Having some issues with sound in missions containing large #'s of units

[Kholsaet]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to see if anyone else had encountered a problem I've been observing fairly consistantly. I've been working on a sort of a randomized map for large scale operations over Abkhazia. The work contains a very large number of units, only some of which will spawn during each mission to keep things interesting. The problem I've been having as is that as the number of units in the mission increases past a certain point (probably talking several hundred here, only a fraction of which will actually spawn), I have observed that sounds for the mission host - (my multiplayer testers haven't encountered this problem yet) - start to drop off. First the sound of the cockpit closing, then the APU, then replies from the tower (note, I can see text responses from the tower so the radio is set up properly), until ultimately I've lost all audio alltogether. In my particular case I had been placing random Zu-23s of various types when I observed the problem, but I haven't determined if the type of unit has a bearing on this as yet. This behavior makes no difference wheather I am using the A-10 or the BS2 platform to launch the mission. I can restore the audio in the mission by taking units away, and it seems to make no difference if the units ar active at mission start or not. So my question really has three parts:

 

1.) Has anyone else observed this behavior?

2.) Is there a work around or am I simply going to settle for the units I have already placed.... I had such a grand vision, it is just a bit depressing. :cry:

3.) Could this be related to the number of sound channels available?

 

Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated :book:

[Speed]

Yes, I know this behavior well. You have more units in the mission than the game is currently capable of supporting, unfortunately. You need to remove some. Maybe making some of them deactivated will help, but I haven't tested that in detail.

 

The number of units that triggers this problem appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 to 1200. Your results may vary.

[Kholsaet]

Thanks for the response!

 

Hi Speed,

 

Wow, you changed your avatar! You'll be harder to spot now, at least for a little while. Anyway, thanks for the quick reply, although it is as I feared. I'll just have to make some tradeoff's I suppose, and be a little more judicious in my unit selection. I did notice that you listed quite a large range for the number of units required before the observed failure manifests itself... am I to infer that it is more than just the raw number of units present that contributes to this failure. As I was placing units it didn't seem to make any difference whether the units were acitve at mission start or not, it almost seemed that if I really looked into it I could determine exactly the number of units required to break the mission... If you have any insights please don't hesitate to share.

 

Thanks again for your time!

[Druid_]

This issue has been around for a while. As there are so many viariables involved (e.g. Number of triggers, moving units, static units, aircraft & helis) it is impossible to give a more exact number unfortunately.

[Speed]

Hi Speed,

 

Wow, you changed your avatar! You'll be harder to spot now, at least for a little while. Anyway, thanks for the quick reply, although it is as I feared. I'll just have to make some tradeoff's I suppose, and be a little more judicious in my unit selection. I did notice that you listed quite a large range for the number of units required before the observed failure manifests itself... am I to infer that it is more than just the raw number of units present that contributes to this failure. As I was placing units it didn't seem to make any difference whether the units were acitve at mission start or not, it almost seemed that if I really looked into it I could determine exactly the number of units required to break the mission... If you have any insights please don't hesitate to share.

 

Thanks again for your time!

 

Don't worry, my avatar will switch back to the AU logo once the real men's football season starts again. :)

 

You'll just have to use trial and error to find out what the required number of units is that breaks the mission. I donno if this is a bug that could be fixed or just a current, known game engine limitation. I haven't investigated the matter, though I plan to eventually. Unfortunately, I have too much stuff to do right now to take up the issue, however.

[Wrecking Crew]

Hi Kholsaet,

I think it is around 580 units where the cockpit and aircraft F2 View sounds disappear.

 

Here's a link to another thread -

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.ph...11#post1460211

 

WC

[Speed]

Hi Kholsaet,

I think it is around 580 units where the cockpit and aircraft F2 View sounds disappear.

 

Here's a link to another thread -

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.ph...11#post1460211

 

WC

 

In that mission, maybe so, but in the first mission where I encountered the problem, the magic number was approximately 770 units, IIRC. One person even reported to me that he got 1200 units in the mission before he had the problem affect him. I did not confirm that unit count myself, however, so that would be a second-hand source.

[Habu23]

I occasionally experienced a dropout of recorded audio comms as I was testing my Operation Bactria.

 

Habu

[Speed]

I occasionally experienced a dropout of recorded audio comms as I was testing my Operation Bactria.

 

Habu

 

That's a separate issue I think, at least it is if you're talking about how missions occasionally stop playing all pre-recorded sounds and you have to re-assign them again from scratch in the mission editor. I haven't figured out what that issue is related to or how to reproduce it.

[Kholsaet]

Thanks for all the comments!

 

Hi all,

 

Thanks for the help with this. I've been away for a couple of days so I haven't had a chance to get back online to see responses. What I can tell you is that in the mission I am working on things start to break at right around 1000 units (I counted, by design only about 20% spawn during any given mission). Having the ability to handle more units than this within the editor would be a welcome improvment for modeling larger conflicts in which pilots are just participants in much greater regional events. Even at these levels I see very little in the way of performance degredation over the internet so it seems at least feasible that the current gaming platforms should be able to handle considerably larger conflicts if the software were to support it. At any rate, I am content to work within the boundries that we currently have and hope for improvements down the road.

 

Cheers!

[joey45]

Would be nice to have a unit counter in the ME.

 

But why would you need 1000 units?

[Speed]

Would be nice to have a unit counter in the ME.

 

But why would you need 1000 units?

 

Squadron dedicated server mission. It runs all day long, and is re-used for months. It requires highly randomized enemies and a huge target area so people always feel like they are playing on a "fresh" playground.

 

Not possible without A LOT of units.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Speed

[Wrecking Crew]

Would be nice to have a unit counter in the ME.

 

Hi joey,

 

See the GUI Manual, Page 186 - Unit List. Each Group's quantity is shown.

 

I count all the Units = 1, =2, =3, .. and then add up the sum for the total.

 

WC