Getting tired of all the sound card futzing

[Mercury]

From Ubi's own website:

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/802854-Rocksmith-2014-PC-Configuration-and-FAQ

"For best results, you'll need to configure both your output device and the Rocksmith Real Tone Cable. Both devices should be set to operate using a sample rate of 48 kHz using a 16 bit sample size. Audio output should also be set for 2 channel playback. Finally, configure both devices to allow applications to take exclusive control of the device."

This means every time I want to play rocksmith, I have to open my control panel, go to my sound preferences, select my output device which is usualy my xfi but sometimes my g930, and change the output from the default 24 bit, 96khz studio quality 7.1 output to a setting right out of the year 1995 of 16bit 48khz stereo, and if I don't, /rocksmith is INCAPABLE of even detecting the fact that I have a sound card at all/, (though technically I have two). Then I get to change it all back when I'm done.

Welcome to 1995. So glad you could join us here in the future Ubisoft. This is one seriously polished game, all I had to do was set my mouse driver above the 640k base memory region and reconfigure autoexec.bat. Then start in safe mode and recompile my kernel and it was as easy as that!

No really, it's no problem because I can think of dozens, hundreds even, of other games that require I reconfigure my sound card output sample rates or it simply won't work at all. It's really a common problem, all the time other developers are incapable of designing game engines that are able to run correctly on modern hardware without requiring the user to force output to a specific sample rate, most notably music games that depend uniquely on sound and sound hardware to be played. It's not like actual sound engineers or programmers should have been hired to take part in a game based on sound, that would just be silly. So much easier to force the user to fux around with their sound card settings that work great on every other possible game engine ever designed. User's actually enjoy being made to compensate for developer incompetence.

Ok, now that I've complained my head off I'm starting to feel less annoyed.

[Mercury]

I'll get used to it, I just don't want my frustration to be silent. I get riled up when developers favor their beloved consoles and port their games to pc as an afterthought, then assume PC users will just cope with it. Because we do. So. Here's my complaint. I know Ubi doesn't read this. But their potential customers do. So they should.

It would be preferrable to allow the game to actually /work/ without requiring the user to mess with the sound, and then notify the user on program load, strongly even, that they should set their sound card settings to some setting for maximum enjoyment or something. Having a failsafe functioning mode is pretty standard for any program including games: you don't have a game fail to start because someone doesn't have a native resolution of 1440x900. You fall back to 800x600 or 1024x768 and then allow users to change their video settings to 1080p, or you use the desktop resolution and allow users to adjust it to something else if necessary, etc: standard practice. Gamers will notice that not setting their sound gives them an unpleasant game play and will follow the advisory. Especially if the advisory actually stated the information that is currently only found on their website regarding output sample rates. Right now the game just dumbly proclaims, "I don't work, no sound for you," and a user has to scramble around trying to figure out what's wrong.

Also, despite mumbling to myself about first-world problems every time I have to reset my sound card settings, I do hope they continue making money on this game and keep adding more songs to the library. I'll be buying them, and logging many hours in-game. With a frown on my face.

[sundog]

get a mac

[Mercury]

I do have a mac, actually I have two - a mac pro and a macbook pro. But I mostly use them for work, not gaming, so they're not where my guitar is.

[Buck]

I have my output set for 24-bit 96Khz and 5 channel speakers setup, and don't experience any real problems.

But yeah, as stated, the recommended settings are a "trade off' between quality and latency. Really though, either way 16-bit 48Khz should be MORE than sufficient with absoultely no perceptible quality loss. That's better than CD quality, which I think everyone can generally agree is perfectly good. A higher bit-rate or sample rate does NOT automatically translate into better quality (perceptible or otherwise).

The fact of the matter is that if you have problems at higher bit-rate/sample rate, it's because your PC can't keep up. This is not a knock, or an insult, it's just meant to be stated as a fact. You either need to upgrade your system, or drop settings until you achieve acceptable results.

[Grey Area]

At least your sound solution can be MADE to work. I had Rocksmith 2013, really fell in love with it buut only had crappy PC speakers. Went and bloew £300 on a set of Bose Companions which worked perfectly.

Until 2014. When according to Rocksmith they ceased to exist.

I also took a risk and boought an Astro A50 headset so I could play without blasting out the other half's "Coronation Street". THEY worked fine. Until today when I bought a new WIndows 8.1 PC, and it sounds like an 80s cassette player with a busted motor; "I'm a cr-ee-EE-ee-EE-p, I'm a wie-EE-ee-EE-ee-rdo".

Now I have TWO very expensive pieces of desktop art...

Don't buy new stuff, it's not as good as old stuff. Rocksmith 2013 > Rocksmith 2014 and Windows 7 > Windows 8.1.

[Buck]

Originally posted by Grey Area:

At least your sound solution can be MADE to work. I had Rocksmith 2013, really fell in love with it buut only had crappy PC speakers. Went and bloew £300 on a set of Bose Companions which worked perfectly.

Until 2014. When according to Rocksmith they ceased to exist.

Huh? I don't understand. These are USB speakers aren't they? USB sound devices are not optimal for use with Rocksmith. A dedicated sound device (be it onboard or PCI-E) with analog outputs is best.

I also took a risk and boought an Astro A50 headset so I could play without blasting out the other half's "Coronation Street". THEY worked fine. Until today when I bought a new WIndows 8.1 PC, and it sounds like an 80s cassette player with a busted motor; "I'm a cr-ee-EE-ee-EE-p, I'm a wie-EE-ee-EE-ee-rdo".

Well that's not RS2014's fault, but are these USB too? Same thing applies as above, USB sound devices are just not optimal.

Now I have TWO very expensive pieces of desktop art...

Don't buy new stuff, it's not as good as old stuff. Rocksmith 2013 > Rocksmith 2014 and Windows 7 > Windows 8.1. [/quote]

RS2014 is officially supported on Windows 8, but your preference of OS is jus that, your preference. One is not "better" than the other.

[Mercury]

Originally posted by Buck:

I have my output set for 24-bit 96Khz and 5 channel speakers setup, and don't experience any real problems.

But yeah, as stated, the recommended settings are a "trade off' between quality and latency. Really though, either way 16-bit 48Khz should be MORE than sufficient with absoultely no perceptible quality loss. That's better than CD quality, which I think everyone can generally agree is perfectly good. A higher bit-rate or sample rate does NOT automatically translate into better quality (perceptible or otherwise).

The fact of the matter is that if you have problems at higher bit-rate/sample rate, it's because your PC can't keep up. This is not a knock, or an insult, it's just meant to be stated as a fact. You either need to upgrade your system, or drop settings until you achieve acceptable results.

Um... first off, I haven't once complained about sound quality.

For my rig, I'm running an Intel i7 4770 (haswell) w/ 16 GB of memory, and my gtx770 might not be the greatest thing in the world but it's not had the tiniest stutter on any games so far, and my Creative Labs X-Fi xtreme sound card isn't the cheapest on the market. My samsung SSD HD seems to keep up just fine as well. If you're suggesting that hardware puchased new in 2014 is not sufficient to run RockSmith, I don't know what to say.

I'm not an ametuer with this. It happens I work as a systems engineer at a high performance compuational research laboratory, and I've been putting together computers since 1991. I count almost 23 years of designing, administrating, programming, optimized, and fixing hardware.

The /fact/ of the matter is that the RS game /only/ works on my computer at the sample rates stated on Ubisoft's website in the original post. When I turn the sample rates UP, the game doesn't get bad quality or stutter or have problems. It refuses to ackloweldge that I have ANY sound devices at all. My default output is 24bit 96khz 7.1 channel.

This is quite simply lazy programming. There are ten dozen other ways to handle this. Being completely incapable of identifying my sound card unless I set the sample rate to the one they want? Lazy. The solution isn't to buy a newer sound card, though I'm bound to do so anyway, something professional in th $1000 range so that forum users will be less inclined to tell me to upgrade the computer I built /this year/.

[Buck]

Originally posted by Mercury:

For my rig, I'm running an Intel i7 4770 (haswell) w/ 16 GB of memory, and my gtx770 might not be the greatest thing in the world but it's not had the tiniest stutter on any games so far, and my Creative Labs X-Fi xtreme sound card isn't the cheapest on the market. My samsung SSD HD seems to keep up just fine as well. If you're suggesting that hardware puchased new in 2014 is not sufficient to run RockSmith, I don't know what to say.

I'm not an ametuer with this. I happens I work as a high performance compuational research laboratory systems engineer, and I've been putting together computers since 1991. I count almost 23 years of designing, administrating, programming, optimized, and fixing hardware.

Yes your e-peen is HUGE. I'm very impressed.

I am not a programmer or product designer,but I have been building, supporting and fixing computers, Servers, Operating System's (Windows, Solaris, Linux) for just as long. I am currently Regional Lead for numerous extremely high end Engineered database systems, and lead a team of around 50 Support Engineers.

So, as you can see, mine's just as big. though unlike you I don't really feel the need to go waving it around any time my ego gets a little bruised on the interwebs.

The /fact/ of the matter is that the RS game /only/ works at the sample rates stated on Ubisoft's website in the original post.

No. that's not a fact at all. I've run both games on an X-fI and ZXR just fine at 24-bit 96Khz, though it's very much not optimal. Best results will always be obtained by having the input and outputs running at the same bit-rate/sample rate.

When I turn the sample rates UP, the game doesn't get bad quality or stutter or have problems. It refuses to ackloweldge that I have ANY sound devices at all. My default output is 24bit 96khz 7.1 channel.

Something else is very wrong then. I would suspect that your latency settings and/or other .ini settings are out of whack. You can try forcing playback device or messing around with them to see what effect they have.

This is quite simply lazy programming. There are ten dozen other ways to handle this.

Ahuh. So why don't you pound out a few patches and submit them to Ubisoft?

Being completely incapable of identifying my sound card unless I set the sample rate to the one they want? Lazy.

Again, it identifies mine just fine. Still something going on with your PC. Either way, if you're not unhappy with the sound quality at 16-bit/24Khz, then what's the issue? Just leave it like that.

The solution isn't to buy a newer sound card,

Did I say it was?

though I'm bound to do so anyway

It's your money, spend it however you want.

something professional in th $1000 range so that forum users will be less inclined to tell me to upgrade the computer I built /this year/.

a "professional" sound card would be no more suitable for playing RS than buying a High end Quadro or Fire Pro would be for playing Farmville.

I don't really care WHEN you built your PC either. Being "newly" assembled or made from "newer" parts does not automatically translate into "better" or "better performing". I built mine over 3 years ago and it runs great overall. Yet, RS2014,. which ran fine on my earlier 7970, ran like CRAP on the far superior R9 290X. This was not the game's fault, it was crappy fan and core clock control in the drivers.


So either way, sorry if I bruised your ego, but really your choices here are clear, fix your stuff, or just learn to live with it as it is. You're clearly much smarter and more tech savvy than the rest of us anyway, so I don't really know what you want us to tell you. If you're so smart, go figure it out yourself then.

[Pleazard]

Now remember how game devs love to polish PC ports nowadays, remember there are still unpatched issues with mouse and screen resolution, and you will see how "lazy programming" is a very valid statement.

I love the game, but sadly its only a PC port for Ubi, and I could rant about things that shoulve been better on a PC for days...

[Mercury]

Good points Buck. I know you'll not believe me because it was a very pathetic thing for me to do, but I wasn't trying to impress with my background, I was trying to avoid the 'did you reboot?' response. Apologies. Also, you've trumped me - I'm a grunt, not a lead of anything.

Of course my ego was bruised, I have an unreasonably big one. I was just actually annoyed at the thought that I'd have to upgrade my new computer. You specifically were not trying to offend - I got frustrated at the idea anyway.

I think you must be right about ini settings. If your game is actually playing fine which seems to be the case (you kind of seemed like a troll at first, apologies), something has got to be amiss with my configuration. Everything I had read previously was instructing me that the game couldn't detect my sound card at all unless I set the sample rates manually. If it's actually detecting yours I'm doubting those sources are any good. Back to debugging this myself.

Dianetics; I'm clearly in the wrong here about calling it lazy programming. It's not an excuse, but when I write my own code, this is exactly the kind of thing I spend extra time taking care of; failure states. However, I'm not a windows programmer. I am a linux programmer. I work on nothing but linux (and mac) systems and clusters all day, so not all of my background translates directly into debugging closed-source binaries.

My expectations are just way too high. Like you said, it's semi-bothersome. Worst case scenario, I spend less than a minute reconfiguring my audio. Big deal. I just got tired feeling like an impotent consumer, unable to have any effect on the development process of the software I'm using, when the truth is I'm an impotent consumer, unable to have any effect on the development process of the software I'm using. My inflated ego sometimes has a hard time with that.

[Mercury]

If I can figure out something I'll post it here in case anyone else is having the same problem; the ubisoft forums and other places where people had previously posted this issue always ened with the instruction to drop the sample rate down. If Buck's got no problem at other sample rates, that advice is probably the 'reboot the computer' level of solution; it might work but it's probably avoiding the actual problem.

I do enjoy being sarcastic and playing the role of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ from time to time, as is clear in my first post. But my frustration here was misdirected and unhelpful. Maybe it can be helpful if I figure out why the "No audio output device detected" dialog unless I use specific sample rates. Just in case it affects something else though; if the input and output sample rates need to be married then I'll live with that.

[Pleazard]

I dont mean lazy programming as in a programmer being lazy and producing bad code, I meant lack of attention and effort from the industry as a whole. We talk about same things here :)

[Buck]

Originally posted by Mercury:

ou specifically were not trying to offend - I got frustrated at the idea anyway.

I'm not, but I probably could be less antagonistic with my choice of wording.

I think you must be right about ini settings. If your game is actually playing fine which seems to be the case (you kind of seemed like a troll at first, apologies), something has got to be amiss with my configuration. Everything I had read previously was instructing me that the game couldn't detect my sound card at all unless I set the sample rates manually. If it's actually detecting yours I'm doubting those sources are any good. Back to debugging this myself.

Is it actually saying that no audio device is detected? Or is there simply no sound output? I find the latter can happen if you set the latency settings way too low. turning off ultra low latency is usually the most common thing suggested. forcing an output device can help too.

Another question - what audio mode is your x-fi in?
Personally I always left mine in "gaming" mode, but never really noticed a difference when I changed to audio creation or entertainment. Maybe try changing it and see if that has an effect?

[paperboy2000]

Originally posted by Pleazard:

I dont mean lazy programming as in a programmer being lazy and producing bad code, I meant lack of attention and effort from the industry as a whole. We talk about same things here :)

I was going to say essentially the same thing. It's not actually a case of programmers being lazy (though they may be), but of resources and priorities not being directed at the PC market.

One only has to look at the interfaces of games that exist on both consoles and PCs. They are often heavily designed toward both the "look and feel" of console UIs (huge text/icons is not fun when I'm navigating a large list) as well as a mouseless, keyboardless control scheme. A pet peeve of mine is the tree-like navigation often seen in these, where you can go down/down/down through selections then up/up/up and down/down somewhere else, but not across "branches".

Of games I enjoy playing, Rocksmith, XCom and Borderlands are examples of this.

[Mercury]

I have this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22267630/Screenshot_060614_063118_PM.jpg

But only when I use any sample rate other than 48k 16bit stereo. It all works fine with the recommended output, and the latency seems very low even. My setup also works great at all output settings for every other software I have, including sound recording software.

By the way, I did use my onboard audio when I first built this PC, but I couldn't stand it. I think most gamers don't have ears for good sound; I was operating on the general sentiment that onboard sound is good enough on modern machines at first, but the realtek card on my asus mainboard was unworkable. I expect good sound reproduction; I've been trained to listen to my instruments since elementary school, and the audio that comes out of onboard cards is a constant, distracting annoyance. I almost envy people who can't tell the difference.