundblaster FM" instead of "General Midi" for the music board while running Setup.exe as detailed above

[Nightmare]

Oh ok

I'll try it soon

'

Thanks a lot guys

[Nightmare]

Ok the sound on TFTD still is crackling a lot.

It is annoying

 

Other than that everything seems to be running fine.

[NKF]

Now that you've set the Dosbox soundblaster settings, one other thing you could try is to adjust's TFTD's sound setup (well, run it's setup.exe).

 

The Soundblaster type may be the culprit. For sound effects, if it's set to Soundblaster 16 or Pro, or something else entirely, downgrade it to just a Soundblaster. If it is Soundblaster, try going up to the SB Pro.

 

Enter the SB settings that you applied for Dosbox. You may have to experiment with the audio reversing until you get it right, but don't worry about ti too much now. Sound channels - 8 allows 8 sfx to play at once, and is generally the norm. However, reducing the number of channels to 4 or even less may be beneficial if you're experiencing sound problems such as the ones you are having. You're only going to want a few sound effects to play at the same time anyway.

 

For the midi aspect, it's usually not a problem. Stick with whatever setting it had. Or if in doubt, adlib is often a safe pick.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

I gather crackling in DOSBox can be caused by a lack of processor power (it's a result of the sound samples being interrupted over and over at high speed). Messing with the CPUCycles figure might solve it (set it to auto if it's not there already, and check the Task Manager to see what percentage of your "real" CPU power is being used).

 

I still think you'll get better all-round performance with the CE versions of the games.

[Nightmare]

Well I tried to sound thing for TFTD.

 

It seemed to DELAY the inevitable.

My processor has enough power to run this game and I have basically no other problem now.

 

It seems still sadly my only problem is the sound on TFTD. Which HAS become less frequent; albiet still there.