Minor problems with my new Inspiron 1505.

I've had two minor problems with my Inspiron 1505 while playing World of Warcraft. I'm running with 2gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0ghz 4mb cache processor, 100gb 7200rpm HD, a 256mb ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 Hypermemory, and "Sigma Tel High definition Audio" with, supposedly, SoundBlaster Advanced Audio software (or so it says on the packing list, but I can't find proof of it anywhere on the machine).

Now, I'm having just a few minor problems with World of Warcraft. No framerate issues or anything like that. The two most noticeable issues are firstly the sound... It's hard to explain. If I do something with my UI, like open up my character sheet for instance, it sounds normal. But if I do anything that takes place outside of the UI, as in mount, cast a spell, listen to someone else casting a spell/mounting, or talk to an NPC, it sounds sort of like it's far away. And in certain indoor areas it sort of echo's, like it should have surround sound enabled or something. I thought at first that could be the problem, but I set my sound output for headphones, since that's what I use, and it still has that problem (WoW doesn't have an in-game setting that I know of that lets you specify what type of audio output device you're using). Any ideas? Drivers, maybe? Where would I even find drivers for that? When I tried the automatic driver update in the device manager it checked online and couldn't find any.

The second problem isn't really a big deal, but more of a minor annoyance on my part. Normally, IE on my desktop machine, if my character is standing still and I turn him it's a nice smooth animation. But on this laptop if I turn him while he's standing still it's kind of a jumpy, uneven movement of the character model until he's facing the right direction. If I'm moving I don't get the problem, but if I'm standing still the model skips. I'll have to check sometime tomorrow if it does the same thing when other people do this, or if it's only my character model. Also, I tried installing the 6.11 Catalyst drivers to see if that made any difference at all, but it didn't.

P.S.
I made the post a few days ago about wanting first hand accounts on how well BF2142, HL2, WoW, and Oblivion would play on this machine. I just got it today and I've been busy getting everything set up and all my stuff reinstalled on it. BF2142 runs well so far, same with Oblivion, and WoW does aswell minus the two little issues in this post. Now I just have to install the huge stack of older games sitting on my kitchen table sometime this weekend. UT2k4, Quake 4, Stacraft: BW, Far Cry, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Doom 3, Call of Duty, etc, etc.

 

I'd turn on vsync if I were you. That will solve a lot of graphical problems right there, especially with LCD's. That being said, I don't play WoW, so I'm stabbing in the dark

 

vsync fixes tearing, but it lowers your frame rate

 

It doesn't seem to help, but that's not the main problem. The sound is the big one. It's really distracting after hearing it the other way for so long. I'm using the exact same headset as I do on my desktop FYI.

 

Have you formatted this machine since you received it? I would strongly suggest doing that - with a Dell and all its bloatware, you are best off starting fresh. There's a sticky in the Dell forum that explains the whole thing.

The Sound Blaster integrated stuff is known to have issues with games and compatibility, so do try to find it on the PC and get rid of it if it is installed right away (a format would take care of that too . . ).

Have you tried updated audio drivers? Get them from Sigma Tel.

 

Yeah, all the extra stuff that Windows in general has running in the background is stupid. Add onto that all the extra dell stuff and it gets pretty bad. But seriously, this is... WoW. I don't have problems with any of my other games. I can even run Oblivion on decently high settings and it plays fine. The audio is the same way, it only sounds funny on WoW. Can't find the drivers for the stinking thing on SigmaTel's website though. Nor can I find the soundblaster stuff, but I know it's there because it wanted me to register it this morning when I turned the machine on.

And I would do a format and reinstall, but I try avoid things that could possibly go horribly wrong. Nothing like getting a corrupted windows disk or something. I don't think it'd void my warranty, but I'd rather not risk it even though it's only a minute chance something could happen. Although it probably would fix some stuff. I had a "critical error" booting up that required a restart earlier, driver troubles... I know for sure I got the right drivers (got the 6.11 Catalyst Mobility drivers right off this forum), but something tells me that the Dell stuff on the machine didn't like that I wasn't using Dells drivers.

-EDIT-
And just incase it's something specific to WoW like it sort of seems like, I posted the problems on their tech forums too. No reply so far though, and I posted it last night.

 

Interesting...I am having the same problem on my old desktop, but it only seems to happen with Blizzard games.

 

Are your speaker settings set correctly i.e. 2 laptop speakers? You could accidentally have 5.1 enabled which will make some things sound distant with the wrong speaker settings.

 

Set to headphones, since I use headphones.

-EDIT-
Okay, I'm having troubles with CS:S now too. HL2 runs fine, but CS:S is... weird. It kind of skips. Not real "lag" as I can still move the crosshair, shoot, and move with no troubles. It's just that it's like the enviroment around me jump and sort of skips when I move. Plus things like the grenade animations aren't smooth. You toss them and the grenade model jumps as it goes.

Again, this is a weird one for me. CS:S has the problem, but Half-Life 2 doesn't. Physics and everything are fine in that.

 

Need to bump this post, so I don't make a new one.

 

Try Vsync like a previous poster suggested. It brings the frame rates down for your refresh rate. Usually 60FPS. Don't really have any suggestions.

BTW, what sort of FPS do you get in Battlefield 2142? Settings (Full, med, low)?

 

I can't really quote a number, since I don't have FRAPS or anything on to check. But with everything at medium, but dynamic and enhanced turned off, I get very smooth gameplay. It's still pretty smooth if I turn on the dynamic and enhanced lighting, which makes it alot cooler looking and seems more realistic. But then certain things make the framerate crap out, like if someone plants alot of demo packs on the ground and sets them off or something. I keep the dynamic shadows off too, cuz if you turn them on but don't turn them to high detail they look kind of stupid. And this on max resolution, btw.

 

I think I know what you are talking about. I haven't played WoW very long, but this problem occurs in Warcraft3 if you were to choose EAX2 when you don't have a soundblaster capable sound card. Everything kind of echoes and seems faraway. But if you were to choose Miles emulated stereo or whatever its called, it fixes this problem.

Perhaps somehow WoW thinks you have a SoundBlaster card but you actually don't.

Hmm... on second thought it might have something to do with the dolby emulation, but in any case, it has something to do with what the game thinks you have but you actually don't. ^^;;