M1710, Sigmatel and GRAW music

Minor, but irritating issue...

I just purchased an XPS M1710 (T7600 w/ 7950 GTX)...initially, it had Vista Business loaded...I installed GRAW and everything worked great...

I then installed a new HDD and did a clean install of XP MCE 2005 using the Media Direct 3.0 to partition the drive for Media Direct first...

I then installed all the necessary drivers for my hardware...everything works fine (including Bioshock, C&C3, Gears of War) except the music on GRAW causes crackling/popping...the obvious answer is turn the music off which, yes, does correct the problem...but has anyone else come across this and got a better fix that leaves the music intact?

I have selected Generic Software for the audio driver within the game at both Medium and Low Quality settings...I even edited the sounds.xml setting file to give music a higher priority (from '6' to '2')...didn't fix the issue...

I also turned off my LEDs and turned off wireless and BT...didn't fix the issue...also, as a longshot, disabled SPDIF output...didn't fix the issue...problem occurs with both the speakers and headphones so it's not a speaker issue...sound is clean on other games, movies and mp3's...

I can't think of anything else...

My Sigmatel driver is 5.10.5515 downloaded from Dell for an M1710 with XP...

And I'm running v1.35 of GRAW...however, the sound issue occurred with both the initial installation and the patched installation...

Thanks...

 

Are you using onboard audio or a sound card such as the x-fi or audigy for notebooks? I know for my sound blaster card I have to turn off enhancements to get some programs to work correctly.

 

Using the onboard Sigmatel audio chip on the Intel Hi Def Audio bus...

I am NOT using the Soundblaster software that Dell sells...although I don't mind paying $20 for the software if it improves quality and fixes the GRAW issue...

How do you like your Audigy card? And thanks for the look...

 

Ah I got the external card but I also got it super cheap. It'snot wirth the 50+ dollars I see it for normally but if you can find it for around 20 or 30 go for it. Hmmm...Maybe the game just does not like sigmatel audio. This might seem like a poor suggestion but try inquiring as to the makers of GRAW if there are known issues with sigmatel audio devices.

 

Problem fixed...sort of...

Battlefield 2 also had the same problem...music would cause clicking/crackling sound...

If I drop the hardware acceleration to 'None' (Basic and Standard don't correct it), then the music plays fine...

Anyone know how much of a performance hit is caused by taking away audio hardware acceleration?

And out of curiosity, what does Vista and DX10 do differently that the music plays fine without disabling hardware acceleration? I don't know anything about audio hardware acceleration...

I remembered that trick from trying to get the movies in Wing Commander: Prophecy to run on a laptop that was four years newer than the game...and then someone patched WC: Prophecy to work without disabling audio hardware acceleration...

And is there a way around having to move that slider around when I want to go from BF2 to Bioshock or does it really matter just leaving it off all of the time?

 

I think it is in the way vista handles sound from individual applications. The old way (XP) you had one setting for all applications that ran. But vista appears to be able to handle knowing different settings for different applications. Case in point - you can adjust volume and sound direction for each individual program running with the mixer built into windows. Not only that but it will remember this setting for future uses.

I don't know if it's dx10 as much as vista making the difference but perhaps dx10 has done something as well. In all honesty, sound is secondary to video performance so often sound issues and sound cards are left to rot while the only things people care about are the shiny lights and their video cards.

Oh and hardware acceleration, from my personal experience, only matters in the most extreme cases. Like I think the quality increases slightly and you can get better stereo sound as well as hear a few effects crisper and a few other odds and ends but overall it's not a big deal to turn off. It is mainly for very sound intensive programs such as reason (music maker), virtual dj (DJ program, I <3 it), acid pro (sony music maker), garageband (apple music maker), and sound editing for movie makers. I'd also recommend turning it on if you have a home theatre system hooked up to your computer. But I'd also recommend having a dedicated sound card as well. I have a small system for my dorm room which sounds like crap coming form my onboard audio but really rumbles when I have my sound blaster hooked up.

 

Vista doesn't use audio hardware acceleration, so there's nothing to disable.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/759/759538p1.html

 

Huh, I guess I never noticed since I've had mysound card since day 2 with vista. Well then, that would explain a lot. Thanks chelet. Then I guess I should add that if you do get a sound card, you will have to disable "enhancements". I guess it might not be true acceleration but my sound card does have built in abilities to enhance and refine the sound which does sometimes cause things to mess up.

 

I didn't realize that audio acceleration had been disabled either in Vista and DX10...

I'm really confused about sound hardware now...

In the good ol' days, if you didn't have your Creative SoundBlaster at IRQ 5 DMA 1, all you had was your PC speaker beeping at you...

I have no idea what the Sigmatel chip does now...

What's the function of the hardware (Sigmatel chip) acceleration, if any? Does hardware acceleration for sound being off affect game performance if you're using the software sound renderer? I would imagine that would be an additional burden on the CPU...but it looks like Vista and DX10 are putting it on the CPU by default...does Windows Media Player or DVD software use hardware acceleration?

*scratching head*

 

Maybe for multi-channel speaker setups.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/mediaadvice/0067.mspx

 

I had issues with my M1710 sound and the sigma tel drivers would not aalow my to download Vista SP1. I downloaded the Sigma Tel HD drivers for the M1330 (R167846). The M1710 is not listed for this driver pack but it installed flawlesly, noise issue gone and SP1 showed up in windows update after about 30 minutes. Might want to give it a shot!

 

Ha! I love it! Reminds me of my rule of software - "If it don't work, you haven't hit it with the right hammer". This is not to be confused with the rule for hardware - "If it don't work, you haven't hit it hard enough yet"

 

Sorry everyone...I started posting in a similar thread...

I found a thread on the Dell.com support forums with a problem identical to mine...the dude/dudette went through every Sigmatel driver available at the time (late 2006) and found .4823 worked the best...

I installed that driver on my machine, and no more crackling with in-game music even with hardware acceleration full up...

So far no problems with other applications (DVD, mp3) either...