Sound Issues?

[Forrester]

Running Vista x86

GR:AW, BF2, BF2142, UT2K4, and whatever I play isn't affected. The only time I have an issue with another game is when I run BF2142 and have ventrilo running also. I get "the squeal" once in a great while and it's a split second thing.

In GR:AW2 I've tried everything except for "general hardware" because I purchase a X-Fi and my 8800GTX to be able to play with all the eye candy and ear candy I don't understand why GR:AW works fine and GR:AW2 doesn't.

no wonder with vista X86....lol

[Jodiuh]

BIOS update fixed the crackling,

and "high" setting instead of "medium" fixed the randomly missing footsteps on arroyo...

What board/bios? Also, what card are you running? Audigy: high/64 voices, X-Fi: xtreme/128 voices. There's a very large difference in # of sounds/immersiveness subjectively playing the game last night.

no wonder with vista X86....lol

So? I'm running Vista wo/ issue in BF2142, GRAW, and the Bioshock demo...all sounded flawless w/ no crackling on an X-Fi Elite Pro w/ P5B Deluxe. It's fine w/ the right hardware...

Edited August 21, 2007 by Jodiuh

[RudiJG1]

Perhaps this is old news, but my X-Fi under WinXP SP2 worked intermittently at best under GRAW 2, with crackles, screeches, and an occasional crash. The following worked wonders for me though.

First, my specs:

E6600

2GB Crucial PC 8500 DDR2 RAM

Abit IP35 Pro motherboard

EVGA 8800 GTX video

150 GB WD Raptor X SATA HDD

320 GB Seagate SATA HDD

X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro

WinXP SP2

The fix for me...your mileage may vary, of course:

Download and instll the PCI Latency Tool 3.1 v2 from guru3d.com

Launch the PCI Latency Tool, which will produce a window with all of your devices on the PCI bus, including the X-Fi soundcard

Select the soundcard in the Tool window and change the PCI latency from zero to 128

From the menu bar, select "Apply", "Save", and "Apply on Startup"

Exit the PCI Latency Tool

Reboot

After I applied this fix, all of my sound problems vanished, and GRAW 2 sounds terrific with the X-Fi recognized in game at "Extreme" settings and EAX enabled.

For those of you running the game with a X-Fi under WinXP but with sound problems...this may help. Good luck!

Rudi

[WDA_OPTIMUSPRIME]

Manufacturer: Magnell

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 Processor, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.8GHz

Memory: 2560 MB Corsair RAM

Hard Drive: Duel 70 GB Rators Raided 0 @ 10,000 RPM'S

Video Card: DUEL NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU

Monitor: HP 2335 23" LCD

Sound Card: SB X-Fi Audio 9000

Speakers/Headphones: Zalman 5.1 SS

Keyboard: logitech g15/Saitek X52 Flight Stick (USB)

Mouse: MX-518 Logitech

Mouse Surface: Razor gamming surface pad

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition 32 bit SP 2

I keep getting like 5 second lag on the sound when I shot or get killed. IS anyone else getting this in MP mode?

[ARDelta]

Select the soundcard in the Tool window and change the PCI latency from zero to 128.

Interesting... do you know why/how this worked?

[RudiJG1]

Select the soundcard in the Tool window and change the PCI latency from zero to 128.

Interesting... do you know why/how this worked?

No idea, frankly. I saw this metioned on a GR clan website that I've since lost the link to (originally Googled), so I thought I'd try it. The difference was astounding -- now I can actually appreciate this high-priced soundcard I've bought. When the X-Fi settings are maxed in the game, the atmosphere and effects are simply terrific....leagues better than settling for "Generic Hardware" or "Generic Software" as the sound device.

[Jodiuh]

Agreed 100% on the sound. It's def more immersing going from 32 to 128, hehe. I remember using the pci lat tool w/ my original Audigy. I'd set the NIC to 64 or 32 and the sound card @ 128 so it gets more priority on the PCI bus. It def helped back then.

I'll have an Abit IP35 Pro to play w/ over the weekend and will report back as to whether or not it crackles like the DFI.

[RudiJG1]

I'll have an Abit IP35 Pro to play w/ over the weekend and will report back as to whether or not it crackles like the DFI.

I love my Abit IP35 Pro and with this fix, there's been no crackles at all. Enjoy the board, which was a breeze as a new build platform for me.

[Jodiuh]

Oh that's no good. P5B Deluxe works wo/ fix.

[rickvs]

I know there's been sound issues on certain makes/models of soundcards, and I understand the frustration since sound is such an important element in this game.

But if you've read previous threads you know that we are looking into it and are working on a fix.

But those of you that have problems should try and set the sound to General Software as a temporary workaround.

I had the same problem, that it would not recognize my Audigy 4 and had poor sound guality. Playing around with the settings.xml file under the sound folder, I found that if I delete the line that says 'HACK DISABLE' for the Audigy, that the system recognizes my sound card and the sounds in the game improved dramatically.

[Jodiuh]

I love my Abit IP35 Pro...

That's the last time I buy a board wo/ at least an 8phase PWM and more than 4layers on the PCB. Abit IP35 Pro/DFI Infinity P965-S OC great, but both crackle in GRAW2 and BF2142/BF2. Asus P5B Deluxe and EVGA 680i don't crackle and OC almost as well.