Larian Studios
Posted By: Scott Lufkin My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 12:06 AM
Every action, voice, or even sound effect/ambient noise is echo-y. It wasn't like this a few months ago when I played an earlier version of the game, and I see a few days ago some other users referenced it, too.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=502331

It happens everywhere, not just in buildings or caves, and even in caves I don't think I would like the effect - is there any sort of way to fix this, by chance?

My sound card is a Xonar Xense PC350, and it has updated drivers, and I'm running Windows 8 64-bit. Thanks!
Posted By: Wagna Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 12:34 AM
Same here, Windows 7 64 bit, Creative SB X-Fi

I can't tell for sure for the sound effects, but I especially notice it with NPC dialogues: Everybody sounds like he is speaking in a church. The echo effect is even stronger when in caves (which is most likely intended). NPC dialogues are a bit too loud / too easy to hear when far away. In some places in Cyseal it gets really annoying because you almost can't concentrate on the game itself anymore when there are 3+ NPCs talking including a funky echo sound effect at the same time.
Posted By: bubbabugs Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 12:52 AM
This problem was reported numerous times during beta. At some point, the echo sound effect gets permanently turned on for every sound effect. Inside caves, there is another layer of echo applied resulting in quite a racket during speech. You can even turn all volume controls in the game to 0 and still hear just the echo effect, which is more evidence that an effect flag is getting stuck somewhere. Hopefully, the devs will have a fix soon.
Posted By: Scott Lufkin Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 01:39 AM
Hopefully, it's very distracting and it wasn't a problem previously!
Posted By: James 540 Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 02:26 AM
Yeah I encountered echo-y effect in the main menu.
Posted By: Campor Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 08:12 AM
This issue started for me right from the start, and it's everywhere. I can't even distinguish the character voices at creation because everything echoes so badly, let alone the sound effects in-game. It's a real pain. Any solution would be greatly appreciated.
Posted By: Oztrich Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 09:41 AM
This is a pain. All volume sliders dropped to 0 and get uncontrollable echo effects on everything.
Posted By: Raze Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 10:36 AM

Please email supportdos@larian.com, with a description of the problem and the report.zip file generated by the D:OS support tool. This file will contain system information and game settings, etc, which will hopefully help Larian identify the problem.
The report also contains your saves, which are not really relevant, so most can be deleted from the zip to reduce files size.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 11:21 AM
I have the exact same issue too, it is very disturbing. I have an Asus Xonar D2 if that matters.
Posted By: Oztrich Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 11:38 AM
Originally Posted by Raze

Please email supportdos@larian.com, with a description of the problem and the report.zip file generated by the D:OS support tool. This file will contain system information and game settings, etc, which will hopefully help Larian identify the problem.
The report also contains your saves, which are not really relevant, so most can be deleted from the zip to reduce files size.


Cheers, done. Happy to assist with testing if required.
Posted By: Wagna Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 01:51 PM
Originally Posted by Raze

Please email supportdos@larian.com, with a description of the problem and the report.zip file generated by the D:OS support tool. This file will contain system information and game settings, etc, which will hopefully help Larian identify the problem.
The report also contains your saves, which are not really relevant, so most can be deleted from the zip to reduce files size.


Thanks for the tip, I have created the report and I attached some sample recordings of the problem. Let's see....
Posted By: PatrickSJ Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 02:21 PM
Is there a similar tool for the Mac OS? All of a sudden I'm getting the same effect.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 01/07/14 02:44 PM
Rarely, when I set the audio channels in my Xonar driver from 8 to 2, the DOS sound suddenly gets a lot quieter so I have to turn the volume from 11 to 40. It also decreases the echo effect to an almost playable state, though still distracting. Maybe this information can help you guys at Larian?
Posted By: DarkDoozle Re: My sound is echo-y! - 02/07/14 12:09 AM
I may quit playing because the npc chatter cannot be toggled. Its ridiculous. I hope there is a fix or the game is unplayable. I modified everything in my sound settings and turned all sliders to 0 willing to play it in silence and still its so loud I wanna kill myself, arrrrgh im aggravated
Posted By: KnightPT Re: My sound is echo-y! - 02/07/14 12:12 AM
Originally Posted by oxxgen
I have the exact same issue too, it is very disturbing. I have an Asus Xonar D2 if that matters.


I have a Xonar DX and have the same problem, the whole sound has a strange echo, even if I disable every filter in my soundcard, 3d effects, >2 channels, etc.

Tested with headphones with only stereo and everything disabled (Dolby, etc) and it's the same.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 02/07/14 07:29 AM
It seems that as soon as you're entering an area with an echo (houses, for example, have a slight echo effect), this echo effect doesn't get disabled when you leave. Maybe there's just this simple switch missing in the code?

Examples:
Entering a house. Slight echo effect is activated. Leaving the house, slight echo effect stays on for the rest of the game.

Entering a cave. Strong echo effect is activated. Leaving the cave, strong echo effect stays on for the rest of the game.

When entering multiple areas with echo effects, the echo seems to stack.

Posted By: FadeToBlack Re: My sound is echo-y! - 02/07/14 08:14 AM
I played with my Dolby Surround 5.1 System and had no problems. Then I took my G630 Headset and had the echoey voices.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 03/07/14 05:11 PM
Originally Posted by KnightPT
Originally Posted by oxxgen
I have the exact same issue too, it is very disturbing. I have an Asus Xonar D2 if that matters.


I have a Xonar DX and have the same problem, the whole sound has a strange echo, even if I disable every filter in my soundcard, 3d effects, >2 channels, etc.

Tested with headphones with only stereo and everything disabled (Dolby, etc) and it's the same.


I have done a little workaround for myself (I'm using headphones), maybe it works for others too. This is how it works:

1. Open up your sound card driver menu (in my case it is the Xonar D2 Audio Center)
2. Make sure the audio channels are set to 8 before you start Divinity: Original Sin
3. Start Divinity: Original SIn
4. Load your savegame or better, hit Continue
5. Switch back to your sound card driver menu
6. Set the audio channels to 2, then switch back to DOS
7. The sound volume of DOS now should be way lower than before, so turn it up yourself ingame

This should reduce the echoes. Don't forget to switch the audio channels back to your preferred number when you're finished playing DOS!

If this doesn't help I'm clueless, sorry frown
Posted By: Duracell Re: My sound is echo-y! - 03/07/14 08:00 PM
I have just bought the game via steam, i have the same ecco problems.
I noticed them at the very beginning at the game when creating chars and chosing voices ...
Its totally annoying, and makes the game unplayable. The Ecco problems keep going each time a character speaks.
I have even two computers, a stationary and a laptop, with two diffrent sound devices on, and im getting the same problems on both.

Hoping for a fix soon so i can play this awesome game.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 04/07/14 07:44 AM
In this thread Icedragon posted another workaround. Maybe this can help you.

Originally Posted by Icedragon
If i turn any of the sliders down, i get echo when people are talking, my wourkaround now is to set all the sliders to max and then use the windows soundmixer to lower it.


Edit: Tested it and went for caves, then I teleported myself back to the first town. Icedragon's workaround works very well (better than my one). I highly recommend testing it yourself. It perfectly solves the problem without much effort.

Edit 2: After around 3 hours of playing, the echo effect bug starts getting hearable again. Not much of a problem though.
Posted By: Campor Re: My sound is echo-y! - 04/07/14 11:26 AM
Originally Posted by oxxgen
In this thread Icedragon posted another workaround. Maybe this can help you.

Originally Posted by Icedragon
If i turn any of the sliders down, i get echo when people are talking, my wourkaround now is to set all the sliders to max and then use the windows soundmixer to lower it.


Edit: Tested it and went for caves, then I teleported myself back to the first town. Icedragon's workaround works very well (better than my one). I highly recommend testing it yourself. It perfectly solves the problem without much effort.

Edit 2: After around 3 hours of playing, the echo effect bug starts getting hearable again. Not much of a problem though.


This worked for me too, surprisingly enough. Really appreciate it, the echo was getting on my nerves after well over 10 hours of play. =P
Posted By: Wagna Re: My sound is echo-y! - 04/07/14 08:32 PM
I can confirm too this workaround removes the echo for me, or at least makes it not noticeable anymore for me. I got curious when I read this and I tried to replicate the issue by lowering the voice volume and creating a savegame in the first (tutorial) dungeon and returning to the main menu, loading again, etc. After some load-return cycles I have an echo in the character selection screen which then can be removed again by the "full-volume" workaround.

I was contacted from Larian support today regarding this issue and they asked me some questions about it. I answered them and send them my findings above and pointed them to this thread. So they are aware of the problem so I have high hopes this will be patched out soon.
Posted By: PatrickSJ Re: My sound is echo-y! - 04/07/14 08:34 PM
Hm, turning all of the sound options to 100 does not fix it for me.
Posted By: Xelian86 Re: My sound is echo-y! - 05/07/14 01:17 AM
The channel workaround did not work for me either. What did work for me was lowering my audio quality in my Realtek HD Audio Manager. I had mine set on max but I lowered it to 24bit 44100hz which fixed it. Other levels worked also.

I noticed as well that the sound echo definitely started happening after I lowered the volumes in game so I could hear my friend on axon as we were playing together.

I'm only posting this to give the people something else to try if the volume 100% trick did not work. Hope this helps someone.
Posted By: Duracell Re: My sound is echo-y! - 06/07/14 05:03 AM
Thx alot that worked for me smile
Posted By: Eggnog Re: My sound is echo-y! - 07/07/14 06:50 PM
Yes. Turning all sound to max settings and using Windows to adjust the volume is the workaround that works for me as well. I hate to do it that way because I might start the game with my Win volume up higher than I would want it in the game, but whatever works, I guess.
Posted By: oxxgen Re: My sound is echo-y! - 10/07/14 08:17 PM
Originally Posted by Eggnog
Yes. Turning all sound to max settings and using Windows to adjust the volume is the workaround that works for me as well. I hate to do it that way because I might start the game with my Win volume up higher than I would want it in the game, but whatever works, I guess.


You can adjust the volume of a specific program with the Mixer. No need to turn down the general slider. It also saves your setting, so you only need to lower the volume of DOS in the mixer once and then never again.
Posted By: Blazzok Re: My sound is echo-y! - 11/07/14 01:15 PM
Setting in game sounds to max then controlling windows audio did not work for me either.
I also tried to lower the audio quality/sampling rate from 48kHz down to 44kHz, which did not work.

I did find something that works however, but isn't really viable for me.
I have the CoolerMaster Storm Sirus 5.1 headphones, which, as the name suggests, are 5.1 surround headphones. The headphones come with their own bundled software where you can change a lot of settings.

What removed the echo for me completely was changing the headphones from 5.1 Surround to Stereo. However doing this results in my audio being extremely quiet, to the point where maxing out all audio settings still leaves it quiet.

So although this does work, I'd rather stick with the echo than not hearing anything.

I'll use the tool and submit a report as was mentioned in one of the earlier reports.
Posted By: eNTi Re: My sound is echo-y! - 25/08/14 07:57 PM
same here. this game is so fking buggy.
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