.wav files not playing in stereo within game only?

Hi,

I've created some .wav files to be used as "background music" during level play. I rendered them as 16 bit, 22K, stereo. However when the level loads and the files begin playing, it's not in stereo, the music comes from only one speaker. If I play the files outside of 3DGS I get the stereo sound just fine. What could be the cause of this??

Thanks

mmm...i dont know much about this, but perhaps you are using 3D sound for this wavs.
A 3D sound is a mono sound, and is panned according to position of the sound source on the 3D space.
I think there is an option or flag so you can play a wav as a normal Wav, without any 3D transformation, so it should play on stereo, as you saved it.
I hope this can helps you.

Thanks for your reply. I think that mono refers to the "snd_playfile" command, however i'm using the "snd_loop" to play my files. As far as I can tell from the manual it shouldn't be playing in mono with that command call. I also changed the balance controls thinking that was the problem, no luck.

I haven't been able to find mention of that flag in the manual, i'll keep checking though. Thanks again. This is quite a mystery...

There are (at least) six different compression formats for .wav files, including the option to have them as mono or stereo. Some of those compression formats won't work at all with 3DGS.
If you have the SoundBlaster software, it frequently comes with a utility called "Wave Studio". That utility has the capability to save in mono, stereo, and the different compression formats.
To the best of my knowledge, 3DGS has the ability to play stereo, as well as "surround sound" to give you position information as to where the sound is coming from.

Hope this helps!

you are right, i think.
I tryed to play a stereo sound with snd_play()
but it doesnt plays stereo, but mono instead.
WDL manual says snd_playfile() plays a mono. wav,
but nothing is told about a stereo file...
I hope an true 3DGS expert can help us

I've never resolved this. I say again, quite a mystery. I'm sure 3DGS can play music files in stereo. In fact it seems fairly sophisticated in that you can manipulate the files in various ways to create interesting effects and even create the sound to originate from entities within the level. I just can't believe stereo isn't an option.

All I know for sure at this point is that it can't be how I rendered the files, because as I said before if I play them in a program other than 3DGS I get to rock out to that stereo sound without any problem.

I havent done any sound with GS yet, but technically speaking, a mono sound can still come out of both speakers if its balance is in the center, the difference with stereo is that you have something different coming out of each speaker so if a stereo sound comes out of only one speaker, its not necessarily coming out mono the problem could lie somewhere else. Have you tried playing mono wavs? do they come out of both speakers? what if you pan(balance) the stereo wav to the side that has no sound? have you tried it with other wavs?

Thanks for the reply SpaceJim. I have tried other .wav files, about 6 (stereo) files total. All play in mono. I did play around with the balance controls but I can't remember what I did exactly because it was a few weeks ago. I haven't tried to play a mono file, that's a good idea though. I'll have to render one and see what happens, and play around with the balance settings in WDL some more maybe. Thanks again.

I have the same problem !!!!!!!!!

Several posts have been made in the forum about playing wave files in stereo...

There's an alternative to playing stereo wave files in 3D GameStudio. You can split the wave file into two, and position the sounds according to the position of the camera.

For example, left wave file - camera - right wave file.

Note, however, when you pan a camera, you will need to do a calculation to get the wave files play at the exact position with the pan.

I think I have discovered what is happening. For some reason after the level_load command ( the problem doesn't happen before this command), the command snd_playloop(SOUND,VOLUME,0) ( there is no problem with ent_PLAYLOOP) shifts almost all the sound to the left side. I have tried with
snd_playloop(SOUND,VOLUME,50) and it is balanced again.