Sound issues

[JUST FIGHT]

Common guys, isn't there an easier solution than having to troubleshoot the whole sound settings from the ground up. Like a program that connects the old with the new. I find this odd.

[loudman2]

Sorry - but do keep in mind the game is well over a decade old at this point. It comes from a time where machines often didn't have a sound card at all - let alone multiple audio devices that could go into sleep mode. I forgive it for being out of date in that respect.

[Bolt]

Is this a thread about the game's unique sound bug that can happen or about having to alter the system's sound settings just for the game to work properly before each start, asking for an easier way ?

I tried very hard to locate the issue but didn't get anywhere. The only thing I know is that it's likely related to XACT audio, which is deprecated now, since that's the only environment in which this issue appears. While this bug affects only the 2 Supreme Commander games (original + FA) and no other games or media files it's actually not caused by the game but by something that Windows does. This bug can happen after you quit the game without any issues and when you launch it it's suddenly there because it was active before due to something Windows did. It's not related to power management, since all available options were tested there in all combination, it's not related to the sound drivers itself, since un- and reinstalling them doesn't get rid of the issue, it's not related to DirectX, since reinstalling the DX setup from the game's own folder doesn't fix the issue.

The only thing I found out during investigation is that the game Space Engineers had the exact same issue as Supreme Commander + FA has.
Old thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/9420/discussions/0/2137462524947149643/

Edit: The solution posted in that thread only worked once and never again. Only a complete device restart does (with proper shutdown, which modern Windows doesn't do anymore unless specifically ordered to).

[glassescat0204]

關於音效沒出來的問題，就是裝完之後進去戰役發現指揮官走路沒聲音、單位的音效都沒聲音這樣的症狀：到電腦音效的設定那邊把單聲道音訊打開即可解決。
The issue regarding the lack of sound effects is observed after installation, wherein upon entering a battle, the commander's footsteps and unit sounds are absent. To resolve this symptom, navigate to the computer's audio settings and ensure that mono audio is enabled.

[Rebo00]

TL:DR: Set Windows audio to Stereo seems to be the easiest fix for missing audio

OS: Windows 10

To add to this as I've just gone back into the game and had the issue with no Voice Overs, menu sounds missing, in game sound missing.
I have my audio playing through 5.1 Surround connected to the 3 x 3.5mm jacks on my motherboard.
I exited the game, set Spatial Sound to Windows Sonic for Headphones, this changes your speaker setup to Stereo from whatever it was configured as, opened the game and the audio was working.
All audio then comes out of the two stereo speakers.

Exited game, changed audio back to 5.1 Surround, all in game audio worked and the missing sounds are now played via the Centre speaker only.
Other audio is played through the rest of the speakers but not the subwoofer.

I shutdown the PC, powered it up, opened the game (not touched the audio settings), worked straight away, voice overs etc all coming out of the centre speaker.

Tried to replicate the issue again with software changes but couldn't get it to break.

With Windows configured as 5.1, I set my Logitec sound system to use 2.1 instead of 5.1, this enabled the front speakers and subwoofer audio but lost the voice overs because of no centre speaker.

With Windows configured as Stereo, I set my Logitec sound system to use 2.1 instead of 5.1, this enabled the front speakers and subwoofer audio AND all in game audio worked ok because it now knows to send it out of the 2 front speakers.

Hope this helps somebody in a decade :D

[ReferalofInformationfromInternet]

I'm not even having an issue with "missing audio," but the game's audio is obnoxiously LOUD and I don't recall it ever being so loud. Like explosions or whatever sound effects are noticeably distorted when many things explode or lasers sound effects happen. Not sure what could be causing this! Has anyone had this problem? Is it an issue with the actual in-game audio level?

[loudman2]

The game itself has volume controls - so start there.

Second, certain mods, namely Total Mayhem, have the most overblown audio effects, often overmodulated and not attenuated by camera distance (which most of the sounds of the original game are). Many other unit mods have this as well, but to a much lesser degree.

The other effect, you may be experiencing, is the surround sound effect - which, if you have 5.1 audio turned on, causes games sounds to actually be LOUDER when zoomed out.

[Bolt]

LOUD mod installed ? *ba-dum tsss*
But more serious: Finding results for audio at full volume, no matter the zoom distance. I guess this is the issue ?
There's a DirectX installer in the game's main folder. Try running that. The game also NEEDS to be set to stereo, with all audio enhancing features that the sound card / mainboard supports being turned off, as well as all other audio output devices that are not used by the game being turned off.

Headphones could be an issue. Set a stereo value as per:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/9420/discussions/0/4514379914249777078/

Surround sound bug - seems identical to your problem:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/9420/discussions/0/4136061060755519476/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/9420/discussions/0/3475112788078541609/

This is just a rant regarding Google and other search engines. Ignore and move on with your life:
I could come up with relevant results if Google wasn't such an absolute train wreck:
I can't tell it that the search results need to be forced to be be about either "Supreme Commander" (game) or "Forged Alliance" (game), not about some real world war related "Supreme Commander" etc., that it likes to bring up just because it's the identical term.
I can't tell it that the core search is about audio / sound being too loud / high volume without it interpreting such a search as either an issue x volume y manga search or me looking for music
Google, in all it's glory: Absolutely useless garbage. Best IT company on the planet. Lots of experts, data, years of experience. Can't figure out how to create a search that's not awful because it's too hard for all these experts to provide an operator for reference terms and core search terms to provide some level of control for which terms are critically relevant and what context to look for regarding these. Throws the same pages (reddit, youtube, amazon, instagram, facebook, spotify, x / twitter, ebay, ... at me no matter what my search even is about and how I phrase it).
Thinks content gating sites, such as facebook or pinterest, where you can't access content without an account for them, are valid results.
Thinks sites that don't even link to the content the "result" was produced for when clicking the "result" should be listed instead of blacklisted for misbehaving web design.
Still can't figure out that "Supreme Commander" and "Supreme Commander 2" are different things and lists me the "2" title anyway when not asking for it.
Lists me image and video results despite existing searches specifically for only getting these results that I chose not to use, indicating that I don't want that kind of content - Google thinks it knows better.
Randomly inserts "results" that are about the opposite of what I'm looking for (which can be helpful - but the search engine should suggest and let the user decide instead of just putting the opposite of my request in the "results" list).
Still doesn't ask what identical terms refer to, like wikipedia does, to let me select the right context. Instead it's giving me results for all the things that identical terms could mean while it should instead set up supportive search terms that include related terms for what I want and exclude unrelated ones for what I don't want.
Still automatically replaces completely correct terms with other words without asking the user and letting the user decide and without an option to turn that annoying, search-sabotaging garbage off.
Still adds spaces to my terms (SupremeCommander becomes Supreme Commander) that I chose not to use because I NEED a single word for operators that tie 2 terms together, like the 'AND', 'OR', 'AROUND(#)' opertors (example: SupremeCommander OR ForgedAlliance) - which Google then makes impossible by automatically placing spaces where spaces shouldn't be for valid reasons, especially because the search itself doesn't care about spaces, while the operators do, ending up sabotaging my search. And of course the search doesn't ask and there's *again* no option to turn off the sabotaging feature.
Throws a captcha at me after I have to restart my search a bunch of times because Google keeps sabotaging and distorting it or spams me with unrelated standard sites that it always spams, no matter what, that need to be excluded then.

What really frustrates me about modern searches is that NONE try to provide some useful operators for the users to actually provide context and guide the search. Instead everyone just tries to copy Google, guess and "interpret" a user's search or run an "AI" (chat bot) that doesn't even know what it's talking about but just strings some terms together in the mathematically most likely combination to serve a request while also being unable to ASK questions about anything not understood or necessary, so we're back to guessing and interpreting, just this time with more effort and energy to get nowhere.

The real issue for fresh search engines should be the data: Running tons of web crawlers and creating backups of what their find, then categorize and sort it (ideally). Instead all the search services fail at the basic level: Empowering the user(s).

So. That's been my rant and unhelpful post because modern search engines are all garbage and all the people behind them are rétards with a degree but too stupid to even figure out place a simple how-to-use Icon or text somewhere near the search bar, explaining a search engine's features and how to use them for easy reach and understanding. So first task with any new search engine: Use the search engine to search what features it provides and how to use them, get hopefully not outdated or unhelpful results. That one, clearly visible, easy to reach link on the search engine's main page is too high IQ thinking for modern IT tech experts with a degree stating that they know what they're doing.