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Into the Settings menu,
select Audio Settings:
Sound Volume.
Use this to set the volume level for audio in the game. Adjust the slider
bar for volume as required, with sliding the bar Right to increasing
volume & vice versa.
Use EAX (Surround Sound).
When Ticked this enables 3D Audio & EAX via OpenAL
(Open Audio Library) using either the included OpenAL
wrapper or OpenAL Driver of your Soundcard (Please see the UseDefaultDriver=x
setting for further information on this). The use of 3D Audio allows for
significantly better 3D Audio positioning than stereo output (Unticked),
particularly for those connected to multi-channel speaker systems. This is
the recommended option if your Soundcard supports DirectSound 3D &/or
OpenAL. EAX support in the game is used to provide EAX 1/2/Advanced HD
effects in addition to 3D Audio, e.g. applying reverb effects to audio
sources. Should you have a Soundcard other than a SoundBlaster
Live!, Extigy, Audigy or Audigy 2 though, you’ll likely get no EAX
affects applied (The nForce/nForce APU may be an exception to this due to
having a hardware OpenAL driver), seemingly due to OpenAL wrapper oddness.
When Unticked this will disable the use of 3D Audio &
EAX in the game & provides stereo output (2 channels), recommended
should you desire optimal performance or your Soundcard doesn’t support
DirectSound 3D.
Reverse Stereo.
When Ticked this reverses the left & right audio channels.
Should you need to use this to have sound played correctly through your
Speakers then you’ve positioned them incorrectly. After correcting your
Speaker placement Untick this as everyone else should do.
Once more open the ArmyOps.ini
file & scroll down to the [ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem] section,
options available being;
CompatibilityMode=x.
If you are having severe problems with audio playback in the game try
setting x to True to see if it resolves the problem. This
shouldn’t be required with most Soundcards, particularly more gaming
oriented ones, so be sure to check for updated drivers if this occurs
with, say an Audigy. Leave this set to False if you aren’t having
any audio playback problems.
ReverseStereo=x.
When x is set to True this reverses the left & right
audio channels. Should you need to use this to have sound played correctly
through your Speakers then you’ve positioned them incorrectly. After
correcting your Speaker placement set this to False as everyone
else should do.
OutputRate=xHz.
x specifies the sampling rate to be used for audio playback in the
game, with valid values for x being 11025, 22050, 44100
& 48000. Using a higher sampling rate will provide
greater audio fidelity in the game though in some cases can also lead to
reduced performance (This more than likely will be cause by poor Soundcard
Drivers or an outdated Soundcard). Given that many more mainstream
Soundcards internally resample audio to 48kHz I’d recommend using 48000
so as to minimize resampling artefacts. For comparison sake the sample
rate of an Audio CD is 44.1kHz.
MusicVolume=x.
x sets the volume level for music in the game. Valid values for x
are 0.000000 - 1.000000, with larger values providing a increasingly
greater music volume level & vice versa.
SoundVolume=x.
x sets the effects volume level in the game. Valid values for x
are 0.000000 - 1.000000, with larger values providing an increasingly
greater sound effects volume level & vice versa.
VoiceVolume=x.
x sets the volume level for speech in the game. Valid values for x
are 0.000000 - 1.000000, with larger values providing an increasingly
greater speech volume level & vice versa.
UsePrecache=x.
When x is set to True this enables loading sounds
into memory during level loading, which can increase level loading
time, though should provide smoothest gameplay as no sounds will need to
be uploaded during gameplay. For systems with 128MB or more of RAM I’d
recommend True as such, though False should prove best for
systems with less than that amount of RAM as sounds need only be loaded
when required.
Channels=x.
x specifies the maximum number of simultaneous 3D channels
that can be played by your Soundcard, beyond which sources are changed to
non-positioned ones. This varies between Soundcards, e.g. Audigy 2
supports up to 64. Those of you with CPUs slower than 1Ghz however
would perhaps be wise to reduce this number so as to lower CPU
utilization, which should provided improved performance without affecting
3D audio too noticeably. Those of you with faster CPUs should set this to
at least 32 should your Soundcard support that many 3D streams.
Use3DSound=x.
When set to True this enables 3D Audio via OpenAL (Open
Audio Library) using either the included OpenAL wrapper or
OpenAL Driver of your Soundcard (Please see the UseDefaultDriver=x
setting next for further information on this). The use of 3D Audio allows
for significantly better 3D audio positioning than stereo output,
particularly for those connected to multi-channel speaker systems. This is
the recommended option if your Soundcard supports DirectSound 3D &/or
OpenAL. When set to False this will disable the use of 3D
Audio in the game & provides stereo output (2 channels), recommended
should you desire optimal performance or your Soundcard doesn’t support
DirectSound 3D.
UseEAX=x.
Should you have set Use3DSound=x to False then you can
similarly leave this set to False also. In addition should you have
a Soundcard other than a SoundBlaster Live!, Extigy, Audigy or
Audigy 2 you should set this to False as well as currently no EAX
affects are applied to these Soundcards (Though the nForce/nForce APU may
be an, unconfirmed, exception to this due to having a hardware OpenAL
driver), seemingly due to OpenAL wrapper oddness. When set to True
this enables EAX support in the game (For the Soundcards named
earlier), which provides EAX 1/2/Advanced HD effects in addition to 3D
Audio. This allows for the application of reverb effects & such to
audio sources in the game, which should further improve the audio realism
of the game.
UseDefaultDriver=x.
Should your Soundcard’s driver provides a hardware OpenAL driver
(Generally verifiable by the existence of OpenAL32.dll in the
Windows system directory) set x to False to enable
the game to use it, rather than the game’s OpenAL wrapper (defOpenAL32.dll)
– in most cases this will provide optimal 3D audio performance. Should
your Soundcard lack a hardware OpenAL driver, then set to True to
use the game’s OpenAL wrapper for providing 3D audio. At the time of
writing this guide only the SoundBlaster Audigy, Audigy 2 & nForce/nForce
2 APU provide hardware OpenAL drivers.
You can learn how to further
improve your Audio experience in
America
’s Army by taking a look at the Soundcard/Speaker
tweak guide. This’ll take you through positioning your speakers
& configuring Soundcard specific settings for popular Soundcards such
as the SoundBlaster Audigy series, Santa Cruz & Game Theater XP
amongst others.
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