Numerous sound problems in games (aka, I hate Creative)

R

Rehevkor

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 2, 2003
Messages
1,155
I have always had problems with Creative sound cards. I recently bought an Audigy 2 ZS, which I loved at first, but I'm beginning to despise it. I get static popping often when I move in FarCry, the sound in Doom 3 cuts out after a few minutes, and I hear this weird echoing static in Max Payne 2. I get that same static in the loading screens for the UT2004 mod Alien Swarm.

I've tried OS reinstalls, driver updates, changing the hw acceleration level, disabling onboard sound in BIOS, and tweaking individual options in each of the games, and nothing works. Lowering hw accel. to basic fixes the sound cut out in Doom 3, but I no longer get actual 5.1 sound. I bound a key in the game to "s_restart" so I could restart the sound engine when this happens, but this is frigging annoying to do every 3 to 5 minutes, especially when it dies in the middle of a firefight.

I've tried everything I can think of and I just can't get rid of any of these issues. Either game sound programmers are incompetent (which I doubt) or Creative's drivers are crap (which is very likely). This isn't just a rant though ;) This is an appeal to anyone who has something else I can try to get rid of these issues. Especially the static crap in FarCry; my workaround for Doom 3 is tolerable (for now) but the sudden static pops in FarCry make me cringe. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :)
 
Yup. No change. :(

Edit: Actually, there was a change. Max Payne 2 now crashes immediately after loading any level.

Edit 2: Another reason why I hate Creative: their driver update package doesn't actually install. Before I moved the card to a different slot I uninstalled the drivers. After moving it I reinstalled the drivers from the disc, rebooted, and installed the latest cumulative patch from their website (EAX4DRV_AUDIGY2_1_84_50.exe, 16mb, dated 8/7/2004). However, if I go to the device manager and look at the date on Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM) I see 11/18/2003. I got the same result from installing the smaller update patch as well. What the hell?

Edit 3: I was able to force it to update by extracting the patch with WinRAR and manually updating the driver through the device manager. It shows the correct date now, and Max Payne 2 works again. The static in MP2 is also gone, although the static in FarCry is unchanged and the sound in Doom 3 still cuts out. Not much progress :/
 
creatives drivers are totally ass and their cards arent even as good as they could be, Ive been recommending M-Audio cards for a while, check em out they rock.
 
I think the echoing in Max Payne 2 is the uber-realistic EAX kicking in. I find EAX in most games to be quite overdone and just plain useless. I really don't have a solution to your problem though because I gave up on Creative a long time ago. If anyone makes some kind of Driver Cleaner that works with Creative cards you may want to give that a try then do a clean re-install. Or better yet, buy something else. :)
 
driverheaven.org has a driver cleaner that works wonders on creative.
ive used it more time than i'd like to admit

im glad to see that the ZS cards also have the sound cut out in doom3 like my audigy1 did.. and in about the same exact amount of time (3-5min or so) :mad:

i also had nothing but trouble with my audigy. but the live (and prior cards sb16,awe32) i never had the problems at all.
 
lilpoopypants said:
driverheaven.org has a driver cleaner that works wonders on creative.
ive used it more time than i'd like to admit

im glad to see that the ZS cards also have the sound cut out in doom3 like my audigy1 did.. and in about the same exact amount of time (3-5min or so) :mad:

i also had nothing but trouble with my audigy. but the live (and prior cards sb16,awe32) i never had the problems at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips.

I usually will remove all Creative drivers, reboot into the BIOS, set non PNP OS, reserve an IRQ just for the sound card, install just the drivers (not HQ, demos, music player, etc), turn off disc auto detect, then update to the latest driver only.

But even after all that Halo would still crash - so I had to turn off EAX and sound acceleration within the game.

I also suspected that people would have problems with Doom3 sound through a Creative card.

At least go through the trouble of sending off an email to Creative. They may not do anything about it, but they can't say that their cards are flawless with games.
 
I try to stay open minded on creative but your first post looks exactly like posts i made across the net for years. from the date i bought my audigy1 till about 1 year ago.

identical just with updated games and a newer soundcard.

i never fully understood once EAX was, like most gamers i thought it was some kind of 3d positioning algorithm.. but its not even close (it uses DirectSound3D for that.. sorry but thats pathetic for the so-called "standard bearer").
once i get really fed up i tried my onboard and i swear it had better sound than the audigy in music, and in games i had no more problems..

my nforce2 audio (non-soundstorm) has been exceptional. i keep the drivers updated and experience no probs.
also, it never messes up in Doom3. i'd suggest you just use your onboard, (even if its 2.1) as well.

im currently checking into sound cards to replace the nforce audio (tho im extremely reluctant to do so) as I have a set of headphones that need more power than the onboard sound puts out.
i might ditch the headphones tho before i ditch the NF2 audio.. it seriously rocks.

i mean, a 9band equalizer on free onboard audio? i havent seen over basic treble and bass on any sound blaster (again, the so-called "standard bearer").. and i could go on and on about the rest of it.. but it is the best thing going IMO.

the m-audio appear to be geared more towards audiophiles, but will work just as good for games as nforce/soundstorm audio will.

i'm well experienced in "fixing" creative cards and you've tried all the voodoo tricks to try to get it to work... but im sure theres some PCI latency patch, or another witchcraft related scheme.
 
lilpoopypants said:
I

im currently checking into sound cards to replace the nforce audio (tho im extremely reluctant to do so) as I have a set of headphones that need more power than the onboard sound puts out.
i might ditch the headphones tho before i ditch the NF2 audio.. it seriously rocks.
Click to expand...

Another sound card won't help with the power output. In fact, even nicer cards like an Santa Cruz or Revo 7.1 won't have much more power output than the onboard audio. What you really need is a headphone amp. Then you can use whatever sound card you like regardless of power output.
 
I've had pretty bad luck with each and every sound card that I've ever owned - even onboard audio. The ones which lack hardware audio acceleration all cut off parts of the sound even in Windows itself (i.e. "You Got Mail" sounded more like "J** Got Mail"). And the ones that have hardware acceleration all either eat up more resources than they should have or are very finicky with IRQ sharing.
 
i dont know if the standard non-soundstorm MCP nf2 audio has acceleration or not.. i believe it does.. maybe thats why it produces such great results for me.
but if you have a fast processor (and latest realtek or whatever drivers) you shouldnt have things cutting out in windows.

i have a friend with one of the upper end m-audio cards that does recording with a band and i dont think hes had a problem with his card/drivers or anything.. but also its a expensive one (beyond the revo7.1)
but ive seen few complaints (actually none) on the revolution line if anyone is looking for a card
 
lilpoopypants said:
i dont know if the standard non-soundstorm MCP nf2 audio has acceleration or not.. i believe it does.. maybe thats why it produces such great results for me.
but if you have a fast processor (and latest realtek or whatever drivers) you shouldnt have things cutting out in windows.

i have a friend with one of the upper end m-audio cards that does recording with a band and i dont think hes had a problem with his card/drivers or anything.. but also its a expensive one (beyond the revo7.1)
but ive seen few complaints (actually none) on the revolution line if anyone is looking for a card
Click to expand...
I think I have an issue with the Revo myself: The card that I have makes a popping noise every time I turned on or off my computer. And the available drivers cut out small portions of the Windows sounds, since my particular Revo tends to make a popping noise every time a sound starts coming on. Furthermore, in games, I get some sounds cut off in mid-term instead of playing all the way through. And all this happens when it was used with my fastest processors (an AMD AXP 2600+ and my current P4 2.8C).
 
lilpoopypants said:
wierd.. i'd format
solves nearly any non hardware problem :cool:
Click to expand...
My problems with that card happen even on a fresh installation of Windows. :(

The popping noises during power-up and power-down cannot be circumvented at all - it's the hardware itself. And the sound cut-offs are due to the available software drivers for that card. Thus, Windows is not to blame - it's the driver's fault for the cut-offs.
 
I think if nVidia were ever to release a soundcard with the SoundStorm audio on it, then we would have a winner. I gave up on creative years go with my SB Live!.

I truly love my NF2 SoundStorm. One of the main reasons I bought this board other than the NF2 kicked ass compared to any other SocketA boards at the time.
 
I have tried everything. I've reinstalled the drivers at least half a dozen times today. Apparently, nothing can fix these issues on my system, not even a format. I will never buy another Creative Labs sound card. :(
 
Hmm. It seems that my efforts haven't gone completely unrewarded. I've managed to totally break my sound drivers. Any attempt to uninstall them results in a crash or lockup, and reinstalling them does nothing. Format time... again...

Where's that frisbee... it's seppuku time.
 
While my problem wasn't within games, but with high CPU usage. I have an SB Live! and b/c I was installing a Tivo card in my system, I decided I'd bump the Live! down the slot 4, from slot 3.

Big mistake. After that, I would be sitting idle and getting CPU usage of 11-15%. I was like wtf? At first I blamed iTunes, but when I realized it did this when it was closed as well, I started getting worried. Also, static was occuring quite a bit, yes, even on desktop (where there wasn't before).

I ended up switching the Live! back to the slot 3 and the Tivo to slot 5. Tada! Problem solved...I seriously hope my experience had nothing to do with IRQ conflicts...b/c it would only remind me of the horror that Win 95/98 was in dealing with those issues -_-.
 
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