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Tutorial GameVibe Manual

Discussion in 'Tutorials and Tips by the Developer' started by yobuddy, Dec 25, 2017.

  1. Griff

    Griff New Member Gold Contributor

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    My Motion Simulator:
    3DOF, DC motor, JRK, Motion platform, 6DOF
    Looks like the DCS plugin is not set up to send any data to Vibe so that is big bummer. If I was smarter, I would totally offer to help develop something for it. So for now I am focusing my efforts on Project Cars 2, which should work.

    I think you are right @yobuddy because the music that plays in the Oculus "home space" will play music through the HDMI cable to the headset just fine when I am testing the vibe settings. As soon as I launch a game in VR mode is when it goes down hill. If I launch PC2 in desktop mode and then go into Rift and run the virtual desktop it works fine.

    Another thing I find odd is that I can't get my Sound Blaster Z card to isolate channels correctly, but I still have a few things to research and try on that front before I start asking for help there.


    If anyone has vibe and Oculus running together correctly would chime in I'd love to know how you have your audio devices set up.
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  2. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Use a cheap usb sound card for Game Vibe, I got these: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-Aud...PTOP-WIN7-8-/143376074905?hash=item2161e14899
    • Informative Informative x 1
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2019
  3. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Active Member

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    How do you detect lack of channel separation?

    Just FYI, I just changed my card for Vibe to Sound Blasterx EA-5, which has pretty high end specs, but when I run sound check in Vibe, I see amp lights of channels that should be off indicating some (tiny) signal. I am not audio hardware engineer, but my guess minijack itself allows a bit of leak. Just thought I'd share before you throw money into hardware.
  4. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Active Member

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    Hi @yobuddy,
    I changed my audio card in hope of resolving crashes (previous one was no longer supported by Creative). But I still get GV crash sometimes:
    Application: GameVibe.exe
    Framework Version: v4.0.30319
    Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
    Exception Info: System.AccessViolationException
    at <Module>.CoCreateInstance(_GUID*, IUnknown*, UInt32, _GUID*, Void**)
    at SlimDX.XAudio2.XAudio2..ctor()
    at XAudio2_GameVibePlugin.GameVibePlugin.PlayNote_GameVibe(IntPtr, System.Guid)
    at GameVibe.MyAudio.Note.PlayNote_GameVibe(IntPtr, System.Guid)
    at GameVibe.cls_ActiveNote.CreateNoise()
    at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(System.Object)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
    at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object)
    at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

    I completely understand you can't reproduce this issue, and it is most likely some combination of things specific to my PC, but I still hope you could keep this thing in mind for the future. I went to complain on SlimDX github but last contribution there was 8 years ago, so it is getting quite outdated...

    Cheers!

    PS: my previous diagnosis was incorrect, I have no idea what causes crash to reproduce :(
  5. yobuddy

    yobuddy Well-Known Member Staff Member Moderator SimAxe Beta Tester SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    Hi @The Iron Wolf,
    I originally created 2 audio plugins for GameVibe.
    The DirectSound one worked correctly only on XP, on anything else, and the volume would only be 1/3rd of what it was suppose to be.
    I saw allot of games that uses DirectSound even has this same problem on newer OS's.

    The other was the SlimDX plugin, while it worked on all OS, seems a bit challenged to startup sometimes.
    All in all thou its pretty future prof, as there is a plugin structure in place, so when I eventually get back to it, I only need to build a new plugin to add support for a new architecture.

    If there is interest (and I can find some time), I could probably open up the API to anyone that wants to build a new audio plugin for GameVibe.
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    Last edited: Sep 15, 2019
  6. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Active Member

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    There's nAudio library https://github.com/naudio/NAudio that we use in Crew Chief, but to be honest we've seen situations when it does not work well (default .NET audio is most reliable and lightweight, but is not flexible at all, it won't work for GV). Upside is that nAudio is newer than SlimDX. But I understood your point - if I am not happy with SlimDX, I'll have to implement plugin myself, because SlimDX works for most people. And yes, problem is startup, there's something wrong there.
  7. yobuddy

    yobuddy Well-Known Member Staff Member Moderator SimAxe Beta Tester SimTools Developer Gold Contributor

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    I played with NAudio some.
    I can't remember why I stopped at the moment.
    But I probably have something half dome around here somewhere lol.
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  8. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Active Member

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    Good to know you explored that direction. It is kind of low level'ish, and needs a lot of effort to get clean and right, but I hope maybe we will see something like an option in the future, where users can choose what audio engine to use. At least on paper nAudio seems promising as it supports ASIO, for example. I'll try to get a dump of my crash, maybe it'll give a hint why SlimDX/Xaudio2 crashes, really annoying issue, I really like SimTools otherwise, and do not want to get SimVibe.

    BTW, one more suggestion, would it be possible to add a button to Game Manager, to turn off motion? That's handy for transducer setup :)
  9. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    There is a button already, top left on Game Manager.
  10. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Active Member

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    that button, disonnects evertything. I'd like button to keep vibe, and turn motion off.
  11. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Honestly if it is just for Game Vibe setup then temporarily disable Axis Allocations, rather than add yet another button and option.

    If I have a concern at the moment, as someone who spends a lot of time answering member questions, it is that SimTools is fantastic feature wise for a very wide range of rigs and use cases, but is getting a bit unwieldy and intimidating for new users with all of the possible settings, options and features.
  12. Chipless

    Chipless Member

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    I recently setup GameVibe with four Dayton Audio exciters to run RPM effect with Automobilista 2, and I'm having a weird issue: While driving there is a distinct "snapping" noise/distortion which is quite loud and occurs at a regular interval (less than 1 second apart). When I press the "esc" key while driving, and get to the initial pause menu, the snapping noise stops, and the exciters rumble without any issues on the pause screen. Besides this obnoxious noise, everything else seems to be functioning just fine. Anyone have an idea how to fix this?
  13. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Could you please post pictures of all of your settings.
  14. Chipless

    Chipless Member

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    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
  15. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    Have you tried a cheap USB soundcard?
  16. Chipless

    Chipless Member

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    I have not. I can give that a shot and report back. Any specific recomendation for make/model?
  17. Chipless

    Chipless Member

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    While I await the USB sound card, I took a quick video of the distortion/crackling noise. I apologize that you have to turn the volume way up on the video. My original estimate of the frequency was way off; it crackles/snaps multiple times per second. The noise stops on the pause menu as you can see, but the transducers continue to rumble at the correct frequency. Quite perplexing.

    Last edited: Jun 4, 2020
  18. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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  19. Chipless

    Chipless Member

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    Thank you for the reply. I am in the US, so I ended up going with

    Also, I know the manual says to use a quadraphonic setup, but if I am only using a two channel amplifier for my transducers, can I setup things as just stereo? I tried it this afternoon, and didn't notice any difference, which means the crackling/snapping was not resolved, but I was wondering if there were any other potentially adverse effects from using a stereo setup rather than the quadraphonic in the manual.
  20. noorbeast

    noorbeast VR Tassie Devil Staff Member Moderator Race Director

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    My Motion Simulator:
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    It should still work, you just won't get 4 separate outputs.
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