Sometimes a spoken sentence is very soft and is not "centered", comes from left or right.

This happened at several occasions. I first thought the samples were broken, but for example examining the same object again plays the sound as it should.

No, my speakers are not broken. Everything else (background music, other spoken sentences) play correctly at the same time the issue happens.

A stupid question: Is your sound card still PCI because in that case it can happen that sound channels flip all over the place. Used to have this problem as well but it vanished as soon as I switched from my PCI SoundBlaster X-Fi to the PCI Express SoundBlaster X-FI. Support for PCI has become ever more rudimentary over the years. This means that basically the older the chipset, the better PCI is likely to work (in a PC from the past 10 to 15 years), particularly with sound cards. (My current computer has an Intel Z-77 chipset and my PCI SB X-Fi now resides inside an older computer where it works a little better - channel flipping can still happen but it does so on far fewer occasions than it would when the card was still in my current computer.)

That seems to be caused by a bug in the game code. The developers have acknowledge it, I believe. It happens the same to me, and it is usually when one voice needs to talk "over" another: sometimes the first one attenuates too much, and sometimes it appears on the wrong side of the stereo spectrum.

Don't worry too much about it. I'm sure it'll be addressed in a future patch. :)

-dZ.

Thanks, good to know they already work on it.

@patrick
And no, the soundcard is a PCI-E card.
This problem happens however on 2 computers (Laptop, PC), I tried 5 sound cards (2x onboard, 2xUSB, 1 PCI-E ).
As a matter of fact I had the problems you described with my old Recon3D (now I use a Asus ROG Phoebus Solo in my PC, sitll waiting for a new 7.1 card from Creative Labs) which is PCI-E, it never happened with the old PCI cards :). It was the main reason I removed the Recon3D for good.

Hi,

Isn't the Recon 3D PCI Express as well??? Am very puzzled indeed now. So far, I had thought that this problem was PCI and lack of proper PCI support in new(er) chipsets related. I would not have thought that PCI Express cards might also be affected.

You might like to try the SoundBlaster Z once you get it for a good price ;-). Anyway, I am grateful that my trusty X-Fi still works under Windows 10. With games or applications that still support DirectSound 3D/2D in hardware mode or EAX 2-5 it literally blows your roof off and pleases the neighbours (drastic example - the two parts of Baldur's Gate - the original versions and not the remake). The forcefulness of the sound is unbelievable and no comparison to software sound... Hearing is believing ;-).

Anyway, good luck :-). So far, the number of programme updates the Thimbleweed Park mob have published ever since the game was released has been quite amazing.

That was my point, yes. You said, these problems happen with PCI, but I only had them with PCIE, never with PCI.
In fact I don't think it has anything to do with the connector, but with the driver access level. These days, such problems don't happen anymore. I considered the SB-Z, but there's no big difference to the other cards. I'm still waiting for a new 7.1 model. The Recon3D so far had the best positioning through headphones, but the drivers were a mess.
X-Fi2 was best indeed :)

Hi,

Am very surprised indeed. What chipset are you using because normally this kind of thing was apparently notorious for PCI and, as I said, the newer the chipset the worse the support for PCI and sound cards such as my X-Fi PCI (or Audigy 1&2 and SBlive ;-)) are known to be very demanding (PCI load). Yes, I agree as far as drivers are concerned. I would for example have preferred proper de-installation stuff instead of going through some dodgy update routine (known that and not been happy about that ever since my good old SB Live - but then I had the choice between good hardware and 3D sound versus good drivers and I tended to go for the former ;-)). I also still have a Terratec Aureon Space with the ENVY24 HT chip - very good card but only software Direct Sound 3D. Unfortunately, Creative were too restrictive as far as licensing later EAX modes was concerned. They even came up with OpenAL years ago and made it an open platform to spread their stuff cross operating systems inviting others to join - however without granting other companies access to EAX3 and higher as well! In the end, Creative's arrogance served to bury EAX - after all, why should other companies be helping Creative with maintaining their monopoly. So, basically it was suicide caused by stupidity. I still use OpenAL (Alchemy) with virtually everything prior to DirectX11 (some DirectX 10 games still seem to have DirectX 9 sound stuff). In older DirectSound 2D games (pre Direct Sound 3D) that support hardware mode, the sound has more punch and also tends to get mirrored to the rear speakers and subwoofer as well. By the way, the trick also works by using Alchemy with supposedly Stereo only games that were released after the release of Windows Vista (when 3D hardware sound was officially buried). For example, if you take FIFA 14 and copy the two dsound files from Alchemy (you do not have to go via Alchemy - copying the two files is enough) to the game directory, you suddenly hear the sound from all speakers - in my case on a 5.1 setup. The difference in terms of stadium atmosphere is incredible and this particular game is only one example. (Other sound card / chipset manufacturers have similar stuff, as far as I know, so their stuff - probably also dsound files related - may work as well.) Mind you, with my X-FI, the stuff I described only works in hardware mode if the card is set to game mode. Just check the dsound log file underneath the two dsound files - unless it clearly states that things are running in software mode things are fine.

Cheers
Patrick

P.S.: Just checked Thimbleweed Park with Alchemy as well, both in software and hardware OpenAL mode. Speech plays through all five speakers (5.1 setup). Without Alchemy, the sound from the centre speaker is a bit louder but sound still plays through all five speakers. Otherwise, the only sound problem I remember was the speech by the guy at the shop getting cut off once - I may have pressed on a reply option too early. But that was with the original build and I cannot remember anything like that happening ever again.

Really, I HAD this issue with the Recon3D, not anymore with the Asus card and I bet that in the meantime Creative Labs repaired their drivers as well.
In a long history of sound cards, I only had these problems with the Recon3D (which is a PCIE card), so I would really not talk about a "common PCI errors", but instead about one of the first generations of Windows 7 drivers without direct hardware access.

I am using sound cards since the SB-Pro (before that I used Amiga with the Paula Sound Chip), had lots of chipsets (took me a while and about 8 Windows reinstalls to figure out the SB16 was not compatible with the Intel TX4). I know what shifting channels sound like and that's not happening here. But for your info: I think at the time I had the problems with the Recon I had a AMD 751 and a 1090T main CPU.

I rememer good ol' EAX ... and AWE. Croc without AWE background noises is just not the same.
EAX5 still exists, my onboard driver would support it. But at the moment I am stuck with a emulation supported by Asus. it works ok, the first generation caused crashes. I'll probably not switch sound cards again, until Creatives buries their current chipset generation and comes out with something new which also supports 7.1

Let's just leave it at that, it's "ancient" history and not related to the bug at all.

Hopefully a fix will come soon, but I can also live without, since I am almost through.

Exact same issue with the onboard sound (Realtek ALC889) on my Asus P8Z68 deluxe. As OP said music is fine, as are the preceding and following lines of dialogue when it occurs.

I set my speakers set to mix side channels into the centre somewhat so I can still hear the lines, they're just significantly quieter than all others.

EDIT: The issue remains even if I change the sound device to stereo, ie not just a 5.1 issue.