Hi Fellow Boomers,
I'm re-playing the boxed version of this game, and each time the voices cut off in mid sentence. I don't remember this happening when I played it on my old WIN XP pc. I'm playing it on WIN 10 presently. I found a patch so I applied it and it made the game completely unplayable. Uninstalled the game,then re-installed it. Still having the voice problem. I have read some reviews of this game which discuss the same problem, but no ideas of how to fix it. Although the sub-titles are effective, it still is very annoying I would appreciate some help with this. HAPPY GAMING!
Sandy

I don't really know how to fix the stuttering, but sometimes reducing video acceleration (aka hardware acceleration) helps with sound problems.
There are instructions that claim to be for Windows 10 as well as for 7 and 8 here
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/hardware-acceleration-windows-7
Also here
https://help.aol.com/articles/how-to-lower-hardware-acceleration-in-windows-7-8
but skip Step 6 where it tells you to reduce color depth from 32-bit to 16-bit -- you shouldn't need to do that and the game may not like being restricted to 16-bit.

If it doesn't work, you can always change it back.
Reboot after changes.

If you're adventurous, you can try using the DxWnd utility described in this YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Hi5UMhkuQ
since the problem may be due to different DirectX in Windows 10.

Seems like Sarahandus had problems with Scorpio Ritual in Windows 7, though the game was made for XP/Vista
http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/562707/8

Thanks, Jenny,
i'm going to try the "Reducing Hardware Acceleration" option first, and I'll let you know the results.
Sandy

Can't remember what game it was, but I had to update my on board sound card drivers before the voices would stop stuttering. I kind of doubt that is your problem though.

Hi Draclvr,
The sound problem that I'm having in this game is not "stuttering", but it
is the voice cutting out midway through each sentence. If it weren't for the subtitles, the game would be absolutely unplayable. I thank you for your input, though.
Sandy

Well, Jenny,
I found out that there is no "TROUBLESHOOT" tab for the display options in WIN 10, at least not in MY version, so I'll just have to live with the sound problems in this game. Thank you so much for your efforts.
Sandy

This might not be related to your problem but I have to ask anyway....

You say your game is the boxed version? DVD? Do you have to play with the DVD while playing the game, just curious because my DVD version I had to keep the DVD in while playing and I had a similar problem, I installed the No Dvd fix and all was good after that. Playing the game without the DVD spinning around solved my problem.

Hi Starcom,
It seems that I have the same version that YOU have (DVD, need disc in drive to play). Can you tell me where I can get the No Dvd fix? How does it work? It sure is worth a try. I really appreciate your input. Thanks so much.
Sandy

Hi Sanford,

If you are not comfortable with downloading via the Google search:

Chronicles of mystery-the scorpio ritual no dvd fix

I still have it as a zip file, I can send it to you,just follow the text file instruction, but make sure to copy the dll file in question before overwriting it just in case it does not work for you.

Thanks so much, Starcom
I googled "the watchmaker No Cd fix", and came up with 3 or 4 sites that turned out to be phony. One of them was gamecopyworld.com. It even had instructions to install the file, but the download link itself was "broken". I appreciate your help, and i'll look for your e-mail. I'll let you know if it works.
Sandy

Email is on it's way.

PS: sorry I addressed you as Stanford instead of Sanford, I need to take a long nap.

Thanks again, Starcom,
I think I need a nap at this point, too. In my reply above, I said "the watchmaker" instead of "the scorpio ritual". after I realized it I went back to Google, but got the same results as before, anyway. OH WELL! LOL
Sanford (Sandy)

Your fix worked like a charm. The voice clipping is gone, and I've turned off the subtitles.
Many thanks!

So the voice clipping was caused by the DRM?
Not unheard of, unfortunately.
Good to know what caused it.

Happy to see it worked for you Sanford, and Jenny100, I am not an expert like you or Draclvr and others but I don't think as you mentioned that the DRM was the issue in this case, from past experience it is the Stop and Go of the DVD player that causes the voice skipping, I have witnessed videos go crazy because of the constant spinning of the DVD player and as they get faster along with the speed of today's computers, the voice and videos cannot keep up with the game play.

Mind you I could be wrong in this case, but again, I have had this happen to me many times with the DVDs or CDs being used during game play and the cure was to find a No DVD fix, in the same fashion when one found a trick to Install the Entire game to one's Hard Drive to make the game play smoother.

Scorpio Ritual is from 2008, not the 1990's.
In the 1990's hard drives were small and game files like sound and video files were often not installed to hard drive. An 8X CD drive might read smoothly without noticeable pause, but a 52X drive would be constantly stopping and starting, and spinning up from 0 to 52X took a lot longer than spinning up from 0 to 8X. One older solution was a utility that slowed the drive speed and prevented the drive from spinning down.

By the early 2000's, games began having an option to fully install to hard drive, and eventually it became the default.

Early disc-based DRM would check the CD at the start of the game, but later DRM would check the disc several times during the game. Manufacturers also thought they were being smart by degrading gameplay if a valid disc was not detected. Sometimes this was called "trigger functions." Unfortunately it often didn't detect valid game discs due to variations in read speed in CD and DVD drives. So people who bought the game ended up with a buggy game while actual pirates just used the NoCD and had no bugs.

A game from 2008 like Scorpio Ritual is well into the time period when manufacturers were pulling these sorts of shenanigans.

A NoCD/NoDVD does not copy sound and video files to the hard drive, and games as late as 2008 offered a full install to the hard drive, albeit sometimes with crippled files. This NoDVD includes a dll as well as a fixed exe, which certainly suggests something more than a "simple disc check" is going on.

If this was a game from the 1990's or early 2000's, I might suspect hiccups due to reading off the CD/DVD drive. But in a game from 2008, especially considering it was a NoCD that solved the problem and not copying game files to the hard drive or playing from a mounted disc image instead of the DVD, I'm suspecting the DRM.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, like I said and I meant it, your are more of an expert than me, and it is fun to learn new things from people like yourself who take the time and have the patience to explain things, this DRM thing I did not know and I did not know the 1990s vs mid 2000 changes. Know I know and I will take note of the things you pointed out for future references.

Again, thanks for taking the time of your busy schedule to let me know, this is why I really love this Forum, great Mods. and great members, who could ask for anything more, between this forum and Mystery Manor, it feels like a family within a family.

Thank you. It is very nice of you to say so.

I second your thanks, Starcom !!

Jenny100 has helped me with so many technical issues - and always explains things in a way a techie dunce like me can understand