Bizzare bug with X2 speed

Okay, so I'm building my TC off of Absolute Minimum, and for some reason, Nova (1.0.9) goes into X2 speed whenever any shots are fired, or any shortcut buttons are pressed. When you stop firing, Nova will go back into normal speed.

Here are the files: (right-click and save)

Move your data files into the included Old Nova Files folder, and move the Nova Music and zAbsoluteMinimum file into your Nova Files folder.

Note: Obviously, this is not anywhere near a finished TC, I'm just having major issues with this weird bug.

I think this has something to do with the bit-rate of your snd resources, though I'm not sure what correct rate is.

I envy you. I'm getting EXC_BAD_ACCESS exceptions here...

(EDIT)Interestingly, only if the file is in the Nova Files folder(/edit)

This post has been edited by Aelran : 25 February 2006 - 02:55 AM

Ugh, I've been messing with my sound resources endlessly. I'm using MissionComputer to open sys7 sound files, and transferring the sounds in that way. I've tried 8 and 16 bit, mono and stereo, 44.1, 22.254, 11.127, and 8.000 KHz bit rates, and it always gets screwed up. Either it will sound garbled in MissionComputer's snd preview, and then not work, or it will sound perfectly fine in MissionComputer's snd preview, and mystically not work in-game. The beep sounds are taken directly from Nova Sounds, and even they are causing the X2 bug.

How do I add sounds correctly to this ancient POS architecture? 😞

Oh, the files are Mac-only, btw. I'd do a windows conversion, but a windows solution is not going to help me.

As far as I know this "feature" only affects Absolute Minimum. Seriously. Try copying the sounds into a new plug where they replace standard Nova sounds and run the game with your plug under the stock scenario. If you still get the x2 bug I will be greatly surprised.

So: to solve this, we're going to have to tear apart Absolute Minimum piece by piece until we figure out what the problem is. I have a suspicion that there is some resource Nova needs but AM doesn't provide controling this situation.

Bloody hell. 😞

I'm working on it.

Nova simply objects if it doesn't have a snd 129. Any snd will do, and it can be in either the data folder or the plug-ins folder, but it has to have an RID of 129.

So, Qaanol was right (I used his second hypothesis to work this out- I added Nova Sounds to AbMin, and when it fixed the bug, I started deleting things).

Edwards

Edwards, on Feb 27 2006, 04:53 AM, said:

Nova simply objects if it doesn't have a snd 129. Any snd will do, and it can be in either the data folder or the plug-ins folder, but it has to have an RID of 129.

So, Qaanol was right (I used his second hypothesis to work this out- I added Nova Sounds to AbMin, and when it fixed the bug, I started deleting things).

Edwards
View Post

Many thanks Edwards, I thought it might be something like this, and the problem is now solved.

Heh. Almost makes sense, seeing as it's related to x2.

Now folk, since it can be purposefully triggered, it's a feature , not a bug.

Now figure out something useful to do with it!

A short time to speed up nova without wearing out your caps lock key?

I'd love to come up with some way of using this 'feature' but I can't see it happening. 🙂

Have a really long or repeated sound to force the player into x2 mode during a massive mission-critical battle :laugh:

Say, does it happen on Windows too?

This post has been edited by Guy : 04 March 2006 - 11:13 PM

To utilize this productively would require figuring out a way to play sounds that don't trigger x2. Or making a scenario with no sounds whatsoever except in critical situations where x2 messes with your temporal perception. As, for instance, a drug which, when your character uses it, makes him or her stoned.

For anyone who wants to use sounds but not have a warp-up delay, or for whatever reason needs the smallest possible snd resource, I believe it is this, in hex:

0001 0001 0005 0000
0080 0001 8051 0000
0000 0014 0000 0000
0000 0000 2B11 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000
003C

Can anyone confirm that this both, a. Works as snd 129 on OS X to prevent the bizarre X2 bug, and b. Is in fact the smallest valid snd resource?

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 15 June 2006 - 04:46 PM

@qaanol, on Jun 12 2006, 09:38 AM, said in Bizzare bug with X2 speed:

Can anyone confirm that this both, a. Works as snd 129 on OS X to prevent the bizarre X2 bug, and b. Is in fact the smallest valid snd resource?

I can confirm that this one works on MacOS X to prevent the 2x bug, but I can't say anything about whether it's the smallest possible snd resource. I assume you basically took the header from another resouce and changed the "length of sound" bytes?

Edwards

This is not, by far, the smallest sound resource; it is probably the smallest sampled sound resource, having a sample length of 0 (by the way, I don't know where you got that unusual sampling frequency). It's all explained in Inside Mac: Sound, in particular in the part on the sound resource format (yes folks, you already knew about my research on resource file limitations, I definitely know waaaaay to much in completely obsolete Apple technologies).

So you could simply have a square wave data format (I dunno about having no data format, it's possible I think) and no command, or maybe that'd be a problem and you could have only one wait command for a short duration, like this:

0001 0001 0001 0000
0000 0001 000A 0028
0000 0000

EDIT: okay, I tested this using everyone's favorite Absolute Minimum-based TC, and the part with the song that doesn't end, and you can have no sound command and thus save 8 bytes, with this as 'snd ' ID 129:

0001 0001 0001 0000
0000 0000

However, you cannot supress the data format, in the extent that if you do, the bug will come back, I did test with this:

0001 0000 0000

Of course, this is of no use to a truly absolute minimum TC (glance at Edwards) since it doesn't need this particular sound as it won't have any sound that could trigger the bug anyway, but this is definitely something to add to an absolute minimum to be used as a base for developing a TC (even if such saving of... what? a few dozen of bytes from Qaanol's version is a little ridiculous...)

This post has been edited by Zacha Pedro : 12 June 2006 - 02:24 PM

@zacha-pedro, on Jun 12 2006, 11:36 AM, said in Bizzare bug with X2 speed:

Of course, this is of no use to a truly absolute minimum TC (glance at Edwards)

True, but it could definitely be useful in related projects. I think I'll add it to my Teacup TC Base (which was, after all, intended as a fully-functional miniature TC base, not merely half the resources for the released TCTC).

@zacha-pedro, on Jun 12 2006, 11:36 AM, said in Bizzare bug with X2 speed:

(even if such saving of... what? a few dozen of bytes from Qaanol's version is a little ridiculous...)

I'll have you know that those thirty bytes could be very useful! They could make room for two outfit names, or allow for punctuation in a desc, or...
...um...
...Well, at least it's good for the feeling of not wasting any space! 😉

Edwards

Aha, that's certainly smaller than the 84 byte "Nothing" snd s I was using in a plug.