[PerryPlatypus]

James,

I think you may have nailed it on the head with the problem being related to Open AL. I hadn't noticed before, but every time I have gotten an error since then, I see mention of Open AL (and as mentioned before, this can occur even when the Task Manager indicates I have 2 GB or more of available RAM). Just for the sake of understanding things better, what do you mean by Open AL being "native"? Does that imply it is part of the Open Rails install, or something else? Is there any way to make Open Rails use a different component to play sound, or would that be an extremely complex task involving re-writing the whole sound code for Open Rails? I have tried reducing the Sound Detail level, and that does not solve the issue. I think it may have to do with OR not being able to easily handle these long freight trains with dozens or even hundreds of pieces of rolling stock fighting to output their own audio.

For the record, I very frequently can hear weird effects with the sounds, such as my engines sounding like jet airliners taking off (I presume from having the same sound playing simultaneously from multiple locomotives) and I experience a great deal of scratchy static background, which would seem to me as evidence of the game being overloaded with too many sounds.

It is rather disheartening, as I usually cannot run an activity for more than about 30 minutes without a crash, and that is while staying in the cab. Frequent camera movements around the train usually kills the simulation within 5 or 10 minutes tops. :( I do hope that some manner of priority can be given to tracking down what is causing this.

EDIT: I have been able to duplicate an error over and over at the exact same location on the Horseshoe Curve route. I get the error regardless of Sound Detail level, and regardless of whether MSTS Bin Compatible sound is on or off. Attached is a log file for that error.

Attached File(s)

•  OpenRailsLog.txt (284K)
  Number of downloads: 260

[James Ross]

 PerryPlatypus, on 02 June 2016 - 04:16 PM, said:

Just for the sake of understanding things better, what do you mean by Open AL being "native"? Does that imply it is part of the Open Rails install, or something else? Is there any way to make Open Rails use a different component to play sound, or would that be an extremely complex task involving re-writing the whole sound code for Open Rails? I have tried reducing the Sound Detail level, and that does not solve the issue. I think it may have to do with OR not being able to easily handle these long freight trains with dozens or even hundreds of pieces of rolling stock fighting to output their own audio.

By "native" I mean that the OpenAL component uses a language without as much memory safety as Open Rails itself - OR is written in C# and .NET, which means we can't corrupt memory ourselves, but we can corrupt memory when we talk to a native component (whether that is OpenAL, operating system functions, or something else). The problem might be a bug in the way we talk to OpenAL, a bug in OpenAL itself, or something less likely like your sound driver doing something odd.

Unfortunately, I don't know of much you can do to help except to turn sound off entirely (sound detail level of 0). :(

 PerryPlatypus, on 02 June 2016 - 04:16 PM, said:

EDIT: I have been able to duplicate an error over and over at the exact same location on the Horseshoe Curve route. I get the error regardless of Sound Detail level, and regardless of whether MSTS Bin Compatible sound is on or off. Attached is a log file for that error.

I know it is not ideal, but does it still crash if you have sound detail set to 0?

[PerryPlatypus]

So it turns out that I did not check every Detail Level, as I had just made a sweeping assumption. I just ran that Horseshoe Curve spot again, I managed to not get any error when at a Detail Level of 1 for sound (and as expected, 0 gave no issues as well) I repeated a few times with Level 1 and higher levels and I am getting 100% consistent results (Levels 0 and 1 give no problem, anything higher than 1 results in a crash), so for now, even though it is not ideal, I will be sticking to Detail Level 1 until a solution can be figured out.

For what it's worth, this error occurs consistently as I approach the first crossing encountered when I start at Alto heading towards Johnstown (probably 20 or 30 meters before the crossing).

If I were to discover it was due to my dated sound drivers that could be easily updated, that would be amazing news. :) In fact, I tried updating the sound driver a couple days ago for this reason, but I ended up really boogering it up (sound would not play at all, my system would not recognize any drivers) so I was forced to revert back using a Restore Point. I am not knowledgeable at all about sound drivers when it comes to how to tell what specific upgrades exist for my specific system. I do not know whether I need an ultra-specific driver for my specific sound card and operating system, or what it comes down to... I don't even know for certain how to find the real name for my sound card haha.

[Jovet]

 PerryPlatypus, on 06 June 2016 - 01:31 PM, said:

I don't even know for certain how to find the real name for my sound card haha.

A quick place to look is the Device Manager. You can find that in the "System" Control Panel.

If you want (lots) more (detailed) information, you can grab a utility like HWiNFO.

 PerryPlatypus, on 06 June 2016 - 01:31 PM, said:

If I were to discover it was due to my dated sound drivers that could be easily updated, that would be amazing news. In fact, I tried updating the sound driver a couple days ago for this reason, but I ended up really boogering it up (sound would not play at all, my system would not recognize any drivers) so I was forced to revert back using a Restore Point. I am not knowledgeable at all about sound drivers when it comes to how to tell what specific upgrades exist for my specific system. I do not know whether I need an ultra-specific driver for my specific sound card and operating system, or what it comes down to...

If your computer came off the shelf, then you should check the manufacturer's website for your model of computer and updated drivers.

If that is not the case or is insufficient, then with the knowledge of what exact sound hardware you are dealing with, you should be able to search the internet to find the manufacturer's web page and get drivers from it.