Sound causes stuttering / win7 x64 intel p965

[asxdef]

Hi,

 

while playing a mission, whenever something new happens (for example first launch of a missile, first explosion, retraction of wheels) I experience massive stuttering in the game.

 

If sound is disabled in the options, this problem goes away.

 

Do you have any suggestions what can be done to improve this situation?

 

I have attached the output of dxdiag.exe.

DxDiag.txt

[golfsierra2]

Is this an onboard sound chip ?

 

Try to disable sound hardware acceleration under dxdiag / sound.

[TheMoose]

Seing your CPU and GPU. I would try lowering visual range to either medium or low...

Also right click on the exec, disable desktop composition and visual theme. That might give you more FPS.

 

Regards

Edited February 2, 2010 by TheMoose

[asxdef]

Hi,

 

thanks for the answers.

 

Is this an onboard sound chip ?

 

Try to disable sound hardware acceleration under dxdiag / sound.

Yes, it is an onboard sound chip, but hardware acceleration cannot be disabled in the program you mentioned. As far as I know, Windows 7 provides no hardware acceleration of DirectSound anyway.

 

Seing your CPU and GPU. I would try lowering visual range to either medium or low...

Also right click on the exec, disable desktop composition and visual theme. That might give you more FPS.

Unfortunately, this suggestion didn't help either :(.

 

Can anyone recommend a sound card which definitively works with DCS and Win7 x64?

[EtherealN]

Moose, this is a stuttering issue caused by sound. Regular FPS tweaks are completely unrelated.

 

asxdef, I'm relatively certain I've seen this reported sometime before, I'll search around to see if I can find something.

 

It could be an HDD issue as well.

Edited February 12, 2010 by EtherealN

[EtherealN]

Do you have several driver versions for the sound chip to choose from? Note that if there are no options for W7, but there are options for Vista, you can try using a Vista driver since in most cases it will work.

 

Might also be worth checking your HDD's, since it appears they are regular ATA (not sATA)? It might be that the bus doesn't manage to get files read quick enough, and the limited RAM meaning that it can't keep the sound files in cache for very long.

Edited February 12, 2010 by EtherealN

[rattler]

If looking for new sound card, give Asus Xonar ds and dx cards a look, especially if running windows 7 or Vysta.:)

[EtherealN]

Actually, this kind of sound issue sometimes crops up with Xonar cards as well (that's where I had seen it before, after searching for it), but seemed solvable through driver changes.

[StutteringHokum]

Also having sound stuttering issues myself.

[AustinN360]

Hi,

 

while playing a mission, whenever something new happens (for example first launch of a missile, first explosion, retraction of wheels) I experience massive stuttering in the game.

 

If sound is disabled in the options, this problem goes away.

 

Do you have any suggestions what can be done to improve this situation?

 

I have attached the output of dxdiag.exe.

 

First off read coffs first post here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=51765&highlight=sound+faq

 

Dear users, the new sound engine is making it's first steps in public, and has some issues, which we haven't found during testing. If you are affected by any problem with the sound, use the workaround suggested below, until we issue a patch, or report to this thread. Please, post ONLY if your problem is not reported yet.

 

1. I have no sound in the simulation, but the editor sounds ok.

The problem: FC2 uses sample rate of 44.1 kHz, instead of card's default.

1.1 Workaround (by topdog): set your Speaker's Advanced properties Default Format setting to 24 bit, 44100 Hz (not needed if sound card is set to 44100 already like this).

 

1.2 Another way: you can set FC2 sound sample rate to match your default setting. If your default sample rate is 48000, locate "Config/autoexec.cfg" file in the installation folder and add the following line to the top of the file

sound.samplerate=48000

2. When in the cockpit, outer sounds are very low in volume or not audible at all.

The problem: When you're in the cockpit, only low frequencies of outer sounds are heard. Depending on your audio output system, the percieved volume may be too low.

Workaround:

2.1 A bit of theory: When you're in the cockpit, outer world sounds are both attenuated (lowered in volume) and low-pass filtered (i.e. their high frequencies removed). There are two variables (which can be set via Config/autoexec.cfg) which affect the process (default values are shown)

sound.cockpit_world_volume = -9.1
sound.cockpit_world_lowpass = 1000

The "sound.cockpit_world_volume" variable sets attenuation values in dB (every -3 gives twice lower volume).

The "sound.cockpit_world_lowpass" sets up low-pass filter cutoff frequency in Hz. (24000 will give no filtering).

2.2 The practice: I'd suggest you to experiment bit, because the results depend on your output system, and start with adding the following line to the top of your Config/autoexec.cfg file:

sound.cockpit_world_volume = 0

Then, if you find the outer sounds to be too loud, decreasing the value to your liking.

 

 

3. Does FC2 support surround output?

Not yet. Only stereo output is supported at the moment.

 

4. Which audio card is best for FC2?

Any card will suffice. FC2 sound engine does not use any specific hardware feature.

 

5. I want to tune/replace the sounds and/or make my sound mod.

All sounds settings are stored in "Sounds/sdef" folder of the installation path. SDEF stands for Sound DEFinition and describes settings of the in-game sound sources. ".sdef" file without name contains detailed documentation. Please note, at the moment, support requests for user modifications will get lowest priority.

 

Check to make sure you are using 48000 hz and not 192000hz. If you are using 48000hz then try a lower setting. Not forgeting to edit it in your Autoexec.cfg file if need be.

[StutteringHokum]

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=885854#post885854