X:R Causes Sound Card to overheat (?) and sound-loss issues o.O (2.5)

Revenat342 · Post by **Revenat342** » Wed, 10. Sep 14, 17:19

I've been having the periodic "sound cuts out when entering highways" bug on and off which requires me to exit the game to fix it, but it has recently gotten much worse.

I had the problem as usual, but when I exited, I found I had no sound at all on my computer whatsoever. Restarting the computer fixed it. I had the problem again and decided to wait and see what happened. Sound returned after about 10 minutes of letting the computer sit. I'm on a laptop, and the area of the case over the sound card is hot enough to cook on. It seems like the sound card itself is physically overheating and cutting out, which I have frankly never heard of happening before, and it only happens when running X:R. Nothing else causes this.

Currently updating my drivers for the card and I'm going to set up a cooling pad and will report how this works out, but I wanted to put this up anyway just because this is such a strange and potentially serious thing.

Post by **X2-Illuminatus** » Wed, 10. Sep 14, 18:38

If a soundcard overheats, then this is very unlikely to be a problem of the 'work' the card has to do itself. After all, playing sound effects and music of a game isn't any different to playing the sounds/music from a DVD (movie) or the like.
What is far more likely, especially within a laptop, is that the heat from all devices (graphics card, processor etc.) is not properly dissipated to the outside. Therefore I would check if the exits of all the fans are clean. I would also suggest to verify that all fans are running correctly. Another cause could simply be a faulty (i.e. damaged) sound card.

What kind of laptop (manufacturer, model, system specs) are we talking about?

Revenat342 · Post by **Revenat342** » Wed, 10. Sep 14, 19:15

ASUS G74sx. Core i7, GTX580m, 8GB RAM. Fans working fine, no obstructions in the ports. It did seem unlikely to me, but it doesn't happen with any other game, even ones that have higher requirements. The game does make my laptop heat up quite a bit, but my GPU and processor stay within acceptable limits.

It does seem related to the "no sound when entering highways" bug, but that bug previously only made sound stop for X:R. Now, when that bug triggers, it causes the problem for my whole system. Still triggered by highways, and heat is definitely a contributing factor.

qrob · Post by **qrob** » Fri, 12. Sep 14, 04:35

I have the same problem on my desktop computer. Turning off and on my pc solves the problem. When i quit the game i have no sound at all. So i dont think there is a problem with overheating. Running everything on max with constantly 60 fps. It happens only when i enter a highway.

My Rig: i7 @ 3,4 Ghz, 16 GB Ram, GeForce 770 GTX 4GB, windows 7 64 bit

Revenant342 · Post by **Revenant342** » Fri, 12. Sep 14, 04:44

The problem is much less pronounced now that I use capitals to taxi me almost everywhere. Superhighways are worse than regular as far as this bug goes.

rhohltjr · Post by **rhohltjr** » Tue, 7. Oct 14, 02:51

qrob wrote:I have the same problem on my desktop computer. Turning off and on my pc solves the problem. When i quit the game i have no sound at all. So i dont think there is a problem with overheating. Running everything on max with constantly 60 fps. It happens only when i enter a highway.

My Rig: i7 @ 3,4 Ghz, 16 GB Ram, GeForce 770 GTX 4GB, windows 7 64 bit

Me too! desktop pc usb soundblaster 5.1

Post by **CBJ** » Tue, 7. Oct 14, 09:58

If your sound card is genuinely overheating then you have a serious hardware fault and should replace the sound hardware immediately, as that is abnormal to the point of being potentially dangerous.

If, on the other hand, you've just made the assumption that it's overheating just because the sound is cutting out, then you are almost certainly mistaken. We are aware of a problem with the sound cutting out, which is triggered mainly by highway travel, and are working on a solution to it. I can assure you, however, that it has nothing to do with overheating.

Senner · Post by **Senner** » Tue, 7. Oct 14, 16:45

qrob wrote: Running everything on max with constantly 60 fps.
My Rig: i7 @ 3,4 Ghz, 16 GB Ram, GeForce 770 GTX 4GB, windows 7 64 bit

How did you manage to get a stable 60 fps?
I'm asking because I have almost the same Rig.

spankahontis · Post by **spankahontis** » Tue, 7. Oct 14, 16:46

CBJ wrote:If your sound card is genuinely overheating then you have a serious hardware fault and should replace the sound hardware immediately, as that is abnormal to the point of being potentially dangerous.

If, on the other hand, you've just made the assumption that it's overheating just because the sound is cutting out, then you are almost certainly mistaken. We are aware of a problem with the sound cutting out, which is triggered mainly by highway travel, and are working on a solution to it. I can assure you, however, that it has nothing to do with overheating.

As always the case with mine, only Highway travel triggers this bug.

hermattila · Post by **hermattila** » Mon, 13. Oct 14, 01:07

Dear Devs!
Recent reports happening on Steam about sound cutting off or completly goes away at version 2.5
All report has been made on board Realtek sound cards!
Personally i had that isuess at beta since not but i'm aifrad coz I'm using Realtek on board sound card too!please look after it!

Luke0086 · Post by **Luke0086** » Mon, 13. Oct 14, 09:56

hermattila wrote:Dear Devs!
Recent reports happening on Steam about sound cutting off or completly goes away at version 2.5
All report has been made on board Realtek sound cards!
Personally i had that isuess at beta since not but i'm aifrad coz I'm using Realtek on board sound card too!please look after it!

(1) It's not just Realtek onboard sound cards

(2) It's not happening since 2.5, but before then

I have a creative sound blaster recon 3di and it still happens. There have been reports from people with different sound cards, and it's been happening pre 2.5 beta.

hermattila · Post by **hermattila** » Mon, 13. Oct 14, 10:04

i had only once and that was i think 2.5 RC7 by the way i had never got that issues but everyone on steam has same sound card as i have and so I'm playing the game since Dec\2013 so but thanks let me know....might 3.0 slove that...

MiLkou · Post by **MiLkou** » Thu, 16. Oct 14, 14:48

Hi, i've got a problem with a sound drop off. I looked for a solution on steam forum. Here is what i found, based on my own "test" and what i've read on the differents topic on steam forum :

-- Sound drop-off when entering yellow highway from the side (ie: not from the main entrance) and in no other situation
Edit : happened after 15-20sec in the highway too, in the middle of nowhere

-- Not happening when entering in blue highway

-- I restart the game twice and same problem again and again BUT when i restrat a third time, i changed back to the original menu AND the menu appearing in the HUD then no more sound drop-off (i changed again in-game to have the menu in the HUD and the new side-menu after entering the yellow highway. It worked fine)

-- Have to restart the game completly to have the sounds back

-- I've read on the steam forum that Windows audio service crashed too. Happens for we once too. I had to restart my computer as well.

XexrelFenix wrote: It crashed my Windows Audio service and I lose not only the sound from the game but other background sounds from videos and music. Restarting the audio service can restore those for me

BTW, not happening everytime but needed to be mentionned.
Edit : If a video (ie: youtube) is playing, sound drop off too. I have to restart Firefox too (or IE, chrome, whatever ...). Just to say, every sound drop off

-- Good to know : The sound don't stop right after entering in the higway but i can hear the first 2seconds of the sound of "entering the highway" then when i should hear the normal sound of the highway when travelling, it drops off

It's all i've noted. All here happened to me too, i didn't report other soundbug related who didn't happen to me. Hope it helps

Luke0086 · Post by **Luke0086** » Fri, 17. Oct 14, 11:05

This is a known issue. Well, I hope Egosoft know about it, it's been mentioned on here before.

zhaarteth · Post by **zhaarteth** » Fri, 17. Oct 14, 13:32

I was actually wondering about this. Good to know it's not something I have to figure out. :p

For me, the symptoms are a little different though. When the sound drops out, there is still a low-end buzz somewhat comparable to that of background noise from a boom mic being fed through a poorly-grounded amp. Other game sounds are heavily muffled and distorted but not completely silent. Certain sounds (collisions with other ships, weapons fire, speech) manage to come through comparatively less distorted.

However, for me at least, the sound comes back to normal roughly 30sec after exiting the highway. OS sounds and audio from other apps (such as Steam) still come through fine, so I never figured it was a hardware issue.

I use a SB X-fi Titanium in case that means anything.

XexrelFenix · Post by **XexrelFenix** » Sat, 18. Oct 14, 12:45

Sound randomly cuts off and not only just my game. I have to restart the audio service (AudioSrv) on my Win 7 x64 OS and restart X Rebirth to get sounds back. I'm using a Realtek/ROG based driver too.

Hector0x · Post by **Hector0x** » Sat, 18. Oct 14, 18:42

My sound also goes shortly after entering a local highway. But only ingame. Windows sounds and everything else works well, so a game restart helps. It's really annoying.

Post by **CBJ** » Sat, 18. Oct 14, 20:45

As has been said before, we are aware of the highway-related sound issue and are investigating. There's no need for people to keep reporting it.

InDigital · Post by **InDigital** » Wed, 22. Oct 14, 08:43

1. Sounds and music completely stops while flying in highways and flying in and out them... It seems that Soundcard stops responding. But you can enter menu and sound will be back... Then back to game but no sound will be back... Sound resumes itself just after some time playing game... Better in regions where are no action and have less sound effects - then it restores faster!

2. Flying out from blue highways location sometimes is not the highway exit but somewhere in the zone near highway exit...

I started game vanilla at 2.50 version.

My RIG settings are:
Sound: Audigy 2 ZS - set to 24 bit 48000 Hz
VGA: GTX560 Ti MSI OC
CPU: Core i5 2400 3.4 Ghz
RAM: Corsair DDR3 8 GB 1666

Game settings 1920x1080px ULTRA - except : AA 2x, SSAO normal, distortion off.
FPS 30+

MiLkou · Post by **MiLkou** » Wed, 22. Oct 14, 14:44

Any news ?

Boring to restart the game every 15min -__-"

Edit : Sry, didn't see the post above

CBJ wrote:As has been said before, we are aware of the highway-related sound issue and are investigating. There's no need for people to keep reporting it.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com