Dangerous Waters Audio popping a lot

[Blacklight]

I've always had this issue with DW, but lately it's gotten more noticable. I get a lot of audio popping when running it. The ambient background audio is popping, and it's really noticable in the opening and closing movies.

It gets very annoying when listening to the sonar noise in the Broadband area. It sounds like someone is making popcorn next to my station. The ambient sounds of the engines in the background also pop a lot.

The popping seems to increase when I go to external 3D views but this could be due to the fact that I'm focused on a platform and the engine noise being louder increases the popping. Anyone have an idea what to do ?

[Dr.Sid]

I had some trouble like that .. and it was possible to switch some audio option off and it stopped. But I don't remember which one.

[Blacklight]

Do you remember what you did to fix it ?

Anyone have a suggestion ?

This is my current setup.

My hardware is:
AMD Semperon 2800+
2 GHz
1 GB of RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Audio Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live
OS: Windows XP

I don't get any audio popping in 688i Hunterkiller of Sub Command, or any other game on this computer.

[Dr.Sid]

Found it .. Options/sound/3d sound off.

[Blacklight]

Thanks. I'll give that a try tonight. Doesn't that make some of the audio go away though ?

[Blacklight]

Nope. That didn't work. Listening to the audio at the sonar station sounds like someone's popping popcorn in the next room over. Even if I have music turned on, it's all popping just on the main menu screen.

[Blacklight]

Okay. A possible clue:

The status messages on the second sound options screen says the following:

Sound Card Reporting no 3D Hardware Buffers. Reccomend Updating Drivers
Could not create hardware 3D sound. Performance degradation possible.
Created 6 3D Buffers, Recommend 4 minimum Buffers
Created 10 Special Effect Buffers. Recommend 4 minimum Buffers.
Created 10 Voice Buffers. Recommend 10 minimum Buffers.

My sound card drivers are fully updated.

Is the problem just that my sound card is old and can't handle the audio for some reason ? It seems to handle the audio for a LOT more complicated games than this one.

[Dr.Sid]

Try to lower hardware acceleration in system sound settings. The drivers might not be totally compatible.

Also .. can't it be interference from HD or other component ? I mean, you listen really closely .. and you might start noticing something unnoticed in other games.

Btw. you are not using any sound mod, do you ?

[Terror_666]

I had a similar problem it started in one game and got worse. I checked the forums and found this.
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=15280&query.id=47386#M15280

It did not help me because for me it was the death-rattle of my sound card but it might help you.

[Blacklight]

Also .. can't it be interference from HD or other component ? I mean, you listen really closely .. and you might start noticing something unnoticed in other games.

Btw. you are not using any sound mod, do you ?

I'm not using any sound mods and I've listened really good with headphones on my other games and there is no popping.


Well I turned off "Hardware Acceleration" altogether (It was the next lowest setting) and it seems to have lessened the problem significantly. There's still some small pops in there, but nowhere NEAR as much as before.
At last, it sounds like we got that damn popcorn machine off the boat ! *knocks wood*

The only significant popping now is when I change stations. There's a single "POP" as the audio switches over. The music and the movies are pop free now.