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  1. #1

    Sound stops randomly and popping after upgrading to Windows 8.1

    My game worked fine when I had windows 7, slight performance issues aside. I upgraded to windows 8.1, my performance is now smooth, but after playing for a few minutes the sound stops working. Sometimes I can only play for 30 seconds before the sound cuts out, but sometimes I can play for 20 minutes before it happens. I usually try to keep playing until I get to a save point before I restart the game, but when I keep playing with no sound at random times the there is annoying loud popping. The popping usually goes away after I pause the game, but it starts back up again after another minute or so usually. If I exit out of the game completely back to Wndows and run the game again, the sound comes back... That is until it drops back out again after a few minutes.

    If I switch to window mode and open the windows volume mixer I still get sound with everything else like windows system sounds, but even when sounds should be playing from the game, the mixer shows no activity coming from the game.. I've played other games, and have had no sound problems whatsoever from any other game

    The game is currently updated to 1.0.9. My GPU is an MSI GTX 970 with the latest Nvidia drivers. My CPU is an AMD FX-8350, and I have a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 Mobo with the latest bios and drivers. I had both my GPU and CPU overclocked, but since reverted them both to stock settings. I have all the Windows 8.1 updates as well.

    My GPU hooks up to my Samsung LCD with HDM, but I've also tried headphones and external speakers, but the sound issue happens regardless of output device. It happens running from the GPU's HDMI source, but it happens with my mobo's built in sound output as well.

    I've seen other sound issues from people by using google, but I've yet to come across the same exact issue I'm having. I've done all of the things I can find on the net about sound issues. I made sure sound output was set to stereo with only left and right speakers checked in configuration. I set the sample rate to 16-bit 44100 hz and tested out all the other same rates as well with no success. I also saw where people fixed their sound issues by running dx11.2 setup from downloading dxwepsetup from Microsoft, but it didn't help me either.. I reinstalled the game, my video drivers, restored my computer to an earlier point to remove the Windows 8.1 updates, then reinstalled the updates after that did nothing. Since the game never gave me this problem with Windows 7, I tried to run in Windows 7 compatibility mode, but nothing seems to work. I have done everything I can think of, but after a lot of lost hours I'm at the point of nearly giving up. I really like this game, but I'm tired of the sound going out and having to constantly restart the game.

    If anyone has a possible solution, I would really appreciate it. Thanks
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  2. #2
    WID992007's Avatar Senior Member
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    i hate to say this ..but disable your onboard sound and install a real sound card ?

    i did the same thing when the game shipped ..it sounds better too in all my games with even an old SB live card
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  3. #3
    Update your sound card drivers. Gigabyte has drivers dated 2012/10/26 (!) on their download pages. Realtek has drivers dated 2014/5/21 - still quite old but much better than the Gigabyte ones.
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  4. #4
    Haven't tried the Realtek drivers, but I can't see how this would help the issue. I've tested the game with my onboard sound, but that's not how I'm trying to run it. I'm trying to run it from the HDMI port on my GPU. I've even tried disabling the onboard sound from the bios to eliminate onboard sound issues from the equation.. Thanks for the response guys.

    I might try to dust off my very old sound card if I can find it, but I don't even know if it will work with Windows 8. I don't want to have to buy a new sound card if I don't have to, but I'm not feeling too confident about it solving my problem
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  5. #5
    WID992007's Avatar Senior Member
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    also dunno if this is your issue i was re installing my old Nvidia GPU in my brother's system last night

    in the vid card box there was a special wire i needed to connect from the GPU to the motherboard for HDMI sound to work
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  6. #6
    Originally Posted by BigC31uk Go to original post
    Haven't tried the Realtek drivers, but I can't see how this would help the issue. I've tested the game with my onboard sound, but that's not how I'm trying to run it. I'm trying to run it from the HDMI port on my GPU.
    Oh, ok, sorry. I didn't read your post carefully enough. AMD cards have a separate driver for audio, don't know if that is the case with NVidia too.

    Originally Posted by WID992007 Go to original post
    in the vid card box there was a special wire i needed to connect from the GPU to the motherboard for HDMI sound to work
    That is only needed on some older cards, not GTX 970.
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  7. #7
    WID992007's Avatar Senior Member
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    there is a realtek audio driver on guru 3d that might help
    but it does list only ATI HDMI device support dunno about Nvidia

    http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/...-download.html


    see this thread as well as someone else mentioned HDMI sound and a Nvidia GTX 970

    http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=392085


    last page of that thread says

    Awesome driver for my gtx970 as I have TV connected via HDMI.Now I can control sound and have fancy equalizer settings
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  8. #8
    Thanks. I'll look into this when I get a chance... If I still can't get it to work right, I'll probably just hook up another HDD and reinstall windows 7 since it worked fine then, except for the stutter, which is annoying, but not as annoying as the current problem
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  9. #9
    Tried the drivers.. They are nice, but didn't fix my problem.. I'm stumped. I guess I'll try to use my old 40gb ssd and install windows 7 on it just for this game.

    Thanks for your help
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  10. #10
    I think I finally fixed my problem without having to install Windows 7. All I did was disable HPET in the bios and I've been running it for over an hour without an issue.
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