Sound messing up

What sort of sound card exactly are you using?

I am not sure, but this computer is a new one, so the sound card should be able to handle anything the game throws at it, the best info i could get was a "ATI Function Driver for High Definition Audio - ATI AA01" about my sound

Glad this topic was here as I was going to resurrect one from March before seeing it. I'm having the same problem described as the thread creator.

I was playing for about 20-30 minutes just fine when all sound effects, voices and music began breaking up badly.

Things I've tried to fix the problem:

Alt-tab
Enable/Disable Hardware Sound
Closing any Background Programs

My sound driver is a newer version than what Asus offers, but I'm downloading from Realtek's site to see if their newest one is any more up-to-date than the one I'm currently using for my AC'97.

I probably won't be testing it any more tonight as it's late, and it's a pain because there's no way to determine when the problem will appear. Sometimes as little as five minutes, all the way up to a good half hour of play.

i have a similar issue with my new gaming-rig:

Board: MSI P45 Platinum
CPU: Intel E8400 (3 GHz)
RAM: OCZ PC2-9200 Reaper HPC Edition


using the onboard sound-chip "Realtek ALC888" with the latest 1.95 drivers from realtek.

my sound is stuttering after 5-10 min of gaming and then keeps it for the rest of the game.
but only when I hear ingame-voices, not battle-sounds or music.

you can also see the whole game stuttering when this happens - it's like slow motion for some brief moments then it's back to synced 60 FPS again...

i've never had this before and i have another pc with the same realtek sound-chip but no problems at all.

i've also had 2 total system-hangups so far right after sound-stuttering but no idea if it's connected.

oh forgot to mention:

GFX: Radeon HD3870 with Catalyst 8.5 drivers
Windows XP Pro SP3 - all updated.

having no virus scanner, no firewall or any other similar program running in the back while playing sins.

my problem just solved itself.

apparently it's a common problem with the 2000-series of the belkin n1 usb wlan-adapter.

once I unplug it everything runs smooth again

hmmm thats the problem for me, i do not have a USB wlan adapter, and i have the same radeon model as yours, as a matter of fact, i ran nearly the same things are you, just .4 gigs less on the processor speed. I have this small thing my dad put on my computer, its a linksys brand, i think it does the same thing that your USB did, if i i unplug it probably would have the same outcome

never mind, its connected directly to my internet card, it disables my internet, its not a modem or anything related to it, looks like a satelite-look alike, no idea what it is but this is the name i could get off on the side of it:

Linksys: Cisco System, Wireless N

it more looks like the TEC cannon in the game itself, i dunt know, i cannot find information on it either, though Cisco is a division belonging to Linksys and wireless N is a model of routers, mabye this is a wireless enhancer, since i share internet with four other computers and my computer is on the third floor and the master router is in the basement, mabye so, i do not know this is just a theory i am throwing around, someone halp!  

My sound driver's completely up to date now, though it was only a month or two old to begin with.

Sound is still randomly deciding to crap out and stays that way until I quit the game and reload. Not really sure what to try next.

Have you tried these?

1) Go to the sound settings and move the sliders on to cause a quick volume reset.
2) Make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card
3) Make sure you don't have something strange running in the background (youtube always causes problems for me).
4) Turn bloom off if you have it on. Try turning down your graphics settings.
5) Open your user settings file (in the Settings directory of the game install directory) and set SoundUseHardware to TRUE.
6) Go to your Sound and Audio Device Properties in control panel then to the Audio tab and go to the advanced Sound playback and on the Performance tab set Hardware acceleration to standard.
7) Check if the problem still exists in windowed mode (video settings)

You've probably tried at least the first couple, but may not have tried the later ones.

I've taken care of 2 and 3.

Haven't tried number 1, but I doubt it will help the problem. I've done 4 by turning Bloom off and on to no effect and I'm rather glad anyway as I want to be able to play with Bloom on. I'd really prefer to not have to turn my graphics settings down, but I'll try that as well and see what happens.

I've done 5 by setting both to TRUE or FALSE and both ways have the problem develop.

I can try 6, but I'd prefer not to disable a very standard feature my entire system uses just because Sins can't get along with it.

I'll have to try 7 as well.

So, 1, part of 4, and 7 to test. Will report back.

One thing of possible interest is that even with the checkbox checked to disable the game sound upon losing focus, the game keeps playing while I'm on the desktop.

-----

Got 'lucky' so to speak and had the static problem occur immediately upon creation of a new game. Just tried everything I hadn't yet. Nothing fixed the problem. Horrible breaking up in all sound. What now? And now after resetting sound acceleration back to full and alt-tabbing back into the window, the sound is working correctly again. *sigh* No idea what's causing this.

Crackling just came back again. No settings were changed or new programs run. Noticed it started up as an enemy Krosov's nukes hit one of my worlds. Not surmising that caused it in any way, but that's all that was going on at the time when the sound decided to crap out again.

Entirely quit out of game, changed sound acceleration to standard again and loaded my game once more. Was feeling pretty good as I played for thirty minute with no sound defects. Guess what. They're back again. So sound acceleration isn't the issue.

Any more suggestions?

*sigh* I'm trying to be patient here...

Please stop the helpful hints, I have been having this problem with sins from the beginning, and there is definately a real problem, not only is my sound static the minute the game loads up, but it causes the graphichs to freeze for a while when panning the camera.

I have tried the game both with my onboard ALC882 card and a brand new Soundblaster Audigy, the problem exists in both cases.

Oddly enough I have no problems on my laptop running windows vista, save for the occational crash.

Machine specs: (stationary problem machine)
Intel 3.4 GHz Dual core
2 GB ram
300 GB disk
Asus NVidia 9600GT
MB Asus something
OS Windows XP Pro SP3

This machine should have no problems running Sins, however it does have problems.

It should not be necessary to spend more time messing with settings to make the game work, than you spend playing it.


The whole charade seemed to begin when I did the first upgrade from retail to 1.04

I don't know when it started for me exactly, but I recall playing with friends for hours from 1.02 and earlier without any issues. It's only now when I've regained interest in playing again that I find myself plagued by these audio issues.

Another day waiting for some help...

might have something to do with the patch v1.04 like what Jeskelech typed down, something in that patch did more then what it was suppose to and made the sound screw up for people, this case is more bigger then i thought i would be

I was having this problem too and i turned my graphics down to low ( they had been on high) and now the sound only screws up when i zoom in on certain ships.

I've tried turning the graphics down. Still happens on a random basis. Sometimes large battles can cause it, yes, but other times there can be 5 or less of my own ships in a desolate system of mine and it starts up then too.

So I'm still at a loss as to how to solve this.

we know it has something to deal with video card and the update v1.04, ever since it came out i always had this problem, which makes me question what they put in it really was useful or just simply random junk that hinders other peoples sound

I doubt this is sound-card related as stuttering sound only makes you hear there is something wrong with your system.

either your vga or cpu is too weak, you don't got enough ram and your system is swapping or you have other components connected (like my usb-wlan adapter) which kinda lock up the system and slow it down.

things you can do to find out whats causing it:

- try removing any unnecessary hardware from your pc (including external components)
- tune down graphics settings to a minimum
- see if your system starts swapping during the game
- turn off any nonessential software that is running in the background (virus scanner, auto-defrags etc.)

true, all i do have is this external wlan, this maybe the problem, let me check...

well my internet fully and completly disconnected from the main modem, so that also is a problem, because i play this game online alot, and it gets to easy on single player, even on the hardest difficulty, i do not know, the AI just seems to preditable and easy to determine. I am also running on DDR3 4 GB ram, shouldn't that be enough, and also my video comepletly excels all of the requirements so it shouldn't come from that all together, there has to be an alternative. :NOTSURE: 

Hey i thought i'd just come back to say that i have a GeForce 7150m and its integrated with an Nforce 630m and last night i downloaded the new Nforce driver. The sound problem i've been having has practically disappeared. i even put my graphics back on high and its running almost perfectly.

Well, I think I finally figured out my problem. Played a few hours today with no sound issues. Apparently my second video card had been dying on me for a few weeks and just a few days ago it finally bit the dust.

After removing it, for whatever esoteric reason my sound is no longer crackling randomly. Don't want to jinx it, but figured I should report back even though support folks haven't posted in weeks now.