Thief Gold no sound in cutscenes with Alchemy

frogdude on 11/4/2010 at 13:54

Hello everybody, i'm back to the forums and hungry for Thief!:P

I recently reinstalled Thief Gold on my new system and everything works ok (thank god for the DDfix) except one minor sound detail.

The problem goes like this: I have an X-Fi Xtreme Gamer and a 4.1 Philips audio system and i'm trying to use Alchemy to get EAX effects to play. Without Alchemy i can hear every sound in game, including cutscenes, but i can't enable EAX because of Windows 7. When i use Alchemy i can turn EAX on and hear the EAX effects, but i can't hear the sounds in the cutscenes and intro. The video still plays flawless though. Afterwards, with Alchemy off, the game is broken, and i can hear sound in cutscenes but not in the game itself. Alchemy has to be reapplied in order to get the sound in game again. Or a reinstall of Thief Gold.:P

I currently use Windows 7 64 bit with the latest version of Alchemy and X-Fi drivers.

So far i have tried the following to no avail:
1. I applied Alchemy to the game directory AND to the movies subfolder.
2. I increased the buffer from 4 to 8.
3. I ran the game with admin credentials on and off.

Anyone got a fix for this? It's not the end of the world, i have seen the cutscenes lots of time, but moving to a new level without the cutscene kind of breaks the immersion...

frogdude on 11/4/2010 at 16:54

4. Tried reinstalling the indeo codec;
5. Tried registering lgvid.ax;
6. Tried registering ir50_32.dll;

No success.

Gothik on 13/4/2010 at 09:42

It's the latest version of Alchemy that breaks the sound (v1.41+). Earlier versions, the movie sound works - I don't know what they've done with the latest version to cause this. I haven't found a solution yet either, except maybe going back to an earlier version. The latest version also keeps reporting in the dsound log files that my x-fi card isn't the default device, even though it's the only sound device I have installed.

*Edit* - Confirmed. Rolling Back to the previous version of Alchemy restored movie sound. Version 1.25 is the version you want.

frogdude on 14/4/2010 at 09:31

Thanks:) I was suspecting that this was the issue, but i was too lazy to switch versions. I will install 1.25 and post here if this solves my problem. (it probably will):)

bikerdude on 14/4/2010 at 10:54

Quote Posted by Gothik

*Edit* - Confirmed. Rolling Back to the previous version of Alchemy restored movie sound. Version 1.25 is the version you want.

its probably a ddsound setting, did you guys try fiddling with those first, or going onto the creative forum to ask about this..?

frogdude on 17/4/2010 at 07:57

I believe the settings are the cause too, however my fiddling with the .ini didn't produce any positive results. As for the creative forum, i payed a visit and searched for this, however i don't really think i'll get an answer there. So far, all the problems related to the Thief games have been solved on these forums, not anywhere else:)

I rolled back to the previous version of Alchemy. It doesn't really bother me, since i only use it for the Thief games.

frogdude on 17/4/2010 at 08:10

On second though why not:P. Here is the link to my post regarding this issue on the Creative forums: (http://forums.creative.com/t5/Windows-7/Alchemy-1-41-02-Thief-problem/td-p/554193)

Now let's wait and see if someone there can help.

drivetheory on 18/8/2010 at 20:31

as of writing this response, the problem is dsound.dll that comes bundled with ALchemy 1.41.02.
I suffered the same problem as well.
the solution is to replace dsound.dll with one from the ALchemy 1.3
enable ALchemy for Thief, then replace the DLL.

If you need an ALchemy 1.3 DLL i've included a URL
(http://drivetheory.org/creative/dsound.dll_-_ALchemy_1.30.00.zip) http://drivetheory.org/creative/dsound.dll_-_ALchemy_1.30.00.zip

drivetheory on 28/8/2010 at 20:53

ALchemy v1.25.10 dsound.dll
(http://drivetheory.org/creative/dsound.dll_-_ALchemy_1.25.10.zip)

Over the past week I've been playing Thief 1 & 2, I noticed in Thief 2 that directional sound was a bit strange (almost 100% reversed?) when the sound was echoing off walls in corridors using the 1.30.10 DLL, using the 1.25.10 DLL seems to fix the problem.

Fafhrd on 29/3/2012 at 04:45

necro'd.

I'm having this, too. And drivetheory's dlls don't work, either. With ALchemy off, I get no sound in menus or in-game, but sound in movies. Alchemy on, sound in menus and game, no sound in movies.