During the cutscenes in Wing Commander IV the volume is much lower than during the rest of the game.

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I noticed that if I play the .vob files (cutscenes) from the WC4 folder in Windows Media Player the volume is too low as well, but if I either simply *rename* the .vob files to .mpg, or delete the ac3filter.ax file (which I just found) from the WC4 folder, the volume is louder (normal).

Apparently the AC3 filter is automatically installed with WC4 and, in this case, appears to be causing the volume issues. W7 appears to be able to play back the audio from the .vobs just fine natively, so I would guess that if I could somehow tell WC4 (or Windows?) to decode audio from these .vobs with the default codec Media Player uses it would work fine.

Anyone have an idea?

I've noticed the same thing. I have to crank the cut scenes to be able to hear them, then the game blasts my eardrums when I'm returned to the game.

I've reduced the pain somewhat by going to the options screen and reducing the game volume to very low, like 15. The game volume seems to be independent from the cut scene volume, so that reduces the difference. I then crank the volume on my speakers to nearly maximum, and both game and cut scenes are audible.

I then have to remember to turn down my speaker volume when I exit WC4, or the next application I start will burst my eardrums again.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Wing commander 4 installs a bastardized version of AC filters. If you install the full AC filters, there is a GUI you can use to change the gain (i.e. increase the volume in the cutscenes alone).

There is a much better solution than constantly adjusting the volume as the game switches to and from cutscenes. I never understood why GOG didn't provide an easy method to adjust the gain.