Naming and Mapping the Gods conference

Last year in April there was a conference that was meant to take place in Toulouse, France in which I was going to participate. Because of the pandemic it was postponed 10 months and is now completely virtual. We had to record our talks, and then between Feb 10 and Feb 12 we will be giving a brief reiteration of our papers followed by Q/A. You can watch the recordings on the project website, but you have to register first. Here is the website: CLICK

There are so, so many wonderful papers being presented, and you have the added benefit of checking them out at your convenience.

Click on this image to view the program:

Troubleshooting USB mic on Windows 10

This is another tech post about issues that maybe others are facing. I know, totally boring, but potentially useful. My cardioid microphone from Piy Painting arrived – no rat traps this time! It’s a plug and play USB mic. It has a sturdy base, pivots well on it, and it has a dial for volume, modest size. Pretty simple. That is, until you try to use it with the Windows 10 operating system.

I tested the mic using Audacity, and noticed the sound volume was very low, even with the microphone itself turned up to maximum volume. I went into my system sound properties, and set the microphone input level to 100%, but the audio was still very low. To the internet! I researched this problem, and it seems to be a common one, but it is very difficult to find any solutions.

A fellow gamer friend of mine told me he was having similar issues and assumed that’s just the way it was. Doubtlessly, there are numerous others out there facing the same issue. Apparently, it has everything to do with Microsoft. I read that with the release of Windows 8 and subsequently Windows 10 the sound drivers were not equipped to support USB microphones. Windows 7 was, but for some reason only Microsoft knows, this was discontinued in the latest operating system releases.

Therefore, this is the root of the problem with low input volume. There’s no driver fix, but there is a workaround, which I found here: CLICK. It provides the download links for the two programs required, and they are safe.

You need to download two related softwares, and configuring the base sound levels in the second of these, Peace, will solve the audio issues. It worked for me, and hopefully it also works for you. I recorded my third video with my mic, and the volume worked absolutely fine. Unfortunately, I forgot to plug in my headset, and so the separate voice audio file picked up the game audio as well. Nice fail, Briana. I guess video four will have to be the charm...

The third video will be posted Saturday or maybe some time during the week after. Research comes first, after all! In the upcoming video, I finish Mission 2: Thinis. Then, I will move on to Mission 3, which takes place in a city called Per-Wadjet. With that video, I will start putting up complementary blogs about the ancient sites I encounter in the game. You know, something a bit more interesting perhaps?