No sound in game, but sound works outside of game! - Probably Xonar driver issue.

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mistercat
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No sound in game, but sound works outside of game! - Probably Xonar driver issue.

Post by mistercat » Mon, 13. Nov 17, 20:56

There is no sound in the game. There was sound yesterday. Nothing has changed since then. I have had this happen in other video games as well. DX Diag reports:

Code: Select all

This computer cannot play audio because the Windows Audio service is not enabled. Enable this service using the Service Management Console.

No sound card was found.  If one is expected, you should install a sound driver provided by the hardware manufacturer.
But sound works outside of the game! I am using this card:

ASUS Xonar DSX PCIe 7.1 GX2.5 Audio Engine 192K/24bit Playback Support Sound Cards

It plays sounds fine (and even records sound), just not in the game. I have no idea why.

If it matters, please realize that this sound card is connected internally to the GTX 260 via S/PDIF cables so that the HDMI out works. I am NOT currently using the HDMI out. That screen is not even connected, but I set it up with SPDIF cables in case I do need it. Output is properly set to Speakers, which is why regular windows sounds work via the 3.5mm out of the sound card.

dxdiag64 reports this for 2 of the three sounds including speakers:

Code: Select all

The file cmudaxp.sys is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL).  You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer.
Reinstalled driver from ASUS and rebooted. Sound works in game now, but for how long? Could this be caused by Windows 7 64 bit's sleep mode?

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 13. Nov 17, 21:24

The fact that your sound driver is not WHQL-approved for your OS is not a good sign.

X2/3 games have a long history of sound issues with ASUS Xonar cards and their drivers/codecs. One particular issue is the Xonar EAX-equivalent called GX which must not be enabled with X games. These Xonar driver/codec issues tend to happen right from scratch in the game until somehow addressed, however.

The way you describe the game sound working and then suddenly not working may instead indicate either the result of an OS update that you were unaware of (unlikely with Win7), or a corruption or adjustment of the driver files. Your driver reinstall fixing it suggests the latter. It should work OK for as long as you don't get any more file corruption or make any other significant sound option changes. (File corruption issues may depend upon the reliability of your harddrive and the avoidance of severe external effects such as power spikes, electronic noise or sudden power loss.)

It also may be worth checking that other games or application profiles are not switching your speaker layout default option and failing to put it back as before after use - stereo and quadraphonic speaker layout options should work OK with X3, but 5.1/7.1 surroundsound layout options will probably not. (Win7 does not support the game's XP-era DirectSound system for surroundsound and EAX.)

If you want us to check out your system and set up in more depth (and make any suggestions for improvements) then please post a whole fresh DxDiag here.
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mistercat
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Post by mistercat » Tue, 14. Nov 17, 02:45

Alan Phipps wrote:The fact that your sound driver is not WHQL-approved for your OS is not a good sign.

X2/3 games have a long history of sound issues with ASUS Xonar cards and their drivers/codecs. One particular issue is the Xonar EAX-equivalent called GX which must not be enabled with X games. These Xonar driver/codec issues tend to happen right from scratch in the game until somehow addressed, however.

The way you describe the game sound working and then suddenly not working may instead indicate either the result of an OS update that you were unaware of (unlikely with Win7), or a corruption or adjustment of the driver files. Your driver reinstall fixing it suggests the latter. It should work OK for as long as you don't get any more file corruption or make any other significant sound option changes. (File corruption issues may depend upon the reliability of your harddrive and the avoidance of severe external effects such as power spikes, electronic noise or sudden power loss.)

It also may be worth checking that other games or application profiles are not switching your speaker layout default option and failing to put it back as before after use - stereo and quadraphonic speaker layout options should work OK with X3, but 5.1/7.1 surroundsound layout options will probably not. (Win7 does not support the game's XP-era DirectSound system for surroundsound and EAX.)

If you want us to check out your system and set up in more depth (and make any suggestions for improvements) then please post a whole fresh DxDiag here.
That's what I will do if I keep having issues. My latest issue is that the game is "stuttering" during intense firefights in war sectors between Argon and Terran. It gets better once some ships get destroyed, but the latest firefight resulted in a total game crash and repeated stuttering "noise" from the speakers, which wasn't fixed until a restart. Is this related?

EDIT: I think this MAY just be what I am looking for:

http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/

I read some of the comments and it looks like at least one person had the exact same sound/crashing problem (though he had it worse) that I just experienced. I got there by searching for the DxDiag error. I will try that driver and go to a firefight to see if it is fixed.

I just don't think I should be having hardware issues with a GTX 260, a 3.2 GHZ 4-core i5, and 16GB of DDR4 memory.

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Post by CBJ » Tue, 14. Nov 17, 10:10

Stuttering sound is often a symptom of a performance issue, but in this case that performance issue could well be a result of sound driver problems. So yes, it could well be related.

Your hardware specifications should indeed be fine, but that won't help if you have driver problems and sadly, as Alan said in the previous post, Asus Xonar drivers are a common cause of such problems.

mistercat
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Post by mistercat » Sat, 18. Nov 17, 01:44

I'm still getting this problem even after using the other driver. It looks like once in a while, something happens to the sound. It still works in Windows, though.

When the problem does happen, the starting X3 video with the floating spheres does NOT play. I also have trouble launching other video games. Also, Audacity fails to detect any input/output sources.

However, if I play a video Media Player Classic, there is sound, and the problem is immediately fixed (for a while). Then X3 sound works again and the starting video plays.

Trying older drivers...

Tried it. Have not seen the error so far, but have seen a blue screen after returning from sleep, followed by a USB device not being recognized. Had to put computer to sleep again to fix it. Restart wasn't helping.

Looks like it's this:
https://www.eightforums.com/bsod-crashe ... -card.html

Going to try to downgrade drivers again.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 18. Nov 17, 14:00

One other thing you could try is to reinstall Windows Media Player.
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mistercat
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Post by mistercat » Mon, 20. Nov 17, 05:42

Alan Phipps wrote:One other thing you could try is to reinstall Windows Media Player.
I'll certainly try it if the problem comes back.

mistercat
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Post by mistercat » Fri, 24. Nov 17, 22:11

Keeps happening despite reinstalling Windows Media Player. I think it's related to Windows 7 sleep mode. Can't be certain since it's not always reliably replicated.

Anyway, launching a video seems to always instantly fix it. I guess I'll avoid Xonar cards in the future.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Fri, 24. Nov 17, 22:34

You didn't post a DxDiag so I cannot tell, but many motherboards have an onboard sound chipset (usually from RealTek who are very good at keeping their drivers WHQL-approved and up to date) that is usually absolutely fine for playing X games.

You can easily-enough switch between sound devices if you don't mind moving a cable or so and using Device Manager to set the default and enabled devices.

I personally don't need or use an additional soundcard for any of my many games as my RealTek chipset and driver is excellent. Just a further idea to consider.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

mistercat
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Post by mistercat » Sat, 25. Nov 17, 21:49

Alan Phipps wrote:You didn't post a DxDiag so I cannot tell, but many motherboards have an onboard sound chipset (usually from RealTek who are very good at keeping their drivers WHQL-approved and up to date) that is usually absolutely fine for playing X games.

You can easily-enough switch between sound devices if you don't mind moving a cable or so and using Device Manager to set the default and enabled devices.

I personally don't need or use an additional soundcard for any of my many games as my RealTek chipset and driver is excellent. Just a further idea to consider.
I got the sound card because I could not verify whether or not my mobo had SPDIF pins to connect to the video card for HDMI sound out. I no longer use this feature, but that is why I even bothered with a sound card, since it was well documented that the card DID have the SPDIF pins for the internal cable to go from the sound hardware to the GeForce card.

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