2012-07-14 08:58:38

As everyone probably knows the default "microsoft anna" voice for windows 7 isn't very good, but none of my sapi voices work on my 64bit system.  I tried the sapi voices that used to come with jaws and the "mike and mary" voices that come with audio quake but they don't work.  And i even tried a realspeak direct voice from the freedomscientific website, which doesn't work with sapi, as i expected, but i tried it anyway.  So any suggestions?  Since with some games you don't have any other choice than to use sapi (like road to rage, which is actually the main reason i'm making this post) it would be helpful to have a better voice.

2012-07-14 19:19:48 (edited by blindncool 2012-07-14 19:21:30)

I don't know. Yeah I could use some new SAPI voices for the family desktop: I get sick of hearing MS Ana when I play entombed or spoonbill games.
I bet even Microsoft Sam is better than anna, LOL. I even tried ESpeak! Did it work? No, of cource not!

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2012-07-15 23:13:21

Well, I think I have a solusion. First of all, you need the nvda screen reader. Then you need toaccess to nvda  plugin. This allows nvda to be used as a system access screen reader! This works in entombed but I'm not sure about road to rage. Well, anyway hope this works. I don't the link but a person on hear does. His name on hear is Chris. Well, I hope this works for you guys. When you download the plugin you will get a read me file that will tell you what to do with two of the files. But trust me it works with entombed.
From articuno.

the frozen cold, and the powerful light,
bind together, just as the fire and dark might,
they both tare apart the land, once so pure and grate,
but peace can be restored, we just have to stay firm and wait.

2012-07-16 08:49:26

sapi voices work just fine with 32-bit apps on 64-bit windows.
Getting microsoft mike, marry and sam is kind of annoying, you have to copy files, register dlls and edit the registry.
They won't show up in the default speech control panel. You have to run:

%windir%\syswow64\speech\speechux\sapi.cpl

2012-07-16 17:43:41

Hi. While I don't have a 64 bit Windows 7 computer I did find this post on the NextUp forum:
For those who are running games on 64 bit Windows 7 and do not like the default Microsoft Anna voice, I finally found a way to select and use other voices (e.g. Paul and Kate from Neospeech / Nextup):

Run C:\Windows\sysWOW64\speech\SpeechUX\SAPI.cpl

This brings up a window that looks just like the Text to Speech window in Control Panel, except that your third-party vendor's voices will also show up there and can be selected as Windows 7's default voice.

Credit: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For … d918799054

2012-07-18 22:28:27

Hi,

I would like to add to what Phil said. I've recently created a patch that will allow you to install the Scansoft Realspeak voices that came with Jaws 8, Jaws 9, and openbook 8 on a 64-bit computer. Go to
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com/down … taller.zip
and read the Readme file contained in the zip file. It will tell you how to get the Realspeak voices installed and working on a new Windows 7 64-bit machine.

You also can use the AT&T voices such as Crystal, Mike, Audry, Charles, Lorn, etc as well if you use the 32-bit control panel Phil mentioned above. Its not as straight forward as it use to be under Windows 7, but it can be done.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2012-07-20 19:34:34

Thanks tward!  It worked, i got my jaws sapi5 voices installed and selected daniel as the default voice.  Tspivey, can you tell me how to get microsoft mike working, or where i can get instructions to do it?  The realspeak sapi voices are good, but a bit unstable and tend to stop working sometimes, where mike never did that.

2012-07-21 05:12:53

Thanks guys. Now ESpeak works!

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2012-07-21 12:44:06

Wait, can you use ESpeak as a sapi voice?  How?

2012-07-21 17:01:30

Zakc, its realy not a good idea trying to install Microsoft Mike, Mary, and Sam on Windows 7 because they are built with a much older version of Sapi. In particular Sapi 5.1 and Windows 7 uses Sapi 5.4. I've heard horror stories where people installed Sapi 5.1 over Sapi 5.4 only to discover they broke things in the process because they were using an older version of Sapi than the version that is suppose to come with Windows 7.

As far as ESpeak goes there is a Sapi 5 version available from the Espeak website. If you go to
http://espeak.sourceforge.net
and look for the Windows release there is an installer for Sapi 5 which allows you to use ESpeak with all of your third-party Sapi applications. However, as with all other 32-bit Sapi voices you have to configure it using the 32-bit compatibility control panel and not directly from the 64-bit Windows control panel in Windows 7.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2012-07-22 06:12:29

Thanks again for the help, i installed espeak and it works.  I'll avoid those other microsoft voices if it will cause problems, i just need a more stable voice for cases where freedom scientific's sapi voices fail, but i'm sure espeak will work for this.

2012-07-22 17:49:41

Hi Zakc,

Yeah, I know what you mean. A lot of the higher quality voices are fine for reading books etc, but they suck when it comes to screen readers or anything that requires stability and faster response times. ESpeak might not sound as good as the AT&T, Realspeak, Cereproc, or Cepstral voices but it is very light wait, fast, and responsive. After I got use to the robotic voice it is the default speech engine on both my Windows and Linux machines for that very reason. big_smile

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2012-12-30 02:06:59

I have ESpeak on both my computers as SAPI5 voices, but I could really use a better one. does anyone have any voices that are free that sound good? I`d ask for scansoft voices, but I don`t know if you can get them for sapi5 without having the realspeak CD that came with jaws 8 and 9. and I don`t know if you can get them, but if they cost money. Because I could use them for something like entombed or battlezone. I hope someone can help.

2012-12-30 21:06:15

Unfortunately audiogames.net fan, the only way to get them for sapi is get the new vocalizer voices which are very! expensive, ie, 300 dollars for 2 voices, that's roughly 150 dollars per voice. I know it's stupid of them to do that since we blind people are pretty much the only people who use these voices and we don't have all that money to spend on such things. As for neospeech, Paul and Kate come bundled with zoom text regardless of demo or full version. I used to have it uploaded but it hogged up my space on dropbox so I really can't give it out directly. However, a demo is available directly from their website. I suppose just google zoom text and you should find it. Note, for some reason the voices start out as demos heaven knows why. But if you use them once with zoom text and maybe reboot it should be fine. If you're looking for Bridget I don't know how that can be obtained. There's a demo that you can get from neospeech but you do not!, want that demo since it is just as annoying as the cepstral demos, ie, it nags you every time you press a key, saying messages like this is a demo of voice text, your license has expired, or you do not have a valid license verification file and all that stuff. I'm guessing that if you get a uk version of zoom text maybe, just maybe, Bridget might come with that one. Another really good voice is ivona. They're still pretty expensive in the 40 dollars range, but still not as skammish as real speak's prices are. Now a really good one is loquendo, but loquendo has seriously changed throughout the years. You have to sign a disclosure agreement with them to even get the prices for those which is dumb, and I think they're only selling them to businesses and such. Plus they're up there as far as pricing. So am not sure how Katie got Dave. If you go to dectalk.com, go to artists, and Katie Matison, and parts 1 and 2 of the Jake and Katie series Jason was apparently done by loquendo Dave, and I think that in part2 there's a British loquendo voice as well. So yeah, it's a real shame that some of the really good sounding voices have gone up there with prices, since I hope they know perfectly! well that we're the only people who will be using them! So yeah, that's my two pennies on tts voices.

2012-12-30 21:33:27 (edited by BlackBird 2012-12-30 21:34:35)

Neospeech doesn't sell their voices to private customers anymore. Only to other companies. While neospeech was once the leader in voice synthesis competitors have finally catched up. Ivona is a good example of this. Their English voices, especially the British ones, are excellent. I love their Brian voice. The AT&T voices have been around for years but are still a good alternative as well.

You can try the Ivona voices out yourself on their homepage.

2012-12-30 21:51:14

And if you get aph's cd versions of their software most of them have a t and t Mike.

2012-12-31 19:14:34

I have Paul, Kate and Bridget. I also have Scansoft Tom, Jennifer and Jill.

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2013-01-01 01:56:20

Can you give them out? I asume not but there's no harm in asking I suppose.