[Beta Test] OrbiterSound version: 06 july 2020

[DanSteph]

Dear Beta Testers,

Main instructions for beta testing:

1-Please read carefully the instructions below:
2-Test and report everything apart documentation and help text typo, they are not fully updated and correction will be done last.
3-You'll be warned about an "update" every day, this is to test the online check. The online version date was set to year 2050.
4-When you post any problem, please come back and answer my questions and request, I'm not a divine, I cannot solve anything if I can't get more information.
5-Any comment, impression, feeling welcome also. What you like or dislike the most, find practical or not.
6-If someone very proficient in English want to start correcting the scenarios, you are welcome. Just let me know (You need to know enough coding to not break scenario or html help).

Much thanks & Happy beta testing 

Dan

[jacquesmomo]

  ^{YESSSSS !!!}

[Schmidtrock]

 

[acceleraptor]

If someone very proficient in English want to start correcting the scenarios, you are welcome. Just let me know (You need to know enough coding to not break scenario or html help).

Given that I'm a native English speaker who writes both code and technical reports as part of my job, I'd be happy to take a stab at this!

I did a quick pass over the main OrbiterSound documentation HTML file and made some style and grammar tweaks (hopefully without changing the intended meaning of anything). Since I haven't figured out how/if I can attach to forum posts ( ), do you have a preferred file transfer method so I can pass along my edited verwsion for your feedback?

Cheers,
acceleraptor
Post Merge: 07 July 2020, 10:36:43Additionally, I encountered thiswhen attempting to install to an invalid Orbiter folder.



Looks like it just needs a version number update

acceleraptor

[DanSteph]

I did a quick pass over the main OrbiterSound documentation HTML file and made some style and grammar tweaks

Thanks but as stated in point 2 of instructions above the documentation is not ready yet also
when someone want to correct we should discuss before so I can organize and give instructions...

In this case the documentation source is in "Doc\OrbiterSound Documentation\bin\input" in the ".txt" files. Once texts files corrected you should launch the "HtmlDocCreator.exe" from the same directory and the html doc is re-created.
This was done so one can write the doc like a post in a forum with common bbs tags.
Anyway as said, the doc is not up to date yet, it's too early to correct.

Looks like it just needs a version number update
acceleraptor

Ah okay, thanks, I'll correct that.... It's a detail but all detail matter.

[Schmidtrock]

I've been through the first five scenarios by now and I must say, brilliant! I have yet to find any kind of bug and it is performing as predicted. I already received the first version check message after about an hour into my testing. I thoroughly enjoyed the Atlantis scenario in both external and cockpit views.

I love how going from external to cockpit the crowd and commentator fade off and directly into the radio communications. The new custom sounds are superb and really provide a sense of immersion for me. The 3d sound cone demonstration is vivid and really illustrates what the concept means. It seems to me that it is considerably more defined in this version than it was in 4.0.

Great work Dan! I'll report back in after running the rest of the scenarios. By the way, so far the text in the scenario descriptions look decent and won't be much trouble at all to tweak. Your command of the English language is far better than you give yourself credit for.

P.S. Yay for the working Radio MFD!! That will make a lot of people very happy I think! I enjoyed messing around with it and appreciate that it does a lot for you without going back to the Orbiter Sound config application.

Cheers!

[DanSteph]

Great feedback Schmidtrock, much thanks !

Cheers 

[jacquesmomo]

Just to say that Multistage 2015 (sounds with the guidance-file) works very well with OrbiterSound  <sup>vé5

Extrait</sup>

-2=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Ariane5_EAP-sound.wav)
119=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Sound_Jettison2.wav)
122=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Soyuz_Booster-Jet.wav)
124=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\04-Amb_Thrust_01.wav)
165=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Soyuz_stages12-nom.wav)
200=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Soyuz_trajet-nom.wav)
209=PlaySound(Sound\_CustomVesselsSounds\Kourou\Porte-close.wav)

  ^{this is just a beginning...}

[acceleraptor]

Thanks but as stated in point 2 of instructions above the documentation is not ready yet also
when someone want to correct we should discuss before so I can organize and give instructions...

In this case the documentation source is in "Doc\OrbiterSound Documentation\bin\input" in the ".txt" files. Once texts files corrected you should launch the "HtmlDocCreator.exe" from the same directory and the html doc is re-created.
This was done so one can write the doc like a post in a forum with common bbs tags.
Anyway as said, the doc is not up to date yet, it's too early to correct.

Apologies!! Apparently I can't read... :P Let me know when you're ready for help with this and I'll see what I can do!

[DanSteph]

Let me know when you're ready for help with this and I'll see what I can do!

Yes, It will probably be for another beta at the very end.

Just to say that Multistage 2015 (sounds with the guidance-file) works very well with OrbiterSound  ^vé5

Much thanks Jacques

[DanSteph]

BUG SOLVED REPORT

Bug submitted by : acceleraptor
Summary: Wrong version when installing to invalid Orbiter folder. I discovered also several things that where not correct and updated the text when installing on a "fake" orbiter folder. (manual installation)

This will be okay in the next version, you must check that the correction is okay at this time.

Thanks 

[dgatsoulis]

Ok, here are my first impressions of the latest version.
In this intitial testing I am just going through the OrbiterSound 5.0 demo scenarios.

01-Welcome to OrbiterSound 5.0
My heart almost stopped! Nothing was playing and I couldn't hear even the atmospheric wind sound. (I did get the message for the OrbiterSound update though, on the upper left corner). Then I realised that I'm an idiot! I had the start paused box checked on the launchpad!. :facepalm:
Anyway, moving along.

02-How to control Music with the MFD
Everything looks good on my end. Love the default music choices and the settings of the MFD get saved without having to change them from OrbiterSoundConfig. Brilliant!

03-Atlantis launch with custom sound.
This scenario is beautiful and a great demonstration of the new capabilities.

04-Squadron Take-Off
This is so COOL!!! Love it!. With a bit of planning and a "simple" scenario file, one could direct an entire Orbiter Movie!

05-Sound's 3D projection cone
Works beautifully. Makes me go and get a new 5.1 sound system, but my neighbours are going to hate me. (I'll stick to headphones for now.)
 
06-Silence cone above Mach one
Really pumped the volume for this one. Nothing but atmospheric effects until the DG passes and then the bang.  I am now deaf.  :D

07-Reentry Sound.
Again, beautiful work Dan. The Sound cone works really well.

08-Planet bases and Wind Sounds
All work as intended. I know that this is not a new feature, but I love how this gives such great "atmosphere" to a planet/base.

09-Scenario Commands Review
Now you are just showing off!!! LOVE IT!! (Also same comment applies as scenario 04).
One thing that I'd change is using the debug text instead of an onscreen annotation (Center left/right, midway from center to top). But that's probably a personal preference.

10-OrbiterSound update check.
Works as intended, but the text is a lot smaller on my screen that what the scenario screenshot shows. I can read it just fine though, even at 1.5 meters away from the monitor


I will check backwards compatibility, config files and compile a new vessel with the SDK on my next tests.

And lastly I'll give it a stress-test (see below).

Thank you SO MUCH for all your hard work on this Dan! It is just fantastic.


P.S.
To my fellow beta testers. Our job as testers is to stress OrbiterSound to its limits and find if there are any braking points. Please throw everything you can at it and report here any problems you might find.

Some examples:

Backwards compatibility. Get an addon that was compiled with a previous version of OrbiterSound and see if all sounds play.

Try loading extremely long mp3 or ogg files (hours long audiobooks for example) and see if you get even a drop in frame rate.

Create a scenario with many ships and control them with scenario commands. How many ships can you actually control?

Try playing all the different sound formats from the MFD. Is there a file format that's not playing for you?


Signing off  for now. Will get back as I continue testing.

[DanSteph]

Grrreat report Dimitris as always 

I'll probably add an "annotation scenarios commands" if you want, but for the demo I'll stick to the discreet debug message.

Yes I cheated for the size of text on "online check" because the image wasn't clear, so I edited with Photoshop. 

I didn't checked really the music formats:
My filter allow some format that don't play and maybe disallow some other that do...
I'll add that in my TODO.

Anyway as you told me, 99% peoples use common format.

Cheers & thanks 

Dan

[OvalDreamX]

  Well... It´s amazing and super immersive. And when I got to space the first test, and started playing the third rock radio... I felt like I was a trucker in space, windows down (massive decompression there, but managed to close it again) , one arm out, and music at full volume.

  Anyway, my laptop is very old (vostro 1000) and Orbiter Sound stops working mostly when I get to the earth's surface, due to the low framerate. I mean, its easily fixed with lowering the planet resolution. But I never had any problems with low framerate with any of the previous Orbiter Sound versions. I have yet to figure out how to upload images here haha. But It gave me on the bottom of the screen a message saying
"OrbiterSound BUG low framerate:" And my answer to its questions: 1-It happened on every scenario, 2-low framerates 3-The number just keeps going up every frame. And no, the problem wasn't solved automatically

 But without lag, it works amazingly well. Only thing I would add would be more pitch difference between internal and external view. And maybe some sound effects like the sound of the structure shaking, or loose things in the cockpit making some noise shaking when the ship is at full throttle.
 Anyways, it works ok for me, I'll test it more on older mods now.

[DanSteph]

  Well... It´s amazing and super immersive. And when I got to space the first test, and started playing the third rock radio... I felt like I was a trucker in space, windows down (massive decompression there, but managed to close it again) , one arm out, and music at full volume.

 

And maybe some sound effects like the sound of the structure shaking, or loose things in the cockpit making some noise shaking when the ship is at full throttle.

That's a good idea, I'll see (no promise but I'll have a look at least)

Anyway, my laptop is very old (vostro 1000) and Orbiter Sound stops working mostly when I get to the earth's

That's a big problem, I'll try to solve it with your help.
I will probably issue "test" dll just for you with various solutions, just watch your personal message here and let me know if your unable to test quickly (holiday etc.)

What's is your usual FSP on earth ? Less than 15-10 ?

Much thanks for your feedback...

Dan

[OvalDreamX]

Srry for the delay, life has been busy lately haha. And I wanted to give you a more complete answer

  My Texture Level in earth's surface is around 10, Although I change it when im in orbit.
I got the problem in different planets and orbits. It seems that it happens always when the FPS fall below 10 (im used to play between 5-15 on my pc haha) doesn't matter where I am.
 
  When the error pops up, sound gets choppy and some features like ambient sound may stop working, depending on how bad the frame drop is I think. That doesnt happens to the white noise in the cabin or the radio.

Hope it helps

[dgatsoulis]

Hi Dan,

Reporting a missing feature.

In the scenario commands, there is a command to control the Main and Hover engines and also the attitude thrusters, but there is no command to control the retro engines. 

Is it possible to add a RETROENGINEPOWER command for completeness of the spacecraft control?

Dimitris

[DanSteph]

When the error pops up, sound gets choppy and some features like ambient sound may stop working, depending on how bad the frame drop is I think. That doesnt happens to the white noise in the cabin or the radio.
Hope it helps

Yes thanks, the "low fps message & correction" was done for another problem, but it's now possible that the correction itself mess the sound on your "naturally low fps machine" I'll send you in PM a link with a DLL without this "automatic correction", Imho it should solve the problem.

Is it possible to add a RETROENGINEPOWER command for completeness of the spacecraft control?

No problem sir, I'll send you a link when ready.

[dgatsoulis]

Thank you very much for the latest link and sorry for the late reply. I will give this an exhausting test tomorrow and post all my findings (and experience) sometime tomorrow (July 19th) afternoon.

[DanSteph]

Thanks Dimitris, I have a new dll with annotation that I'll send to you soon.

[dgatsoulis]

Getting ready for an epic stress-test of the Scenario commands   



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEitxIhjmjg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEitxIhjmjg</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7WCwfVDrVg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7WCwfVDrVg</a>

Scenario commands stress test successful !!!  50 Deltagliders in synch !!!

 

Scenario here for anyone that wants to try it out (Thank God for speadsheets and the CTRL-H command!)
(oops, can't post between code tags, exceeds 20K characters). Attachment doesn't work either (upload folder full?!).
Link to scenario on my GoogleDrive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XlwB2SMmexUMTIk4PkT7Sqdw0Gu-OlrJ/view?usp=sharing


 

------------------------------EDIT--------------------------------

Annotations and RETROENGINEPOWER commands work perfectly on my end! 

Will try out SC4 animations sounds on the next test.

 

[Djowin]

 

What a fuc.... stress test !!

[DanSteph]

WOW !!!!!

Great work Dimitris ! 

[Milouse]

Hello,

Very well done !

With 50 DG passing the sound barrier at the same time, remain glasses intact in surrounding ?


Milouse

[dgatsoulis]

WOW !!!!!

Great work Dimitris ! 

Thank you for this amazing feature Dan!!! It is incredible how well it works!!! 

Very well done !

With 50 DG passing the sound barrier at the same time, remain glasses intact in surrounding ?


Milouse

I doubt there would be any buildings standing! 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, did you know that you can use the scenario commands to send a PROxxxSPECxxx command to a DGIV and execute it, while in external view?
(epic 40 DeltagliderIVs take-off comming in a few minutes) 



And here is the video

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay4JOC2ce6A" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay4JOC2ce6A</a>

The limit for the commands seems to be at ~360 lines  (I told you I'd break it  )