CTDs when editing Speech Files

[Dignan]

I posted this in the general forums but realized it is probably better suited here.


So I downloaded Pouls sound mod which is fantastic. However, some of the speech files I want to edit.

For example, "returning to course" I get tired of hearing the captain from Das Boot scream "more or less, more or less that's not good enough"

-So I convert the file to wav format
-I open it in a sound editor and chop off the end of the sound bite to my liking.
-I re-encode/convert the file back to ogg and drop it back in the Poul sound mod and re-enable the mod.

When I go to the game and change course, thus activating this sound I get a CTD? Is there something I'm missing? I swear I used to do this all the time before I started running 1.5 and TMO2.0 with no problems. Any ideas?

[tomoose]

...but is the file the exact same size as the original? I had messed around a while back by changing the rubber dinghy collision sound to something other than that horrendous ship collision sound. I found that the file size had to be the same otherwise it didn't work.

I ended up changing it back as it affected all the other ship collisions (i.e. the devs used one sound effect for all ship collisions regardless of their size including the rubber dinghy for the spy dropoff missions, a terrible oversight but we're stuck with it.)

It could have been something else but my conclusion at the time was the file size. Hope this helps.

[Dignan]

Could be. I've used different sounds for other things before that were different file sizes with no problems. I only seem to get this when trying to switch out a few speech files. Might be the "sample rate" as Beast suggested in another thread.

i know for certain the sound files duration was very sensitive, too short and it wouldnt play (the game doesnt always use the whole sound from start to finish) or too long (sometimes by only seconds) and it would CTD on you.

im not sure if it was the size that mattered all that much but you never know and it stands to reason size and duration would go up or down together

[skwasjer]

Make sure you at least have used the same bitrate, compression mode (VBR or CBR), frequency (44khz vs 48khz, or others) and channel type (stereo or mono) as the stock file. I remember SH4 does not support every available format. This is also true for WAV. You have to imagine SH4 is allocating buffers for sounds, probably partially hardcoded for its size, and as such if you exceed that buffer (for instance when now using a higher bitrate) you will overflow it and CTD. What webster says is also true, if files are longer or shorter, similar problems might occur. Some workarounds used by people were to add silence (if an audio track was cut shorter) to it's original length.