Locating an aircraft's sound files

[JaneyBananey]

Hello!

So, about a year and change ago, I posted about the horrible frankenstein of an install I used to make Wings Over Europe, the Steam version, run on Windows 10. You may be delighted and/or terrified to hear that it both runs and runs well, and is stable.

However, I have encountered a different issue.

I would like to fly the Hawker Hunter. The vanilla engine noise it ships with is absolutely horrible, to the point of making the aircraft unflyable. Being the spiffy little autodidact that I am, I went into the game's root folder, into the objects subfolder, and within it, tried to locate the sound folder so that I may replace the engine sounds. Yes, I checked the game's basic Sounds folder, and the engine sound for the Hunter specifically, among a few other aircraft, isn't there.

The HunterFGA9 folder contains only three files: RAFCamo1, HunterFGA9.ini, and the .bmp image of the aircraft in the hangar. I rummaged around the .ini file to try and locate a directory that it is pulling the sounds from, to no avail. There is a reference inside of said .ini to another .ini by the name of HunterFGA9_data.ini, but I could not locate this anywhere. Clearly, it exists, as the aircraft is flyable in game, but god help me if I can find it.

So, in the briefest possible terms: How can I replace the God-awful engine noise from the Hunter (and multiple other aircraft) with something less ear-bleed-y?

[+Muesli]

In:

[drive letter]:\[game folder]\Sounds

[JaneyBananey]

5 hours ago, Muesli said:

In:

[drive letter]:\[game folder]\Sounds

Sadly not. No sound in that folder corresponds to the engine sound used by the Hunter. The only three engine sounds in there are the A4, the F-100, and the Thunderchief, the first of which is odd as it is not a flyable in WOE at all to begin with.

[Gatling20]

If you look in the Hunter's Data.INI file you will see lines:

EngineSoundName=JetEngine
AfterburnerSoundName=JetBurner

These are stock SF sounds, which are in one of the CAT files. The sim extracts and uses these if there is no sound WAV file of the same name in your Sounds folder.

To change the Hunter's engine sound, edit the Hunter's Data.INI to read EngineSoundName=JetEngineHunter (or whatever you want to call it), then copy the sound file you want to use to your Sounds folder and name it as JetEngineHunter.wav (or whatever you called it).

 

..

Edited September 4, 2024 by Gatling20

[JaneyBananey]

20 hours ago, Gatling20 said:

If you look in the Hunter's Data.INI file you will see lines:

EngineSoundName=JetEngine
AfterburnerSoundName=JetBurner

These are stock SF sounds, which are in one of the CAT files. The sim extracts and uses these if there is no sound WAV file of the same name in your Sounds folder.

To change the Hunter's engine sound, edit the Hunter's Data.INI to read EngineSoundName=JetEngineHunter (or whatever you want to call it), then copy the sound file you want to use to your Sounds folder and name it as JetEngineHunter.wav (or whatever you called it).

 

..

Right, makes sense. Secondary question: where is the data.ini located? Because the only file in the objects->aircraft->HunterFGA9 folder is the HunterFGA9.ini, which does point to a HunterFGA9Data.ini file, but this does not exist anywhere in the sim's actual install.

[Blade]

28 minutes ago, JaneyBananey said:

Right, makes sense. Secondary question: where is the data.ini located? Because the only file in the objects->aircraft->HunterFGA9 folder is the HunterFGA9.ini, which does point to a HunterFGA9Data.ini file, but this does not exist anywhere in the sim's actual install.

First, you need to download and install the Cat File Extractor. Run the extractor, select the ObjectData.cat file (it is located in <YourGameFolder>\Objects), browse until you find the HunterFGA9_data.ini file, then extract it. It will appear in the folder the cat file resides in (<YourGameFolder>\Objects).

Edited September 5, 2024 by Blade

[JaneyBananey]

21 hours ago, Blade said:

First, you need to download and install the Cat File Extractor. Run the extractor, select the ObjectData.cat file (it is located in <YourGameFolder>\Objects), browse until you find the HunterFGA9_data.ini file, then extract it. It will appear in the folder the cat file resides in (<YourGameFolder>\Objects).

Brilliant! This worked, thank you so much!

Alas, this is very much a case of "closes a door, opens a window" as I did manage to replace the Hunter's engine sound...but another issue reared its ugly head. The sound loop for the engine is so short that it chops up any sound file I put into it and gives it an audible "peak", after which it loops. This results in a horrible clicking sound. Anything I can do to lengthen the engine noise loop?

Edited September 6, 2024 by JaneyBananey