I lose sound when playing PC games

[skacameron]

Hey there,
I'm new to the forum here, and I figured this would be a good place to find answers. I have a new custom PC that seems to be working fine overall, but everytime I play any game on CD, it will only give me sound for a few minutes, and then the audio will get very choppy and soon just goes all together. I am running Windows XP and I know that all of my hardware is fast enough. I have also tried to reinstall DirectX, but that did no good. Here is the thing- Audio CD's and DVD's still play great in the PC, so obviusly there is an interaction probelm when running a game. There are no other audio problems either. Oh, I was running the sound straight off the intergrated motherboard at first, but I figured maybe that was the problem. So, I ran out and bought a Soundblaster Audigy to fix it, but it does the exact same thing. Any ideas???
Thanx!!!

 

[derrmc]

I would have posted this in the hardware forum

 

[ShoobieRat]

This is NOT a hardware issue. It belongs here.

I'm assuming you're using Windows, because this is a common Windows occurance with games.

When flashing between the desktop (or another application) and the game, you lose sound, right? This has to do with the window state of the game. Games that don't run in a window (such as Half-Life) will lose their sound when you to an alt-tab or hit the Windows key. Games that run IN a window, like UT, MOH, TheSims, etc, won't lose their sound.

This is an old issue that's been going on for years, and seems to be slowly improving as Windows continues to patch and update. I've had less and less trouble with this in recent months. I've put that out of my mind for a long time, but if I remember right, it has to do with the DirectX integration between the application environment at full-screen modes, and the desktop environment.

There is a way to avoid losing sound, but it's messy and usually not worth the trouble.

 

[skacameron]

nothing I can do

Yeah, I figured it wasn't hardware, since I had pretty much ruled that out. And yes it happens when I start any game. After Windows switches over to the game screen, the sound will last only a few minutes before going choppy and failing.
So you are saying that there is not much that I can do about this issue. Oh well I guess...
Thanks anyway!!!

 

[derrmc]

I would have posted this in the hardware forum

The reason I SUGGESTED this is because that's where I see a lot of gaming issues. you say you have a custom pc. I have a friend that's a gamer. he had a sound problem on games because his cpu was overclocked.

you sure got a lot of help here

 

[Flying_Vortex]

Um... This is why it is under Windows OS.. i would think it would be under Multimedia... But this seems good enough, Have you tried a different sound card? and different speakers?

 

[derrmc]

Um... This is why it is under Windows OS.. i would think it would be under Multimedia... But this seems good enough, Have you tried a different sound card? and different speakers?

Um....................He said he tried a different sound card in his post

 

[skacameron]

Interesting,
It had crossed my mind that it could be something like your friend's overclocked CPU, maybe I should look into that as well. Thank you for your information, and if that is true, then you are also right that the original post beongs elsewhere!
However, I think ShoobieRat is right with the full screen interation and DirectX, which is why I tired changing DirectX before I even posted. This is why- I ran Civilization III yesterday and it works just fine. Other games still lose sound. I think Civ III is a window based game. So, if someone does know how to fix this with windows, that would be great!
Thanks!!!

 

[ShoobieRat]

Now that you've brought in more detail, I would also point you towards your soundcard drivers, and also try turning the sound quality down. If you're experiencing static, then a loss of sound, that's indicative of your soundcard's channels being overloaded by the game. This used to be an issue with HL during it's first releases when people used the high-quality setting for sound.

 

[skacameron]

No, I have tried all of that. Been through two sound cards and different drivers, it isn't an issue with that. The only hardware issue that makes sense is overclocking, but that does not seem to be the issue either. IT still looks as though it is a software issue. We shall see....