Questions about the Radio & Gramophone in SH IV
 

Very basic noob-type questions regarding the "Radio" & "gramophone".

1. How do I access the radio and gramophone in SH IV?
2. How do I change, or switch on or off gramophone music in, or pre-game?
3. How and where can I set things like the timing & volume level of "records" playing on the gramphone while in-game?
4. Where and how do I "change the station" on the radio in game?
5. Where do I store "new stations" for the radio to play?
6. Where do I store "new records" for the gramophone to play?

I have searched the wafer thin manual in vain for this information. Personally I find ambient sound and music absolutely crucial for maximising immersive realism and the feeling of "being there". Speaking of which are there any MODs or downloads available for enhancing the in-sub ambient sound in SH IV? (Or SH III for that matter?)

I also personally feel that the voicees of the crew are a weak area in SH IV, as indeed were the comic flat B movie German responses of the crew in SH IIL.
Is there a MOD yet (or in the pipeline) for enahncing the crews' voices and accents? The default voices just don't sound "American enough" somehow. They are also flat, unvaried and bland.

I have downloaded the excellent-sounding real-time radio MOD for SH IV but have no idea where to access it or how to hear it. I am using JSME of course.

I haven't used it yet, but you can access them from the right most access icon on the control panel on the bottom of the screen, the icon looks like a movie camera, then you'll have some options displayed, like external(F12) view and the radio etc.

Thanks - I'll explore that option first then.

the i hate most is that the music must be on to hear the dam radio or gramophone. I dont like to have music on.

edit: .

I like to be able to switch the music on or off, certainly. I see my avatar has been uprated at last! Oddly enough back in the day, one of the things I was in the North Sea, was a Bosun on dive ships.

Even with music on I couldnt seem to get the radio to work right. I could pull it and the gramaphone up but no music from them.

I deleted the most annoying voice wavs (keeping the folders) since some of the voices sounded like Ross Perot on helium. Game hasn't crashed, I'm sure someone is working on a mod (perhaps using SH2 wavs?).
Haven't implemented the radio or gramaphone yet, have some CD's with music from the '30's and '40's playing in the background when searching for the IJN.

Yours, Mike

If it's like SH3 was, you could try deleting the background music but leave the grammophone and radio alone so you could listen. One of the SH3 patches changed this so maybe it will be the same here.

i hope so.

Joea, not recommended ;) I tried renaming:

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Sound\Music

to:

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Sound\Music-<insert favorite obscenity here>

and as soon as I loaded a game, got "SH4 has encountered an error and must close".

So I got bright and created an empty "Music" folder and tried again. Same thing, SH4 crashed. Obviously the game is looking for the music files, and if it don't find them it gets "upset".

I hate that, AFAIK, fleet boats did not have melodramatic music playing in the background 24/7, but they did often receive radio broadcasts, and did often play morale-boosting gramaphone recordings when circumstances allowed.

Bottom line, don't even think about deleting the music files. I was lucky, in that I renamed as opposed to deleting, so I didn't have to do a reinstall to get playing again.

On a side note, my radio and gramaphone no longer work at all. When I click the icons, nothing appears, whether surfaced or submerged, whether "music" is enabled or disabled. Used to work properly. All I've added since last time it worked, is the "Green Icon" toolbar mod, and the "360 Bearing Plotter" mod but I can't see either of them breaking that. Anybody know how I might get radio and gramaphone working again?

DH

Take all the music files out, but leave the music.con file in. This will stop the CTD.

SW

Hmm, I don't have a "music.con" file in there. But I do have a "music.cfg", so I renamed the "music" folder again, made a new one and copied "music.cfg" to it. Worked like a treat, no more CTD :D

You are the MAN, Shipwreck! Maybe I can't listen to radio or gramaphone since they seem to be broke, but at least I won't have to read the subtitles at the start of the patrol anymore! Thanks!

DH

here it is as a mod fellas (works with jsgme).. i had posted a version of it earlier in the thread, but had a problem with it and blanked my post out until i could get it fixed... seems to be working now:

http://rapidshare.com/files/23744773...icMod.zip.html

i created a 2 second long silence.ogg file, and pointed the 8 defined states in the music.cfg to it. no more game music, just the sounds of your boat and the sea... and the radio or gramaphone if you choose.

happy hunting

Another trick is to remove the sound filenames from music.cfg. That's what I did and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately I uninstalled the game or I would post an example.

Update:

Ok, I broke down and installed SHIV again. I figure the dev team will have a patch out for us soon so I might as well play around with it until then. Anyway, looking at the music.cfg file you'll see the states that dogfish was talking about:

--------
[BEGIN]
Tracks=5
Track1=Intro_1.ogg
Track2=Intro_2.ogg
Track3=Intro_3.ogg
Track4=Intro_4.ogg
Track5=Intro_5.ogg
--------

Just go in and remove all references to the ogg files like this:

--------
[BEGIN]
Tracks=5
Track1=
Track2=
Track3=
Track4=
Track5=
--------

Viola! no more background music and you can still hear the radio and gramophone.