Sound Problem

You're not alone. I've got a Soundblaster X-Fi card and it's doing the exact same thing. Looks like they've got some basic sound issues with this game.

Turn off sound hardware acceleration in user.setting.

That doesn't solve the issue.

I tried reinstalling the game, and it worked for the first time it loaded after installation, but every time after that the noise problems started up again.

This static-like sound is driving me insane. Nothing I do works. The sound cuts out a lot and makes tons of crackly noise.

There has to be a solution. If there isn't a solution on my end there has to be one on the game's end.
I've tried all the recommended fixes and none of them work, I'm at the end of my rope here.

Hi Silfarion,

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the sound

I know you said you've tried all the recommended fixes but I just wanted to let you know what the current list of "things to try" with crackly sound looks like:

1) Go to the sound settings and move the sliders on to cause a quick volume reset.
2) Make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card
3) Make sure you don't have something strange running in the background (youtube always causes problems for me).
4) Turn bloom off if you have it on. Try turning down your graphics settings.
5) Open your user settings file (in the Settings directory of the game install directory) and set SoundUseHardware to TRUE.
6) Go to your Sound and Audio Device Properties in control panel then to the Audio tab and go to the advanced Sound playback and on the Performance tab set Hardware acceleration to standard.
7) Check if the problem still exists in windowed mode (video settings)

Most of the problems people have had with the sound have been resolved with one of these. The static sound is usually a result of the game not being able to get sound data to your sound card fast enough for some reason - often because the amount of data it is pushing to the video card is hogging the system bus, so turning down your graphics settings can help alot.

Failing that, could you post the name of your Asus board?

Thanks

I've tried all of those, and none of them work. Right now, the only solution is to start and quit the game over and over until on one of the start ups it works. It usually takes 4 or so tries to get the sound to work, and then it works fine until I close it again.

The motherboard name is: p4p800-e Deluxe

Hi Silfarion,

Have you had a look around the web for alternate solutions? I came across a couple through Google that looked like they might be helpful:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/motherboards-bios-cpu/46336-p4p800-onboard-sound-static-crackling-noise.html

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20061221092911305&board_id=1&model=P5N32-SLI+Premium&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Disclaimer: I have no idea if these will work or not.

Hiya,

I tried both of those solutions, with no luck. Normally, I'd expect this crackly sound to be from an overflow of information, but it does this even when there should be little to no information going through at the time. And this wouldn't explain why it works sometimes, but not all the time. My first guess would be a motherboard problem, but since this is the only game I experience this problem on, I doubt that would be the case.

My sound drivers are all updated as well. I'm completely clueless as to what could be wrong.

I have searched somewhat on the internet with no luck.

Damn. Can you send in a dxdiag to [email protected] with a link to this thread? I'll have a look through and see if there's anything that jumps out.

BTW, another cause of this problem (although pretty rare) is having problematic drivers for some USB devices, so as a test you could try unplugging any non-essential peripherals.

Just out of curiousity, what other games are you running that don't have problems?

I suggest that you do a search on my post about this issue Psugar and you will see I have teh exact same issue. The only thing that works with this game is either a fresh install of the game or the sound drivers. I've listed all of my testing and its clear that it is in fact something with the game.

Hi all,

I also had a sound problem after installing patch v1.04, in which no sound played at all: no music, no UI sounds, no ship sounds, nothing.

I tried fixes number 1 through 5 to no avail. But fix number 6 of lowering the Hardware Acceleration to Standard has fixed the problem and sound works fine now.

I just wanted to throw this out there as reference for those who have similar issues. My hardware: an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe mobo with a Creative Audigy2 ZS Platinum sound card and Logitech z-5500 5.1 speakers. I've got the latest audio drivers as well.

Thanks for the suggestions psugar. Are there any plans to permanently address the issue?

Sent in the report.

The games I play include Neverwinter Nights 2, Freelancer, Oblivion, Civilization IV, Warcraft 3, Half-life 2, and a few others.

I'll try the USB fix now, that could be it as I haven't installed the drivers for some of my USB stuff yet.

Also, something weird I found out that fixes it. I turn the volume down to 0 on all of the volume sliders, then I close the game, reopen it, start/load a game, and then reset the volume levels after the game has loaded. If I do that then the sound works.

Yup, new patch and now I got a odd sound issue. It kinda sounds like the sound is mono and horrible quality. I got a Audigy 2 ZS and Creative doesn't believe in making new drivers.

Try lowering the performance tab in #6 of the fixes above. It worked for me and we have similar sound cards.

Ok, I did all that stuff up there with no luck. I then uninstalled the game, rebooted, installed, patched, and now I have my beloved sound back.

Hi all. I have a SB Audigy 2, and my sound is perfect, except with the fact that I can't seem to get sound out of more than 2 speakers. Anyone else have this?

Not sure if this will help anyone, or if this even does anything at all but, I went into the Sins readme file and found this:


/*********** Readme file excerpt *********************

Important Files
---------------

* If you need to manually change the game's settings, access save games, screenshots or
other related files, they can be found at:

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire

Vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire

************ Excerpt end ***************************/


I opened the usersettings file and noticed that hardware sound was set to FALSE. I changed mine to TRUE in hopes of solving my "no more than 2 speakers" dilemma. Hope this helps somebody.

Anyone know how to get quad or surround sound enabled in Sins? Thanks.

mafutnyoas: The game doesn't natively support surround or quad. You should be able to get these effects by using the controls on your sound card.

Thanks psugar. I had to reinstall my drivers to get the quad sound working for Sins. What is the difference between using hardware or software in the config file? I didnt notice a sound or performance change.

Some soundcards have hardware buffers; this is kind of a holdover from when system RAM was more precious, I think. At this point it's mostly an annoyance as using hardware buffers is a lot flakier than software, and most machines have more than enough processing power to mix down the sound buffers. But some users have reported that using hardware buffers solves some weird behaviour (for most people it's likely that using hardware would cause more problems) so we left it in the settings.

Cheers

Which means that if you didn't notice a sound or performance change, your soundcard works fine...

Great, thanks for the very descript answer psugar.