SWAT 2 (GOG version) no audio in movies

[notbobsmith]

Hi,
I'm trying to run the GOG version of SWAT 2 in Windows 7 64-bit, but the audio in the movies is missing. The audio for the rest of the game is fine. The only information I've been able to find is that I might be missing an audio codec, but I'm not sure if I'm comfortable installing something from an unknown source. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. Thanks.

[Collector]

Did you ask on GOG's forum? The game probably uses the old Indeo codec. This codec ships with Win7, but is not registered by default, since there can be issues with it on modern systems. For some of their games that use Indeo, GOG has been disabling support for it in the games, too. I am not that familiar with how GOG has handled this game. If no one on GOG's forum can't help, you should contact GOG's support.

[Tawmis]

Did you ask on GOG's forum? The game probably uses the old Indeo codec. This codec ships with Win7, but is not registered by default, since there can be issues with it on modern systems. For some of their games that use Indeo, GOG has been disabling support for it in the games, too. I am not that familiar with how GOG has handled this game. If no one on GOG's forum can't help, you should contact GOG's support.

And whatever they tell you, if helpful - I'd love if you shared it here, in the event others come here, asking the same question.

[notbobsmith]

Thanks. I'll let you know what they say.

[NicoDE]

The audio stream is encoded with the Intel Audio Software (0x0402) codec.

Open a command prompt with administrative rights and execute:

Code: Select all

regsvr32 %windir%\SysWOW64\iac25_32.ax

[notbobsmith]

Yes! This worked. Thank you. At first I got an "Error Code 0x8000ffff" when I tried it the first time, but fortunately I reread your post and used administrator rights and it worked like a charm. And I had just sent a message to GOG support, too.

I'll see what GOG has to say. They had general support for audio issues for all games which included installing a codec pack from http://www.cccp-project.net/ but ended up making the video unplayable as well. Maybe they can add this to their support page.

Thanks again!

[Tawmis]

Thanks NicoDE - should we get this up on the Troubleshooting SWAT 2 bit on SHP somewhere, Collector? Could be a nice piece of info to have.

[NicoDE]

I'll see what GOG has to say. [...]

The story isn't that complex
(my wild guess is, that GOG.com just forgot to install the audio codec - because it worked on the test system )

Once upon a time, the Indeo audio/video codecs provided the best compression (quality per bit/size) and the decoders were installed by default on Windows 95 and newer.
There is no active development on the codecs, and it was only a matter of time until security related issues have been found: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/954157
So Microsoft decided to disable the codecs for security reasons. First only in the media player to support legacy applications/games. Later (Windows 7) the codecs files are present, but not registered.

There are not that much alternatives available. Even if disk space doesn't matter that much nowadays, the ancient Cinepak codec (also available since Windows 95) just doesn't provide the quality (due to technical limitations) of the Indeo codec.

For old games this is a problem, because very often the original raw video/audio sources are lost. And re-encoding already lossy compressed videos doesn't improve the quality (if you're lucky, you might nearly keep the original quality with minor additional compression artifacts - but you need modern codecs for this). So you have the choice between a) a security threat, b) loss in quality, or c) yet another codec.

note: for Linux it's even more worse, Indeo 5 is broken on Wine.

[notbobsmith]

Interesting. I guess it's inevitable that older titles are going to become increasingly difficult to run on modern systems. I just bought a new system and have been installing everything and have been pretty lucky so far. I'd read on the GOG forums people who convert the videos from SWAT 3 to address a similar issue. Luckily that seems to work fine for me. Thanks again for the help.

[notbobsmith]

This is what I got from GOG.com support:

1) Please make sure that you use "Run as Administrator" to install and to start the game (right-click on the shortcut or setup file and select "Run as Administrator").

2) Please reinstall the game and add it to your anti-virus/firewall software's exception/trusted list.

3) Install the June 2010 DirectX runtime package, then use the DirectX web installer.

You can find the archive file containing the 2010 package installation files here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... px?id=8109

You will have to extract the files into some folder, then open that folder and launch the DXSETUP.exe file in order to proceed with the installation.

Afterwards, download the latest DirectX web installer and use it as well:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... aspx?id=35

4) Please try installing the Combined Community Codec Pack:
http://www.cccp-project.net/

[NicoDE]

Hm, somebody used the standard reply button.
You cannot blame her/him. It's the job of the 1st level support...