Loom Glitch or is it my CD

[1agerace1]

When playing loom, everything appears to be working fine until I pick up the staff and play the second note on the scale. It makes a popping noise, playing half the note, pop noise, the rest of the note. The other notes on the staff work fine. It gets really annoying after a while, and takes away from the challenge because instead of recognizing the note, I recognize it because of the popping noise.

I tried many things to stop this, including creating an ogg file and not using the cd when I play the game.

Is this a glitch in the game, or is my CD bad? Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this problem?

Please help!

Sincerely,
Alex

[cde]

Try comparing the md5 sum for your game (000.lfl) to those on the page http://www.scummvm.org/documentation.php?view=md5

To save you a lot of scrolling, the MD5 hash for 000.lfl off the original CD should be

Code: Select all

5d88b9d6a88e6f8e90cded9d01b7f082 *000.LFL

if yours doesn't match, it is not a byte-perfect intact file

Other MD5 sums from my CD, which might help:

Code: Select all

6642640c52ac20a413d00ca4eb0a7144 *901.LFL
211bb92795b77f5782bcab5ff4cdd9c2 *902.LFL
0c60481ff858c0e8ab136adab5fa5bdc *903.LFL
6b26151489c428be7c45c25a16e7c902 *904.LFL
a2be3d9b4c9fceae8033a455d690c0ba *DISK01.LEC

(My first file matches the one listed so I hope the rest of my CD is OK)

To generate the hashes, http://www.md5summer.org/ is a good option, it can process any selected files in a folder and saves *.md5 files (open with notepad).

[eriktorbjorn]

It makes a popping noise, playing half the note, pop noise, the rest of the note.

...

I tried many things to stop this, including creating an ogg file and not using the cd when I play the game.

Since the notes - like all the rest of the sound - is part of the long CD audio track, have you checked if the popping sound is there if you play the Ogg Vorbis file as well? I believe they start at about 34:15 into the track. (Unless there are notes at other places in the track as well.)

[cde]

Good point, perhaps re-ripping your CD with software that reports all jitter errors would help? (I often recommend CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net - but any decent tool should tell you if things didn't go smoothly)

[1agerace1]

I checked the ogg vorbis file I created from the CD, and it also makes that popping noise at the spot you indicated. So, it sounds like it is a problem with my CD. Any solutions?

[cde]

Try re-ripping with different options for error correction, and wipe the disc clean (centre to edge, never circular) with a dry cloth. Huff on it a bit, but don't bother soaking it.

Again, recommending CDex, you can try various methods to fix issues. Just the drop-down menu shown should be enough options for most errors, but if the disc is scratched on the top (closer to the metal layer) the data could be gone



Also try ripping to WAV format, edit out the pop & silence with audacity, then encode the resulting file to ogg or mp3. It'll work out somehow!

[eriktorbjorn]

I checked the ogg vorbis file I created from the CD, and it also makes that popping noise at the spot you indicated. So, it sounds like it is a problem with my CD. Any solutions?

I don't have any direct experience with problems like that myself. I assume you've already checked for dirt on the CD surface.

I'm told some CD ripping programs are better than others at compensating for read errors. Which one to use depends on which operating system you're using, of course. I'm told cdparanoia has a good reputation in the Unix world, and Exact Audio Copy in the Windows world. I don't know about the Mac world.

[cde]

I have never used EAC, but the "paranoia" options in CDex are built on the cdparanoia code (I believe) and have saved my damaged audio CDs in the past.

On a Mac running OS X I would recommend hunting for any command-line versions of Unix tools since they have a good chance of working (well, being available for Mac command line at least).

Good luck!

[cde]

Another thought, if the CD turns out to be badly scratched or pitted on the underside, engineers have for many years used Brasso to polish rough edges off hard plastics.

Sounds weird, but again this has resurrected some (well, 2) of my CDs that were second-hand and pretty much unreadable. You need to hold the CD tightly down on something very flat and very solid, and rub firmly from (middle-to-edge-to-middle direction) over just the affected area (so maybe just 1cm strokes).

To fix a pinhead-size blemish it took me a few minutes rubbing several times a second, it makes you feel stupid but if it is the final solution for a CD that is about to get thrown out then it is worth it!

Be especially careful to use small amounts on very soft cloth, and clean with damp kitchen towels or more soft cloth, and bear in mind if you have a single piece of grit on the cloth you will scratch the CD and probably not know until you take the cloth away...

[criezy]

On a Mac running OS X I would recommend hunting for any command-line versions of Unix tools since they have a good chance of working (well, being available for Mac command line at least).

As it happens, cdparanoia has been ported to MacOS X. So for anyone having this problem on a Mac this might be a good try.

[1agerace1]

Thanks for all the great advise everyone. I made sure the disc was clean (I even used my CD cleaning kit for scratches) and reripped the sound tracks with the advise given. It still didn't work, so I used WavePad, a free sound editing software program and cut out the popping noise. It's tolerable now (I don't think I can ever get it perfect). Sad that I didn't take better care of my older games

Thanks again for everyone's help!