Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
JimmiG

Crackling sound

Recommended Posts

I've been having this weird issue with FSX and sound for as long as I can remember, but never really bothered before because FSX ran like sh*t on my previous systems anyway. Now that it finally runs at flyable framerates, it's starting to bother me.Basically the sound will crackle and pop sometimes.. it's like the sound is cutting out for a few ms at a time, and it does this several times a second.-I first blamed my soundcard, the M-Audio Delta, which is actually a pro audio card and not a gaming card. I removed it, uninstalled the drivers and activated onboard sound, but it has exactly the same problem.-It's not related to a low framerate. If anything, it gets worse at a higher framerate.-It seems to get worse over forests for some reason. As soon as there are a lot of trees on-screen, the stuttering sound gets worse. It doesn't matter what I've set the framerate lock to. Over water or even cities (where the framerate is much lower than over forests), the crackling is not nearly as bad or even non-existent. I guess I could just reduce the tree density, but I shouldn't have to do that because my system can clearly handle that number of trees - the framerate is very good over forests.-This *only* happens in FSX. X-Plane. Fallout3, Oblivion, Bioshock, GTA IV, Mass Effect, X3 and pretty much every game I own and play works fine whether I'm using onboard sound or the Delta card. Audio apps like Reason and Ableton Live also work without problems or sound quality issues.-From my experience with audio apps, I'd say increasing the audio buffer length that FSX uses might solve the problem.. unfortunately I've not found a way to do this from within FSX and no global settings seem to have any effect.


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
MSFS / XP

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm not familiar with your sound card, but you might try checking the audio card output sample rate and speaker playback sample rate. I think you probably already checked that, but thought I'd suggest it anyway. Vista really stinks at audio adding delays at its own whim.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been dealing with the same issue. The denser the forrest the worse it is. The problem got worse when I upgraded from a 8800GTS to a GTX 260. I can get rid of the problem by cutting back on AutoGen but why would I want to do that. Tried moving sound card...no joy, tried changing memory speeds and settings...no joy, new drivers...nope, nothing seems to make a differnce. Vista /64Q9450 @ 3.4Asus P5E4 gigs PC8500 /ADATA @ 1020X-Fi FatalityEVGA GTX260

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's really strange..why would forests affect the sound but not busy airports and complex city scenery? Also your system is completely different from mine... Intel instead of AMD, Nvidia instead of ATI and a different soundcard. Both of us are running Vista x64 and quad-core CPUs, though.It seems to come in bursts..the sound might be acceptable for a minute, then suddenly the crackling becomes unbearable, then it gets better.. It seems to be related to how busy the scenery engine is maybe. I've tried changing both fiber fraction and bandwidth mult without effect. Tried both very high and very low numbers.I've triple-checked all audio settings. Nothing I can think of appears to be wrong.


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
MSFS / XP

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Doesn't seem to be an issue using DX10 however!
I've posted about this same issue in the hardware forums and on Simforums. The reason you are getting the sound crackling is high DPC Latency. I also noted that this behavior did not occur under DX10. I'm beginning to see a theme with people that are experiencing this phenomenon that being an ASUS motherboard and Vista X64. What I have found to resolve the issue under DX9 in my particular case is to use the Bufferpool tweak with the poolsize set to 512MB . Doing this the DPC Latency always remains acceptable. I have tried every poolsize and I always have High DPC Latency at any poolsize below 512MB. I'm not sure if there is a cure for video cards with less than 1GB of memory.Anyhow, here is a link to the tool to check your DPC Latency. http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtmlMake sure you are checking the Latency with FSX running. You will notice Latency is high under DX9 and very low under DX10. You will also notice that the amount of autogen will directly effect the DPC Latency under DX9. I'm glad I found a workable solution because the graphic quality of DX10 is horrid.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Jimmi and everyone.Try to change the Sound settings / Options in MSFS, from whatever it is now to another / lesser value setting. You can also try the same thing in DxDiag Sound acceleration and see if it helps. TV

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Tried changing the Buffer Pools but it didn't help. Lowering the amount of TREES in FSX.cfg helped but the issue is still there. Is there a replacement tree texture that might fix the problem? Avcomware, there is no option for adjusting sound acceleration in Vista, but thanks anyway.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I stand corrected...I left out a 0 in the Buffer Pools. I corrected it and that fixed the problem. TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1500 line has been deleted in cfg and all is good. You the man, Sarge. Thank You.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I know how you feel JimmiG. I had a new system build in April consisting of the stuff in my sig. At first I had no sound problem with the crackling and popping, but in Oct I did a mild overclock and started noticing the popping and crackling. The thing that is funny on my system is that I get great performance, no blurries, run most sliders maxed out, but I still get some popping/crackling in certain areas. Mostly this occures in very dense hubs and with the Level D 767 and RealAir SF260. Sometimes with default planes too. I thought it had to do with my overclock so I reset everything back to the stock settings but it still persisted. I have checked with NickN, people in other forums, etc., but still no solution. It wasn't until recently that I did more google searching that I found some posts mentioning that a lot of people are having HD sound issues after upgrading to Windows SP3. It was then that I realized that it was around the same time that I did my overclock that I had also upgraded to SP3. I have not fixed it yet, but I have been reading some links that concern Win XP SP3 and the HD audio problems. If I try something that fixes it I will post back.Edit: I started this reply before any others and didn't realize that you were on Vista so the stuff I posted probably is valid. Sorry


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had the same issue. What fixed it for me was to go into the DXDIAG and change the hardware sound acceleration to full acceleration. It worked for me maybe it will help you.


Jim Wenham

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It is an old Flight Simulator problem. I noticed it with FS 2002. Turning down hardware acceleration did help. There were then many posts about this solution on the Avsim forum. With FSX I was surprised to have the problem back but the solutions of 2003 did not help. Like in 2002 it only occured with certain aircraft, so I stopped flying the small Cessna. Another sound card did not help. Because in the mean time Creative had come up with a new driver I tried the old sound card again and fortunately had normal sound back again. On my new Vista computer I was lucky enough not to have it back. It is on my wishlist for FS 11 that it does not have crackling sound anymore.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Actually I'm getting it in DX10 mode as well. Maybe switching to DX10 as a solution only works on Nvidia cards?Going to try the BufferPools tweak...however 512MB is a very large number. Most tweak guides I've seen recommend not setting this to more than 10-15MB. But it's worth a try I guess.


Asus Prime X370 Pro / Ryzen 7 3800X / 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz / Gainward Ghost RTX 3060 Ti
MSFS / XP

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Actually I'm getting it in DX10 mode as well. Maybe switching to DX10 as a solution only works on Nvidia cards?Going to try the BufferPools tweak...however 512MB is a very large number. Most tweak guides I've seen recommend not setting this to more than 10-15MB. But it's worth a try I guess.
If your having crackling in DX10 as well, you have other issues. Visit the website I listed above, read the methodolgy for tracking down the hardware or driver that is causing the high latency, use the DPC Latency checker tool and do a little troubleshooting. I need NO bufferpool tweak to run under DX10. It is only needed for DX9. Also as I stated above, setting the poolsize to 512MB on a video card with less than 1GB of memory may cause one to have other issues with FSX. I have not tried the tweak with video cards that have less than 1GB of memory.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...