Installed Windows 7 Ultimate and now game sounds stop working

[s75h]

Hi, I just upgraded from XP home to Windows 7 Ultimate after installing a new hard drive and whenever I go into a battle the sounds die off to just a hit or thump every so often. At first I hear all the hits and swings and background noises but then after a few seconds most of the sounds disappear and I hear the occasional thump of a hit or a swing. After the fighting is over the sounds return to normal. Its as if the game can only handle a few sounds at a time.

I've tried turning on EAX and also tried swapping to the generic software on the speakers. The generic option works longer before the sounds die out.


I have a Creative SB-XFI sound card with the latest drivers.

[Mindos]

Hi, I just upgraded from XP home to Windows 7 Ultimate after installing a new hard drive and whenever I go into a battle the sounds die off to just a hit or thump every so often. At first I hear all the hits and swings and background noises but then after a few seconds most of the sounds disappear and I hear the occasional thump of a hit or a swing. After the fighting is over the sounds return to normal. Its as if the game can only handle a few sounds at a time.

I've tried turning on EAX and also tried swapping to the generic software on the speakers. The generic option works longer before the sounds die out.


I have a Creative SB-XFI sound card with the latest drivers.

Are sounds TOTALLY gone? Give us some more information, boppie! Whats running in the system tray? Anything taking focus from the game? Are persist game sounds checked in audio options? So many questions, so little info...
Did this hardware work with the game before? Is upgrading to the harddrive and new OS the only changes? Did you restore your XP from a backup and then upgrade or did you start over clean with new HDD and Win7?
Loudness equilization on maybe? Sound card settings weird? What have you changed right after you installed win7? Did you fiddle with anything? Try running the game in windowed mode and see if anything pops up?

Can you reproduce this problem on other games? etc...Help us out here... Is the game lagging when this happens? Is your CPU or GPX card not able to handle the game settings you set? How much memory do you have?

[Hiponic]

First off. Re install your drivers.
Then make sure you Audio Drive is not set to exclusive. Cause well you know.. If you have internet open then open DDO Internet will have priority.

[Wh070aa]

Use oldest drivers you have, unless they are cripplingly bugged. Latest driver updates never work.

I had similar problem, only thing that really fixes it is rebooting the PC, and not opening any other audio applications at same time as ddo. Also you can attempt to use one of those cheap usb sound adapters. That might help. It got better after I changed my motherboard(and built in sound card).

[dunklezhan]

First off. download the latest audio drivers for your specific card again, and save them somewhere. Then uninstall your current audio drivers and restart your computer. Then re install your drivers.
Then make sure you Audio Drive is not set to exclusive. Cause well you know.. If you have internet open then open DDO Internet will have priority.

FTFY, just for ensuring cleanness.

I understand what Who7 is saying, but I would start with a clean install of the very definitely latest drivers for your specific sound card or motherboard if on board.

Then I'd double check windows update and make sure windows is fully up to date.

Then make sure you don't have an audio inputs/outputs active except in your windows sound panel other than the ones you want to use with DDO.

If that works, try turning audio inputs/outputs back on one by one until you find the culprit. Windows can be... finicky about multiple devices.

If that didnt' work, try the same in whatever utility comes with your soundblaster software.

After that... ok then I'd probably be out of ideas.

[s75h]

Are sounds TOTALLY gone? Give us some more information, boppie! Whats running in the system tray? Anything taking focus from the game? Are persist game sounds checked in audio options? So many questions, so little info...
Did this hardware work with the game before? Is upgrading to the harddrive and new OS the only changes? Did you restore your XP from a backup and then upgrade or did you start over clean with new HDD and Win7?
Loudness equilization on maybe? Sound card settings weird? What have you changed right after you installed win7? Did you fiddle with anything? Try running the game in windowed mode and see if anything pops up?

Can you reproduce this problem on other games? etc...Help us out here... Is the game lagging when this happens? Is your CPU or GPX card not able to handle the game settings you set? How much memory do you have?

Thanks everyone with your replies.

The only programs running in the background is Adfender and Avira. This a new hard drive with a fresh install of Win7. My old hd had xp home on it. I'll have to go back and check to see what my audio drivers were. I can still boot to my old hd. DDO is the only game I'm playing and have installed. I have 4gb of ram installed. My video settings are pretty much what the game set them at from the install. I did turn on AA and bumped up a couple of things like details by a notch. My frame rates are fine. I'm not seeing video lag from low fps. I'll post again soon with more info.

[s75h]

I tried the suggestion regarding making it nonexclusive in the settings and that didn't help.

The drivers in my old xp setup was 6.0.1.1348 from 7/7/2010. My current drivers for this Win7 setup are the latest so I attempted to try install the drivers that were released before the current version but after uninstalling everything for creative and trying to install I keep getting an error message saying that "Setup is unable to detect a supported product". I tried reinstalling the latest drivers but got the same message. I even tried removing the sound card and reinstalling and still get the same error message. Anyone have any suggestions how to get past this?

[s75h]

I was able to get a set of drivers to install that are dated from February but I'm still having the same issue with the sounds cutting out in a battle.

[Mindos]

I was able to get a set of drivers to install that are dated from February but I'm still having the same issue with the sounds cutting out in a battle.

Ok I would go back to the latest sound drivers then. And I would reset to defaults anywhere in windows sound options that you can. Then I would Adjust DDO sound settings thusly: Turn off everything, EAX, etc. Turn all the sound sliders all the way to the left so that they are off. Then one at a time move them to the right on and see if the problem persists, then turn another on, then another, etc. All I can think of right now is too many sounds going off. You don't have itunes running in the background? Any media player open? A CD playing in the drive? etc?

What exactly happens again? ONLY the battle sounds slowly fade? ALL sounds stop? Or get choppy? Just the sounds of weapons volume goes low?

Sorry I can't be of more help, good luck.

ps. you could always try some cheap usb headphones, remembering to change the defualt sound device in DDO. This does two things: Let's you play the game with sound, OR let's us isolate the problem to DDO or your computer.

[s75h]

Ok I would go back to the latest sound drivers then. And I would reset to defaults anywhere in windows sound options that you can. Then I would Adjust DDO sound settings thusly: Turn off everything, EAX, etc. Turn all the sound sliders all the way to the left so that they are off. Then one at a time move them to the right on and see if the problem persists, then turn another on, then another, etc. All I can think of right now is too many sounds going off. You don't have itunes running in the background? Any media player open? A CD playing in the drive? etc?

What exactly happens again? ONLY the battle sounds slowly fade? ALL sounds stop? Or get choppy? Just the sounds of weapons volume goes low?

Sorry I can't be of more help, good luck.

ps. you could always try some cheap usb headphones, remembering to change the defualt sound device in DDO. This does two things: Let's you play the game with sound, OR let's us isolate the problem to DDO or your computer.

I don't have anything else playing like media player or itunes, etc. What happens is everything will sound okay as I run around town and then when I go to where a battle occurs. In the first ten seconds or so everything sounds okay but then suddenly all sounds stop except that I hear an occasional swing or thump sound from a hit occurring. It stays like this for the whole battle and even after the battle for maybe 30 seconds or so and eventually the sounds start working again. When it happens the sounds I do hear are not choppy. They are just as they should be. Its just that the sounds are occurring every couple seconds and its just a swing or thump sound.

[s75h]

I have sounds back working again. I installed the 6.0.1.1348 from 7/7/2010 which is what I had with my xp setup. I did crash after a few minutes to the desktop which never has happened but I logged back in and tested for over an hour with no crashes.

[s75h]

I ran into a new problem tied to the drivers that I installed. Right after the issue was fixed with respect to logging in I started to get BSOD crashes right after picking my sever in the DDO launcher. After some trial and error with other hardware drivers I came across a tech forum with someone else who had a BSOD issue with the same sound card that I had so I uninstalled my sound card drivers and the game didn't crash. I then reinstalled those same drivers and so far haven't seen a crash while playing last night.