Sound Stuff!

[IronOutlaw]

Sehr Geehrt Kameraden!

I have recently had my PC upgraded so that SH III does not use every ounce of grunt like it used to, and I can run other programs in the background, in particular, Word where I maintain the current KTB and FTB.

In addition, I can also send email messages to the U-boat group I nelong to whilst SH III is running.

My original plan was to have a second PC and have the system wired up so that the screen, keyboard and mouse could switch from one PC to the other. I planned to have SH III running on one and everything else on the other, and the speakers plugged in to the SH III one.

However, as things turned out I had to restrict myself to one PC.

My question is this. When I am working in Word, with SH III running in the background, I would like to be able to still hear the sounds and dialogue coming out of SH III when it is minimised on the Task Bar. As it is, I can hear the thunder and lightning when a storm is up, but nothing else.

Is there a way to set up something somewhere, so that the SH III sounds can be heard when the program is minimised so as I can work on something else without worrying that the boat might get hit whilst I am not looking?

SH III is running as I type, but I must constantly check back to see if anything is happening.

[johan_d]

that would be nice, I also hear thunder only..

[SquareSteelBar]

Hi IronOutlaw,

what's about hitting the 'Back Space' key for pausing the game while updating KTB and FTB ?

Greetings,
SSB

[Phylacista]

Perhaps if you ran SH3 in windowed mode..but for me that is no option.

I file my KTB with Alt-Tab and have normal time running. What should happen in those 5 minutes I am not there?
For plane encounters - the only thing that could ruin your day in that short time intervall - I have set time to 0 using SH3 commander.

And I do not file KTB while under DC attack or attacking myself, but who does?

[bigboywooly]

Ever thought about running a second monitor - with your word on the 2nd one while game still playing on the first ?

[Dowly]

Hehe, I remember one time when I was playing SHIII at night and browsing on internet at the same time. All of the sudden I heard the sound of thunder, I almost pissed my pants! :rotfl:

[stabiz]

:rotfl:

[johan_d]

After looking at them, it might have something to do with the fact that thunder is a stereo file, and speech isnt. Or am I wrong here?

[NeonSamurai]

It probably has to do on if the game considers the sound, directional or not.

Have you tried running the game windowed instead of minimized?

[Darksun]

It probably has to do on if the game considers the sound, directional or not.

Have you tried running the game windowed instead of minimized?

I have, and I get the same result (can only hear thunder.) I suspect this is not a solvable problem without a patch of some kind. I don't know enough about directsound to make an educated guess on how to go about fixing it. Something like the "window" fixers for FFXII and EQ that "hooks" into the system calls might be required. (Or a binary patch from UBI, yeah, good luck on that!)

On a side note, word is a terrible memory hog. I would use notepad or wordpad instead.

-D

[NeonSamurai]

I dont think its solvable, it certainly has to do with how the game classifies the sounds as to why it will play them in the background.

[Myxale]

Hehe, I remember one time when I was playing SHIII at night and browsing on internet at the same time. All of the sudden I heard the sound of thunder, I almost pissed my pants!
Oh god i know what you mean!

I was playin in the middle of the night and had barley escaped a 2 hour DC'ing.
Everything was quite so i switched from head-phones to speakers!

While i was surfaced later and Alt-Tab'ed back to Words to write the recent hours into my KTB, as a booming thundering suddenly errupted from my speakers at full cranked volume! Good God! Man it made me jump outta my wet pants! :rotfl:
For some reason ( I play the game with lower volume settings and when switching back to desktop it was equal the master volume! Which was high!)
It woke the whole house!:lol:

[Myxale]

But i found out that, if you go to a higher TC and then back to 1xTC on the nav-map, if you switch now to the desktop, the next thunder won't be played outside SH3:hmm: Worked for me!

I usually write KTB in 1xTC. I love the fact that the game still runs in the background!