Leif

Hi Mocandino!

Windows 98 is not supported. I’m using Windows APIs which simply do not exist in Windows 98 – there’s no chance it will run.

However, any system fast enough to run Breakaway, will also support Windows 2000. Windows 2000 IS supported by Breakaway, so I would suggest upgrading to that.

Please note, Windows 2000 is *not* Windows ME. They’re two different things. Windows 2000 is part of the NT family (just as XP is), but Windows 2000 is significantly faster, lighter and smaller than XP, and an order of magnitude more reliable than Windows 98.

I would suggest installing Windows 2000 (Win2k) on the computer — that should take care of it.

If your radio automation program absolutely must use Windows 98, perhaps you could run it in a Virtual Machine under Windows 2000 (VMWare or Microsoft VirtualPC).

///Leif

Hi Oele!

I’d love to be able to make and sell a linux version, but I don’t know that it’s possible. The number of linux users is so small compared to the number of windows users, and even so the users are fragmented between a huge number of different, partially incompatible distributions. This makes development a nightmare — how could we test all these different distributions? Also, there’s the common-sense business question: Do users really want to pay even the extremely low price of $29.95 for Breakaway when the whole operating system and all other software they’re using is free?

Good idea regarding linking from leif.cx — I will redo that whole site at some point with a content management system (I’ve finally started to learn to use Joomla — welcome to the 21st century, Leif!) and once I’ve done that I’ll be able to update much more frequently.

///Leif

Hi Mandelmantis!

Good problem description, I see exactly what’s going on.

Breakaway only catches audio that comes from programs – not from the sound card.

Your TV card isn’t playing the audio through Windows the way normal programs do – instead, feeding it directly to the sound card. Therefore, it completely bypasses Breakaway.

The only workaround solution I could think of would be to use a separate program to get the audio from the sound card input, and then play it into the Breakaway Pipeline, so that Breakaway can intercept it and send it to the sound card output. However, this will likely cause too much delay to be usable.

I’ve seen some TV cards where it’s possible to choose what route the audio should take — either directly to the sound card, or through DirectSound (which means it’d be going through the Windows). If there is such an option on yours, then that should take care of it.

///Leif

Hi Anithamathan!

When you uninstall Breakaway, it’s really *gone*. Nothing is left behind – no drivers, no executables, nothing that could impact the sound.

One thing that could potentially have an impact is if Breakaway somehow got confused about what device to set as the default sound device in windows.

Please look in the Control Panel (Classic View) – Sounds and Audio Devices, click on the Audio tab, and make sure the correct sound card is selected.

It’s a very strange coincidence that both your and your friend’s computer are showing the same problem. I have installed and uninstalled countless times during testing, and never seen anything like this behaviour — in fact, this behaviour should be impossible! Once Breakaway is gone, it’s no longer there to alter the sound, for better or worse.

Because your and your friends computer are using the same sound card, I would guess that it’s also likely that you’re using the exact same driver version – perhaps you even helped him install it.

It’s a long shot, but it’s possible that there could be a problem with the driver. Breakaway never touches the driver or any settings relating to the driver, but breakaway does change the default sound device in Windows, to be able to route audio through the Breakaway Pipeline so that it can enter Breakaway for processing. So, we can’t rule out that the simple (and common) act of changing the default sound device got the driver into a confused state.

Please check to make sure the creative-specific audio enhancement such as CMSS, EAX, Reverb are in the state they’re supposed to be (not sure whether your preference is on or off).

Another possible explanation, could it be that you just got used to the improvement that Breakaway makes when running?

A lot of people have downloaded Breakaway, and the vast majority of people who download free software do exactly what you did – try it, and when the trial runs out, uninstall. Because of this, if Breakaway intentionally sabotaged anything, this very forum would be overrun with complaints. Wouldn’t be a very good way to run a business, would it 🙂.

///Leif

Hi Bassman!

Reinstalling should definitely fix it. In fact, you don’t even have to uninstall – just install again. That way, it won’t try to remove and reinstall the Pipeline driver, which could require a reboot.

///Leif