Setting up speech recognition for Tower!3D Pro

Setup under Windows 10 to use voice commands in the game for especially non-US English Windows installations. (Individual steps in older Windows versions may differ.)
May possibly be interesting for troubleshooting US Windows versions as well.

Guide

Setting up Speech Recognition for non-US Windows installations

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Not all steps may be necessary for every user.
Here I assume that a current version of Windows 10 (Home or Pro) is installed and a working voice input device (microphone, headset) is connected to the PC and ready for use.

Disclaimer: No warranty or guarantee of any kind. The author of this guide cannot be held responsible for any damage, loss of data, etc. that may be directly or indirectly linked to using this guide.

Users of non-English Windows installations might want to create a second Windows user account under Start -> Settings -> Accounts -> Family & other users (or Other users) and then follow the steps below with the new account. This way the main user account remains in the native language and only the new account, which is then used to start the game, is set to US English.

• Press Windows-Logo + I to open "Windows Settings" (I = capital i)
  
• Click on "Time & Language"
  
• Click on "Language" (left-hand side)

• Under "Preferred languages", check that "English (United States)" is installed
  
• Hover over the small icons (upper right-hand corner) of "English (United States)"
  
• Check that "Display language", "Text-to-Speech", "Speech recognition", "Handwriting" and "Typing" is installed
  
• If not de-install and re-install the Language Pack "English (United States)" with all components
  
• Reboot your PC if needed

• Click on "Region" (left-hand side) and check that..
  
• "Country or region" is set to "United States" and that the current
  
• "Regional format" is set to "English (United States)"

• Click on "Speech" and check that..
  
• "Speech language" is set to "English (United States)"
  
• "Recognize non-native accents for this language" is checked
  
• Under "Installed voice packages" (likely you need to scroll down), "English (United States)" (~48 MB) is installed (if not, add/install it)
  
• "Voices" -> "Choose a voice" is set to "Microsoft Zira" (just to have a default US Voice selected)

• Close the Settings window

• Press Ctrl + Windows-Logo + S to open Windows Speech Recognition (v8.0), a tiny window with a microphone symbol on the left
  
• Right-click at this window and select "Off: Do not listen to anything I say"
  
• Right-click again and click "Configuration" -> "Set up my microphone"
  
• Set up your microphone, make sure your computer can hear you (run the test here; whether Cortana can understand you or not is irrelevant; Cortana and Speech Recognition are different apps)
  
• Right-click Windows Speech Recognition again and click "Configuration" -> "Improve my voice recognition"
  
• Run the Voice Training a couple of times (3x at least)

• Optionally you can right-click Windows Speech Recognition and click "Options" -> "Run at startup" to have it running when you start your PC, but leave it at "Off: Do not listen to anything I say"

• Press Windows-Logo + E to open the File Explorer
  
• Navigate to [Program Dir, most likely C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86)]\Steam\steamapps\common\Tower 3D Pro\
  
• Right-click on "tower3d.exe", then click "Send to" -> "Desktop (create shortcut)"
  
• Close the File Explorer

• Right-click on the tower3d.exe shortcut on your desktop, then click "Properties"
  
• Click on the button "Advanced..."
  
• Check "Run as administrator"
  
• Click "OK", "Apply", "OK"

• Open your Anti-Virus (or other Security Software) program
  
• Make sure that..
  
• [Program Dir]\Steam\steamapps\common\Tower 3D Pro\tower3d_Data\TowerSpeak\towerspeakbridge.exe
  
• and
  
• [Program Dir]\Steam\steamapps\common\Tower 3D Pro\tower3d.exe
  
• are treated as save or secure programs with no restrictions and to allow them to use your microphone

• Start Tower!3D Pro via the desktop icon you just created!

Note: You can have English US as display language and still use your native language keyboard layout or a different layout.

Settings -> Time & Language -> Language
Choose or install a language, than click on
Options -> Keyboards -> Add a keyboard

Your native layout is of course already installed. The keyboard layout can be selected/switched via the language bar. You can search the Internet for further information.

I recommend that the Windows Speech Recognition app is open to ensure that the necessary process is started and active before the game is launched. "Listening" in the app should be turned off, so that the voice commands you give to the game are not tried to be converted into Windows commands by the app in the background.

In case of problems with speech recognition, typical sources of error are:

• The "Pro" version of the game was not purchased
  
• The system is not completely set to English (United States) or the English (United States) language package including the package for speech recognition is not completely or faultily downloaded or installed
  
• Tower!3D Pro does not run with administrator rights
  
• An anti-virus/firewall software blocks (parts of) the files towerspeakbridge.exe or tower3d.exe
  
• The "Nehalmic" process is running in the background and interferes with the speech recognition (as reported by a user: https://steamcommunity.com/app/588190/discussions/0/1735507550907634061/)
  
• The voice training was not performed often enough
  
• The microphone is not set up correctly and/or the game sound or game's speech is transmitted on the same channel as the voice input (if using a virtual audio mixer)
  
• "Sticky Keys" is activated in the Windows Settings (Windows Logo + I -> Ease of Access -> Keyboard -> Sticky Keys)

Often the speech recognition is not very reliable at the beginning, despite repeated speech training. The speech recognition learns even while playing. It can be assumed that the speech recognition improves over time.

[EliGrim]

@Cinderpower, typical approaches to solving this problem are...
- Make sure Windows is fully updated.
- Disable the "Review documents and mail to improve accuracy" option in Control Panel -> Speech Recognition -> Advanced Speech Options.
- Ensure that the Ctfmon.exe file in Windows -> System32 is executed when Windows starts.
- Check that your anti-virus software is not blocking Microsoft registry entries.
If these troubleshooting steps do not help, you may need to contact Microsoft Support (possibly for a fee) or one of the many Windows Tech Forums on the Internet.

[Cinderpower]

ctrl + win + s doesn't starts and gives error "speech recogintion could not start because the language configuration is not supported", even though both win language and speech language are set to english(united states)

[towerchief]

I have both Windows 10 & 11 (2 computers). Voice works great on Windows 10 but no luck on Windows 11. Am I missing something on the setup of 11. All graphics are in place on 11 but no response to my voice.

[Travis]

Thank you for putting this together, but still nothing. I don't even know how to tell if Tower!3D Pro knows that I have a microphone. Nothing happens at all.

[Chris Eric Snail]

@corsaire.mbm Set windows voice control on not listening:

" .."Listening" in the app should be turned off, so that the voice commands you give to the game are not tried to be converted into Windows commands by the app in the background."

[corsaire.mbm]

Hey mate, I tried to use voice recognition , but the bloody thing opens a mouse configuration grid that overlays onto my screen, and makes it impossible to play. Any hints? cheers