This is one of the weirdest computer issues I have read about. I have an Abit Radeon RX700-Pro and haven't noticed any squealing noises. I run DW with 1.03 beta patch. Then again, I might not hear any noises at all because of the other fans. The darn thing sounds like an airplane or industrial fan. :lol:

Hey guys,

I have not hearing any noises either and I'm using patch 1.03b

My graphics card is Ati Radeon 9200

Strange, if it's not a loose fan or bad fan controller. Power supplies and CRT monitors do that sometimes, but for a graphics card it's very bizarre.

If it happening with two graphics cards it may not be the graphics card. Do you have access to another brand of card like from a friend or another computer you own that you can run a test with? Its possable that its a HDD or another moving part.

Not that it helps, but i have no problems using 103 patch.
Radeon 9800 pro AGP, 128 mb.

It is really hard to pinpoint the sound, but for now I don't think it's the gfx card, but the hdd. As soon I get my ear too close to other things making sound (fans) I loose direction or it drowns it out. Really annoying high pitch sound, not very loud though, but still clearly there. Sounds unhealthy and as if something eventually will break... I have a Maxtor IDE hdd 120gb. Whatever it is, the 2d interfaces triggers it.

Cheers Porphy

I pulled the graphics card's out (both of them) and tried using the onboard ATI Xpress200 chipset. Game runs SLOW as hell with it, but....no squealing.

So it's definitely no other part of the system at all - not the hard drives, PSU, etc - but something on the video card that doesn't like the game's 2d interface.

Good test XanderF. I can't try that as I only have one gfx card and no on-board gfx. For me the sound source is very elusive when I stick my head into the box ;), but damn clear and irritating when playing... perhaps Sonalysts have an idea what is going on for us "squealers".

Cheers Porphy

This prob is rather of elecrotechnical nature than software engineering. I guess ATI is the one to blame, not SCS. Maybe SCS ist just using seldomly used instructions.
I havent been able to reproduce it yet, but I know 100% for sure that I had this squeal also on desktop, which is also a pure 2D enviroment. The noise changed with the color displayed on the screen I remember. Window closed: Black desktop backgroud visible and no noise, opening an explorer window (white background filling the screen) the noise was there. Now If I only could get this reproduced.

Maybe you could make music in a graphics program with alternating colour bands :D


I have something like that on my CRT which would make an annoying noise at certain specific refresh frequencies. I've also seen old systems where the whole image would get moving waves in it it it became too bright.

A few things that may be worth noting from me, as I also use an X800XT card.

One: I dont get a squealing from the vid-card when I play ANY games, even DW.

Two: My vid-card is liquid cooled. No on-card fan is present.

Three: ATI cards can, and will, change fan RPM's when air cooled to maintain temperature.

So, perhaps it is a combination of a junk stock fan, and the card keeping itself cool (or trying to)?

It's not the fan, I'm afraid. I also have liquid cooling in my Geforce 6800GS, and I hear the noise.

Actually, I managed to fry a video card two weeks ago. I may have messed up installing the GPU waterblock, which resulted in overheating... shortly after I launched DW. It wasn't the GPU core or any of the memory chips that fried, however. It looked like a regulator or something like that to me. There was no warning at all when it happened, my monitor just went blank and then I smelled smoke. :damn:

I don't remember hearing a squeal from the old card back then, though.

Sorry, that's too funny the way you described it... :rotfl:

Well, I've got a little GeForce FX 5200 crammed into a laptop case, and I don't have any problems at all. :up:

I have an ATi X300 SE in mine 128MB RAM and I am having no problems at all.

Very odd.

It does sound kind of like a regulator or something cooking off...perhaps the brand of components matters?

The two ATI cards I was using are a Gigabyte model (X800XT) and Rosewill (X800XL). Neither what you'd really call "tier 1" manufacturers, and although they both follow the reference board spec layout, I can, of course, certainly not speak to the component quality they use.

Still, SC works fine, so....whatever they changed in the 2d interface between SC and DW....putting it BACK will fix this problem.