Curse

Refyused · Aug 05, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

While reading the Guild Wars updates page, I saw thety "fixed" the crackling & popping sounds. When I read that I breathed a sigh of relief, as it is a very annoying sound to happen to often.

Well, it's still doing it for me.

I've tried updating drivers and re-installing Guild Wars. It didn't do it up until a few days prior to their patch (around the time of the Nightfall event is when it started). Well, now it's pissing me off. It is extremely annoying and I wish it'd stop, but I've tried everything I can think of and to no avail.

I'm not sure how to see what kind of Sound Card I have, so if anyone could tell me how and offer any suggestions I'd appreciate it.

I plan on sending a bug report to ArenaNet once I find out what model of Sound Card I have. Thanks.

kvndoom · Aug 05, 2006, 10:13 AM // 10:13

To check what your sound card / driver rev is, click Start, then Run, and type "dxdiag".

Click on the "Sound" tab for that information.

By the way, I still get the snap, crackle, pop Rice Krispies too. Not as bad before they were "fixed," but still present. It seems to get worse the longer I am observing a match or in an Arena battle. Also seems to mostly come from my rear speakers, so maybe something in the surround sound encoding...?

DutchGun · Aug 05, 2006, 10:20 AM // 10:20

Hi refyused,

I'm sorry to hear it's still happening. The periodic crackling on my SB Live! card seems to have stopped after that patch, and according to one of my friends, his Audigy seems better as well. I wonder why yours wasn't helped?

You didn't mention this - but you have tried all the different sound option settings in GW, right (quality slider, hardware acceleration)?

Regarding your question, one way to identify your sound card is to go to your Windows control panel, and select "Sound and Audio Devices" or "Sounds and Multimedia", depending on which OS you have. Click on the Audio tab of the dialog, and you should see the name of your sound card listed as the 'preferred device' for sound playback.

One thing that confuses me... How can you update drivers if you don't know what type of sound card you have?

cannonfodder · Aug 05, 2006, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Ok right click on "my computer"(start button - My computer should be below my documents), select Properties, Hardware, Device Manager. Now this tells you what hardware is installed on the PC, expand Sound, Video and game controllers, in there it will say what sound card it is. Once that is established we can then help in correcting the issue, most of the time removing and re-installing the drivers correct this problem.

Refyused · Aug 05, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Yeah, Device Manager. I knew that, lol.. Brainfart I guess.

DutchGun: Yeah I've messed around with the sound settings, which is why I came here. I also noticed that when I get the crackling noises, if I rotate the camera it seems to stop for the time being.

About the drivers though, I did update them through windows update, though they may not be the MOST recent, they're less than 7 months old, so they're fairly up to date. No, I didn't get new drivers from the manufacturer, so no, I didn't need to know the type of card I had.

I am however going to turn sound quality down and keep it that way, as the guys who replied in my other topic suggested, to see if it reduces resource usage. Maybe it'll stop the popping noises, but it didn't help before their "fix" for it, so I guess I'll let you know after I've had a chance to play a few hours with settings lowered.

I'm not at home right now so I can't see what type of sound card I have yet.

Relambrien · Aug 05, 2006, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Still getting crackling but not nearly as bad as before. It only lasts about 2 seconds and pops up around every 45 minutes or so anyway.

Yes a problem. Annoying? Not really.

By the way:

Sound card is a SoundMAX integrated digital audio sound card. Pretty low-end, especially considering it's integrated on my Dell Dimension 4700 which I got in 2004. Yikes. Good news: Parts for new comp arriving sometime around friday ^^. Still integrated audio on the mobo, but it's a $250 mobo so it better be good.

Refyused · Aug 05, 2006, 10:47 PM // 22:47

You're lucky man, I get it every few minutes, especially if I'm standing still attacking in the middle of a fight.