Heroes III Sound Fix

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
Narzoul
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Unread postby Narzoul » 03 Jun 2008, 21:12

Pol wrote:Dependency walker told me, that you will need msvcp80.dll and msvcr80.dll, as outlined in "install visual c++ redistributable package" hint.

Afterward files should be presented in windows/system directory.
An excellent observation... I used Dependency Walker as well to determine which dlls you might need, but I carelessly overlooked "msvcp80.dll" - sorry about that.

I've uploaded another bunch of dlls for you here:
http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/dlls.zip

It's probably more than what you need, you should only need to put these 4 files in your game directory:
- mss32.dll
- mss32old.dll
- msvcr80.dll
- msvcp80.dll (this is the new one)

You should already have the first 3 of them, but copy them just in case too (overwrite files if necessary). If the game still won't run after that, you can try adding the rest of the files from the archive, too. If it still doesn't work, you can try putting "msvcr80.dll" and "msvcp80.dll" in your windows\system32 directory, as Pol suggested. (Might need to restart your comp afterwards.)

I hope this will really do the trick now. Sorry for all the file heaps and messes. I'll try to cut down on all these dependencies once I have some extra free time. As well as I might need to improve on the patch's stability a bit, as I've been having random crashes in game. (Not sure if it's caused by the patch, since I haven't really played much without it... anyone else getting crashes, with or without the patch?)

BigThingWithHolesInIt
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Unread postby BigThingWithHolesInIt » 04 Jun 2008, 18:29

Well.
I've tried it all and still no luck. Those other two dll's are now both in the game's directory and in windows/system32. Rebooted to make sure.
I forgot to mention that I have the Chronicles as well. ***.

I noticed something else that's odd though.
Image


See? Windows adds one or two lines under each filename, but fails to do so with the .dll from the fix. Could there be a conflict there?

I'm really sorry all your work hasn't achieved anything so far. Feel free to give up anytime, especially if you feel you can't really spare the time.

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 04 Jun 2008, 19:08

BigThingWithHolesInIt wrote: See? Windows adds one or two lines under each filename, but fails to do so with the .dll from the fix. Could there be a conflict there?
No. Don't let yourself to be distracted by this. It's meaningless anyway.

Can you change your locale settings to english?
(Just a try...)
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BigThingWithHolesInIt
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Unread postby BigThingWithHolesInIt » 04 Jun 2008, 19:37

Pol wrote:
BigThingWithHolesInIt wrote: See? Windows adds one or two lines under each filename, but fails to do so with the .dll from the fix. Could there be a conflict there?
No. Don't let yourself to be distracted by this. It's meaningless anyway.
Heh, ok I thought as much but you never know, right? At least I don't.
Can you change your locale settings to english?
(Just a try...)
What are locale settings exactly? Would it be a possible solution to the problem, or would it just clarify any further screenshots? Because I don't really plan on taking more of these... :D

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 04 Jun 2008, 19:41

Control Panel -> Regional Options -> Set locales to en. ;)
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The Archives | Collection of H3&WoG files | Older albeit still useful | CH Downloads
PC Specs: A10-7850K, FM2A88X+K, 16GB-1600, SSD-MLC-G3, 1TB-HDD-G3, MAYA44, SP10 500W Be Quiet

BigThingWithHolesInIt
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Unread postby BigThingWithHolesInIt » 04 Jun 2008, 19:46

Okay but what will that do exactly? Because I'd rather not change my entire system to English. I can read English books and all but once my comp starts making errors I'd rather hear them in my native language. So that's why I ask if it could actually solve anything with it... ;|

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 04 Jun 2008, 19:55

You can everytime change it back, just from the same place.

We are still seeking for reason, why your system is ignoring that dll... ;)
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PC Specs: A10-7850K, FM2A88X+K, 16GB-1600, SSD-MLC-G3, 1TB-HDD-G3, MAYA44, SP10 500W Be Quiet

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Unread postby BigThingWithHolesInIt » 04 Jun 2008, 20:04

Ok, just wanted to make sure. :)

I'll try changing it but not right now, probably tomorrow. *sigh* Still thanking you both for trying to resolve the issue!

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 04 Jun 2008, 20:21

It will not change your windows titles and descriptions but sorting, symbols and currency. I don't know if it will helps, but here is a certain way which coud explain, if it would. ;)
Last edited by Pol on 05 Jun 2008, 18:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby Narzoul » 05 Jun 2008, 18:08

Well, I have no idea why your system refuses to find those dlls, but it doesn't matter anymore. I've finally found out which compile option to change to statically link these dependencies to my dll. In plain English, this means you should no longer need any of those extra dlls (except for the usual mss32old.dll, of course).

Here's the recompiled patch for you:
http://people.inf.elte.hu/narzoul/mss32.zip

It's almost guaranteed to solve the problem now. Seriously. I think... I hope.

BigThingWithHolesInIt
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Unread postby BigThingWithHolesInIt » 05 Jun 2008, 18:51

How you did whatever you did I'll never know, but
Success!!

It finally works and the new sound is a revelation, to say the very least.
Thanks for everything! I'm going to enjoy the patch for years to come!

Thank you as well, Pol. This board is awesome.

:hail:

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 10 Jun 2008, 06:09

I uploaded newest version on the patch to CH. ;)
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Jack Necron
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Unread postby Jack Necron » 26 Oct 2009, 18:42

I had been wanting to do this for awhile and I am glad I read this thread. I just installed the DLL and it works fine on my WOG version.

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Continuity
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Unread postby Continuity » 01 Dec 2009, 00:37

This actually makes my H3 Complete crash at the starting screen, on Windows 7, using the Good Old Games version.

I didn't really notice any low quality sound in the first place though, so no big loss. Just figured if there was an improvement available, I'd take it.

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 01 Dec 2009, 07:22

Well this is from times of XP and born of Vista. The fix is changing h3 music played by game from mono to stereo and enhance its quality.

Could be, that older version of fix would work for you.

As could be, hypothetically, that you don't need it.

As a last resort, it can be slightly incompatible with W7 - I guess no one tested it before. :devious:
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PC Specs: A10-7850K, FM2A88X+K, 16GB-1600, SSD-MLC-G3, 1TB-HDD-G3, MAYA44, SP10 500W Be Quiet

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Continuity
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Unread postby Continuity » 01 Dec 2009, 20:14

Well, either it is problem with W7, or with the GOG.com version, or just something with my computer. I tried the older version of the fix as well, no luck. I feel like I don't need it anyway, sound seems fine for me.

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Unread postby Narzoul » 09 Jan 2010, 16:11

Long time since I last checked this place... I thought I had e-mail notification of replies enabled for this topic, but it either doesn't work or I'm doing something wrong.

Anyway, I checked the fix under Windows 7 and it really doesn't work. It shouldn't work under Vista either. I've found out why already, but it doesn't really matter anymore.

I've found a much better way of fixing the sound (music) quality problem. The whole mss32.dll messing seems to be unnecessary, as it only takes modifying 3 bytes in the game's executable file to get stereo/44100Hz playback in the game.

Now, as scary as that might sound, I actually expect this fix to be much more stable than the previous one (no extra crashes and other anomalies that would otherwise not be present before installing this fix). It is also independent of OS, codecs and other things which caused incompatibility for the previous fix under Windows Vista/7.

That said, the previous fix should be uninstalled and the original mss32.dll properly restored before installing this new fix. The fix should work even if you don't do that, but it would be pretty useless as music playback would still be handled via the older patch using DirectShow.

Here's the link to the new fix, with a readme included for more information:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/homm3/ ... sndfix.zip

Don't worry, you shouldn't have to bother with HEX editing anything yourself, a patcher is included which should do that for you. Refer to the readme file for installation instructions.

Testers and feedback are welcome, as always. I'll keep checking this topic more regularly as e-mail notification doesn't seem to work for me... but just shoot me an e-mail if I don't respond to something here for a few days. (Contact info is in the readme file as well.)
Last edited by Narzoul on 09 Jan 2010, 17:31, edited 1 time in total.

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Pol
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Unread postby Pol » 09 Jan 2010, 17:03

Done, it's up.

Thank you for the update sir! :D

The fix is working for me although I applied it over previous one.
"We made it!"
The Archives | Collection of H3&WoG files | Older albeit still useful | CH Downloads
PC Specs: A10-7850K, FM2A88X+K, 16GB-1600, SSD-MLC-G3, 1TB-HDD-G3, MAYA44, SP10 500W Be Quiet

Narzoul
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Unread postby Narzoul » 09 Jan 2010, 17:30

Pol wrote:Done, it's up.

Thank you for the update sir! :D

The fix is working for me although I applied it over previous one.
Thank you, Pol!

Yes, the fix will install correctly even if you still have the old fix installed. You can remove the old fix afterwards too.

Once the old fix is uninstalled, the game will once again use the built-in mp3 decoding and playback functions, which should improve compatibility and stability. Yet they will also provide you with full quality music playback, now.

Apparently, the problem wasn't with the mp3 decoder or the music playback functions of the game. It was simply that the Wave Out device was opened at 22050 Hz / single channel mode. This fix simply changes those parameters to 44100 Hz and 2 channels, and that alone seems to be enough to get proper, full quality stereo music playback in the game. No need to resort to DirectShow and external decoders anymore.

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Continuity
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Unread postby Continuity » 25 Mar 2010, 20:24

This worked perfectly. Thanks.


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