Hello,

a new problem (maybe), refering to my thread 'Stuttering sound'.

after playing Emperor for some days now, the program crashes, module 'Mp3dec.asi'. Google brings up quite a lot of programs that have problems with this file (which belongs to the Miles sound system). I have the same file (same size, slightly different date) in Railroad Tycoon II.
Does anyone know if there are different versions in use, or is there a fix available? Someone proposed to change file 'dsound.ini', but there is no such file, and I do not want to mess with the installation.

Thank you.

I've never heard of this bug, nor encountered it in the few years I've had Emperor as a CD copy. You could try uninstalling the game, then reinstalling (your save games should be just fine, but back them up anyway just in case), which may fix the bug.

To check the problem with file 'Mp3dec.asi', I re-installed Emperor. And it showed that just setting the intro movie to 'no' and starting the game from a self-created desktop shortcut cured the problem I described in my thread 'Stuttering sound'.
So what is the difference between starting from the installed shortcut, and starting from a shortcut I made myself (UAC is turned off, I am the admin and only user)?

Besides, when the APPCRASHes with Mp3dec.asi accured, I had the German language installed and already finished all tutorials with the 'old' installation without problems. They occured when starting with the campaigns...

Has ayone else installed the German language pack and is playing the normal scenarios now (after going through the tutorials)?

And I checked: the German language pack does not touch the original file MP3dec.asi.

This really is an annoying problem...

You may have heard about regular crashes in the Pharaoh game, which were caused by an outdated version of mss.dll, which is responsible for processing sounds.
CRC32:0CF075E4 mss32.dll (Version:5.0r)
CRC32:1533C2F2 MP3DEC.ASI
Unfortunately, the fact that the replacement of mss.dll must be done in pairs with ... Mp3dec.asi is less known.

Recommended for replacement is a pair from Zeus+Poseidon v2.1
CRC32:9BD81E9D mss32.dll (Version:6.0m)
CRC32:FA4BC870 Mp3dec.asi
wdfiles.ru/e11658

While the Emperor is using
CRC32:571C3D8C mss32.dll (Version 6.0i)
CRC32:C7DCA687 Mp3dec.asi

Recall that the v1.1 Pharaoh patch added sound support to Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) to keep the game from crashing.

Recall that the "Slow Gods Animation" bug before the unofficial patch had the advice - Run Zeus in Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) Compatibility mode so that the sound in the Game does not work, due to the lack of Direct Sound (DirectX 6.1) support by this system.

Notice that obsessive "Version 6.x" pattern?
I believe "Miles Sound System Version 6.x" is compatible with "DirectX 6.x"
Which would explain why Pharaoh has a crash problem and Zeus and Emperor don't.
And all the same, in Emperor there is an earlier version of "6.0i" (and in Zeus 1.x-2.0 too, only v2.1 has "6.0m") dsound.dll is a DirectX 6.1 file located in C:/Windows
It does not need to be changed, because according to the dll-hijacking vulnerability (99% of programs before 2012), they first of all look for and load .dll from their native folder, and only then from the system folder.

The IndirectSound project is just rewriting dsound.dll

Looping audio problem
When you have more than 2 speakers (2.1 or 5.1 or 7.1 sound)
Also, modern sound cards can work in surround sound emulation mode.
Older games don't know what surround sound is.
Download "Version 0.12", unpack and move to the folder with the Game.
www.indirectsound.com/downloads.html
(or "Version 0.14" where EAX=off by default)
This dsound.dll replaces the native one from DirectX, like a wrapper, reconciles the old with the new.

#######################
Some sound quotes #######################
About dsound.dll v12 help fix pharaoh freezes
This confirms the hypothesis that mss.dll+Mp3dec.asi is only a consequence.
The true cause is in the emulation of the sound subsystem. #######################
Total
First change the pair mss32.dll+Mp3dec.asi from Zeus+Poseidon v2.1
But most likely this will not help and you will need to add dsound.dll in the game folder.