Fable TLC not working with sound enabled

[Guest]

For some reason I can't even BEGIN to understand, Fable TLC will NOT run in
either normal or safe mode with the sound device enabled in Windows XP. This
applies to two different sound devices I have tried, the Creative Labs Sound
Blaster Extigy I usually use, and the onboard sound chip on my motherboard,
Soundmax Integrated Digital Audio.

My other system specs: Intel branded mobo, Intel PIV 1.7 Ghz, 640 Meg of
RIMM Ram, Nvidia Geoforce FX 5200 AGP 128 meg

Things I've checked include making sure the most recent drivers available
for both were installed (said drivers are several years old, unfortunately),
DirectX90C has already been installed, and I've tried Performance Hardware
Acceleration settings from none to full. None of which have had any result
whatever. I've also tried running in compatibility mode (WIn98 and Win2000)
and disabling virtual themes.

Further, all other updates have already been done, mobo bios, mobo chipset
drivers, video drivers, and microsoft mouse intellipoint drivers.

I don't know what else to do, I've even tried using Msconfig's selective
statup as recommended in the Microsoft KB, and that along with
experimentation in normal mode is what caused me to deduce it might be a
sound problem, since sound isn't available in selective statup mode. On the
other hand, I absolutely REFUSE to play a game without sound,

Frankly, I'm extremely disappointed with Lionheard/Microsoft over this, as
NO other game requires this amount of dickering around to get it to run, and
it's NOT acceptable to make people go through hoops just to run a game.

I'm really at a loss of how to proceed, frankly, other than to just to take
the hit in the cost of the game and lump it, since NO retailer will refund
money for a game that's out of the box, only even exchange for the same
product, which would obviously be pointless in this case.

Anyways, anyone with any ideas of what to do to get this to work, if it's
even possible with the sound devices availalbe to me, I'd be only too
grateful.

 

[Paul Smith]

For some reason I can't even BEGIN to understand, Fable TLC will NOT run
in
either normal or safe mode with the sound device enabled in Windows XP.
This
applies to two different sound devices I have tried, the Creative Labs
Sound
Blaster Extigy I usually use, and the onboard sound chip on my
motherboard,
Soundmax Integrated Digital Audio.

My other system specs: Intel branded mobo, Intel PIV 1.7 Ghz, 640 Meg of
RIMM Ram, Nvidia Geoforce FX 5200 AGP 128 meg

Try installing the OpenAL/EAX patch. I've heard someone saying this solved
the problems with the Extigy.

http://developer.creative.com/articles/article.asp?cat=1&sbcat=31&top=38&aid=46

They also mentioned that it will fail once in safe mode, but after that it
will work normally.

Let us know if that does the trick.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

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[Ulric Van Bergen (UVB)]

your best bet is to uninstall the game and burn the disc in gasoline,
because it is the worst 'rpg' that I have ever seen in my life...

 

[Guest]

Well, your guess is as good as mine WHY, but this fixed the problem, in that
I can actually get into the game.

While I'm NOT pleased at having to use this obscure solve to fix something
that apparently resulted from incompetent coding, I'm glad the problem was
this easy to fix, once I knew what to do.

I might add that it ran fine in normal mode the first time I ran it, once
the OpenALEAX was installed.

Out of curiosity, from whom and where did you hear that this would solve the
problem?

 

[Paul Smith]

Well, your guess is as good as mine WHY, but this fixed the problem, in
that
I can actually get into the game.

While I'm NOT pleased at having to use this obscure solve to fix something
that apparently resulted from incompetent coding, I'm glad the problem was
this easy to fix, once I knew what to do.

They set the bar at OpenAL compatible cards, or at least required a new
driver that Creative put out with OpenAL. Creative, being Creative rarely
update drivers for older hardware like the Extigy.

Out of curiosity, from whom and where did you hear that this would solve
the
problem?

I had a hunch that it was OpenAL related, as Fable would only run on
Creative cards where they had released OpenAL drivers (the version # is
noted in the Read Me file). For the Extigy they never released those
drivers. OpenAL + Fable + Extigy on Google soon found something.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove 'nospam.' to reply by e-mail*

 

[Guest]

Terrific....so this is consdered an "older" sound device by Creative. Do you
forsee I'm going to have similiar problems with future games and thus need to
switch soundcards? So far the only recent (released in the last three years)
games that have had problems are Fable TLC and (possibly) Civilization IV, in
that the EAX sound setings for the game cause audio distorion, and the video
files have an odd problem where the audio plays fine, but the video portion
of the vid stuters and doens't sync properly with the audo. Before the game
was patched though, the audio portion stuttered and the video was choppy, I'm
inclined to think this may be an internal problem with the game, rathe than
my sound hardware per se, because the external Bink video player is able to
play the same video files without as much as a hiccup.