Problem with music in-game...

Or a lack thereof. Took a few days off from playing Arcanum, and all was fine, but upon my return I find my Half-Ogre stood in silence, despite a few obvious attempts at forcing music, such as entering into close combat. In those few days, nothing changed on the computer, let alone in the game files. I've been playing for years, and this is a first.

The game was installed a few months ago, along with the Official patch prerequisite to the UAP, which was also installed. Besides this, I used the 'Universal Level Cap Remover,' to bring the max to level 100, which worked a treat with the UAP.

The only other modifications done were a few from the engine hacks thread, those being the removal of the double Dwarf magick cost, the one to stop NPC's picking up everything (wonderful for my OCD ways), but the most related would be the one to stop combat music from initiating, so as to allow the game to be played, and music enjoyed, without the persistent bass rythm upon every encounter.

The only problem with that, however, is that I replaced the modified .exe file with the backup I made before the hex editing even took place, to no avail. I've checked through the files, and am unable to see a reason for this to happen (and yes, music is on in the options).

Sorry for the long-windedness. Any help would be appreciated greatly, though. I'd rather not resort to re-installation for two reasons.

1. I have some OCD quirks.
2. I have no idea where I put the game. Likely somewhere so hidden and protected, that I myself will never see it again.

Any ideas?

 

Well, DBT may have better advice, but I'd say re-install. I think you corrupted something. I would also do the following,* before further modifying the files (if you re-installed). Take the Arcanum directory, patched, vanilla, running, and create a copy of it, named Vanilla Arcanum, and put it aside in a directory named "Arcanum Backups" or the like. At this point, apply a mod. You could either make backups per mod, or per several mods. It's your call. Or just, try the whole damn thing again, and pray you make no mistakes.


*this game isn't super big, but this could eat at precious hard drive space, if you'ren't in possession of acres of it like I am.

 

Why am I picturing a spare room in your house filled with a HUGE disk farm?

 

Thanks for the reply, and rather quick too. I'll give it a go, seeing how I've had little luck rectifying the problem with any form of fix. Since I'll be scratching everything from the slate I may as well go daft trying as many pseudo-solutions as I can think of.

*Hides all knowledge of save files and their transferability.*

Oh well. I suppose this would be an ideal excuse to make a new character too. I love character creation. Must backtrack though, have to find the game first...

As for your acres, my files on your computer would be like a pea on a drum. Simple needs, since I only use the computer for work and addictive classics. My favourite, well, let's just say I'm in the right place. Here I go, procrastinating from procrastination. Action time.

Thanks again.

 

I made a curious discovery. I seriously can't find the game, so re-installation isn't a possibility just now. As such, I was mauling around, just trying various changes to the game files. I replaced the edited Arcanum.exe with the unedited one, and deleted all the files in the data folder, extracting them from the .dat files again (as I do by habit).

So I ran the game, no menu music, and no field music, but when I entered combat, the combat music started right up. Against my hopes though, exiting combat yielded silence again.

It's as if the files other than combat music have been deleted, but they haven't. Even the Combat 1-6 files don't happen. Just goes into the repetitive combat music without the sharper sounds beforehand.

I can think of only one possibility that could have corrupted the music files. I listened to them in Media Player at one point, coincidentally around the time I didn't play Arcanum for a few days. It could be a possibility that the online aspect of media player (that searches for info & attributes to the music listened), has modified the files somehow. But alas, this is pure theory.

 

I found a solution to my problem. From all angles I'd say that the music files were simply corrupted from being played in Media Player. If you do plan on doing that, copy them to somewhere else and listen to them from there. Or just download one of the High Quality packs courtesy of Drog Black Tooth.

It was actually Drog that saved me this time, without lifting a finger. I couldn't restore the game's soundtrack, being unable to find the game, but already had the HQ .wav pack. So basically, all I did was replace the files in Arcanum/modules/Arcanum/sound/music with the .wav files.
Then I simply modified the lines in Arcanum/modules/Arcanum/sound/schemelist.mes to read the same filenames as the .wav files I'd just placed in the music folder (made a backup of the original schemelist.mes first though).

Running the game yielded instant success, and heralded the end of my Ambient-only play-through. Not only that, but the sound quality is now better also. Hehe.

This was simply my solution to my own circumstantial problem. Let's hope no one else is daft enough to make the same mistake I did! But every problem solved is a potential problem realised. Thanks for the help though, DarkFool. It's definitely nice to know there's still help and improvement around for Arcanum.

As a post-scriptum note, I did try to use the patch provided by Drog to use the .wav files, but it changed nothing. The manual approach worked though, and even that is credit to him. So, thanks to you too, Drog.

 

The .wav files have to be unpacked into specific folder, and then you also have to run the included .bat file to rename them. The readme file describes the process in details.

The patch has been tested by many people and it definitely works.

 

I agree with that. I've had it working on another computer before, but for some reason it just didn't change anything this time 'round. I always follow the instructions with a 'just in case' attitude, so I did things as instructed but saw no change. There's no real reason why it shouldn't have worked, but I'd just consider myself a fluke in this case.

Either way, the best solution to a problem is prevention. I'd simply advise people to do no more with the files than they have to. It's clear that I messed up somewhere, and had to do something myself to fix it. Never had any other trouble with anything of your making. From the UAP, to your engine hacks, and the follower editor. So I'd be more than willing to accept the problem was on my side here.