OrbiterSound 4.0 - Frequently asked Questions

[DanSteph]

FAQ for OrbiterSound 4.0


Can I install OrbiterSound 4.0 over an old OrbiterSound installation?
No problem, the installer takes care of removing the outdated files, while keeping your other add-on sounds, MP3s and playlists intact.

I don't hear any sounds and the SoundConfig editor complains about a DSOUND.DLL
You MUST have at least DirectX 9 properly installed on your computer.

Sound is louder or very weak when my head is straight or pan left/right.
Check your window's speaker settings (see doc). OrbiterSound uses the default window's speaker settings so if the model is wrong (for example quadraphonic instead of your two stereo) you might experience such problems.

Sounds are not correct running ->playback<- scenario
There is a bug in playback scenario of Orbiter: the focus change are never called and always stay on the first vessel in scenario. This bug might be corrected by Martin in next version of Orbiter.

Installer says it's not an Orbiter 2010 version
Installer checks for "Orbiter_ng.exe" file; you probably deleted it. Re-install Orbiter and keep Orbiter_ng.exe file even if you don't use it for Orbiter visualization projects. (DX9 & DX11 clients work well now, you'd miss something)

External thrust sounds are lower in comparison with OrbiterSound 3.5.
OrbiterSound 3.5 was unrealistic with external volume. At some miles distance you had almost 100% volume with a 2D stereo sound, which is not possible as the real sound obeys the inverse square law. The gain is that now the sound seems really to originate from the vessel and this is by far more realist. If you want to have the same 'old' feeling, pump up the volume. Anyway, you can check in Orbiter, with camera behind the vessel, if the volume is really as it should be.

Is OrbiterSound locked at 22050Hz 16 bits?
This is not true anymore in 4.0 version. By default it runs at 22050Hz for maximum compatibility but you can push it to 44100Hz 32bits (if your sound-card supports it). Edit the file "Sound/cfg/Editable_Advanced_Configuration.cfg"

Is it possible to still have sound when Orbiter's window doesn't have focus?
Yes, again edit the file "Sound/cfg/Editable_Advanced_Configuration.cfg"

How can I change volume or enable/disable sounds in Orbiter?
Launch the Soundconfig.exe editor located in Orbiter's main directory; it contains all the options you want to fully customize sounds in OrbiterSound.

I want to customize a vessel's sound or options
You can do that easily with the new configuration file, see documentation ('Doc/OrbiterSound Documentation')

I want a special sound per vessel like for a VC button, an animation etc. etc.; how can I have them?
This is now possible in the 4.0 version using the configuration file. Also, if your VC buttons are animated
you can also give them sounds. See documentation ('Doc/OrbiterSound Documentation')
For special events that are not animations or one of the 43 stock sounds of one vessel, you must still use
the C++ sound SDK. This SDK is really simple to use (look the small example provided) and can be found
in the Sound folder of Orbiter installation

I see nn wave into a radio folder and only some of them are played
Check if there is a "Sequential.cfg" into this folder. If this is the case, only the WAVs referenced into this file will be played while it allows to play radio WAV in sequence. You can edit the "sequential.cfg" file to add the missing wave with the Sequential_Editor.exe located in the sound folder (or click the link)
Otherwise remember that only 60 WAVs max are allowed for a radio folder.

I don't have wind sound on Mars or not as same volume compared to OrbiterSound 3.5
Sound intensity vary as the square root of pressure, so you have sound on Mars but it is very tiny; you should put the volume almost at max to hear it. This is more realistic.

I think that some sounds should not behave like that in reality.
Math for sounds in a space-supersonic-multi gas density environment are incredibly complex and cannot be fully simulated yet even on a super computer. Of course it's even less possible on a gamer's computer with a hardware limitation. OrbiterSound is tailored to give a good flight feeling in many situations from low speed flight to mach 24 reentry, flyby, ground camera etc. etc. and this with only ~60 default sounds (included VC sounds). Flight simulators usually don't have to deal with such an incredible range of speed and gas conditions. Unless there is a bug somewhere you'll have to live with some limitations.

Last I didn't want only to simulate space simulator sound but I wanted to do it *very* fast with almost no impact on frame-rate. OrbiterSound is highly optimized and sometimes a sound or a feature lack just because of this: performance care.

I don't have sound in front of the ship when I'm in external camera
Supersonic means the vessel is faster than sound, so in front of the vessel you can't hear it's sound. You can deactivate this effect in the Soundconfig.

When OrbiterSound will feature multi-ship sound? (Sound from ships that don't have focus)
Probably never! Games that do allow that have limited number of objects with limited number of sounds in a limited environment and they control all the objects and sounds directly. OrbiterSound allows up to 120 sounds per ship (2x60) with very complex processes for 3D, in an unlimited environment, speed and atmosphere with no direct control over 50% of the sounds (what authors do with SDK sounds). In many cases such feature would fail, create performance problem and all this for very short flyby in atmosphere only (Orbiter being a *space* simulator, not a MMORPG).

The wind sound stops almost instantly when I zoom out from planet "XXXX"
This is due to an artifact of non-linear camera zoom (zoom difference increase as you are further from vessel) in Orbiter. On planets with high pressure, as the drop from earth's pressure (101kPa) to zero happens at much higher altitude, it means that instead of say 40 zoom key-presses you need only 3 key-presses: it sounds almost instant.




Faq english correction: Marvin42 - Much thanks !