FS2004 Sound Issue

[Carob 2]

Hello all.I'm hoping someone has a solution to a sound problem that I'm having. Well, actually, It's my Dad who's having the issue. I'll try to explain it the best I can.What appears to be happening is a nasty sound that is generated when switching views. He explains the noise as what sounds like a broken speaker. This seems to be happening on more and more aircraft as time goes by. (That could be just because he's getting around to flying more aircraft.) I think the only default aircraft that he uses is the Baron so this is happening with add-on aircraft. For example... the Fokker from Project Fokker, a DC-8 from HJG, an Alaska 737 from unknown. And the ways it sounds, there will be more to come if I can't come up with something for him soon.He can start a flight okay and probably even finish one if he never changed views. While in cockpit view he'll switch to a spot view and the noise will appear. Alot of the time it will go away by pausing and unpausing the sim. He'll change views again and the noise will come back. Here is one of his quotes... "If I stay on inside view and move to outside it shows up. I hit pause and then take it off from pause and it stops. Do it again the noise happens, hit pause and go back and the noise is gone."Using this pause method only works some of the time too.He did say that if he changed the panel in the Fokker to something else the problem seemed to go away. But I don't think he did a whole flight to really find out for sure. I also had him empty the sound folder for the DC-8 and he said the problem seemed to go away then as well. Although, again, not a whole flight so really don't know for sure. He also said that he can faintly hear the sound in the background before it ever really happens. He says that whenever he starts a flight and hears this in the background he knows he's in for trouble.Has anyone experienced anything like this? As of now I don't know what else to do. I'm hoping someone here can help me out. Any solutions you may have would be greatly appreciated!His system is aP4 2.4XP HomePNY Ti46001GB RAMDirectX 9.0aThanks very much!!!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

MSFS (both FS2002 and FS2004) has stereo sound. When you switch views, the sound "environment" will change in the same way turning your head to the left or right would make the engine sound seem to be on the right or the left.The same is true when going from inside the aircraft to spot plane view.First, I'd have your Dad check his sound settings. I suggest maxing them and also making sure H/W acceleration is on in DirectX. I noticed some aircraft (like Flight1's 421) had sound anomalies if I tried lowering the sound settings per some of the more popular tweaks out there. And one of the issues I saw was noise when switching views. You don't mention what type of sound card your Dad has--that is very important if my suggestions above don't help.I have a SBLive value and have great sound with it in the Sim.One other thing to note... Some speaker setups use two wires with a minijack connected to a splitter, which combines the run and goes into the line out of the sound card. My speakers will sometimes short as one of the cables never connected well and will sometimes get a bit loose. Again, the symptoms of this tend to be noise when switching views and sound is boosted in the channel with the bad connection. The way to eliminate this as an issue is to try another set of speakers...-John

[Carob 2]

I'm pretty sure his sound settings are set to maximum. But just to make sure, you are talking about the Low, Med & High radial button in the Sound Settings of the sim, right?I'm almost positive his sound is built onto the board. It's a guinine Intel board if that helps at all.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Yep--those are the sound settings I'm referring to on the MSFS side.But H/W acceleration may also be disabled in DirectX.... That can cause the same issues with sound....-John

[Guest Roath]

OK - I'll try this again! First long answer did not get posted...Those of us with the SB Live 5.1 sound card know exactly what you are talking about. I have two add-on panels with that problem (none of the default do it). One is the Ariane analog panel (overhead gauge had to be replaced with a simple panel using Concorde light switches) and the other is the new 737NG $9.95 panel from Precision Panels (this one it was the GPWS gauge - fixed by replacing with the old FPDS(?) Boeing Callout gauge).Another way to silence the "static" sound is to toggle the sound off and then on again with the Q key.Have read reports that the problem is gone after upgrade to an Audigy sound card. I plugged a Turtle Beach into my Dell P2.8 and the problem was gone. That was temporary and don't know if I will actually change the sound card permanently.Good luck!Phill Roath

[Carob 2]

I'm pretty sure I set both of these the last time I was at the machine but I'll have him double-check.Is there anything else that could be causing this? When I'm there at Christmas I plan on installing DX9.0b. Is it possible that v9a is causing this? Or maybe a gauge or sound file that is causing havoc? I don't know. I'm just out of ideas I guess.

[Carob 2]

Is this the same SB Live card mentioned above? He says he has no problems with his.If it truly is a conflict of some sort with a gauge file, how do you determine which one?

[planenut 19]

I have the exact same problem. It only happens on some of the add-on aircraft - the Fokker being one of them. This only happens on FS9 but the same airplanes on FS2002 don't have any sound problem at all. I have a SB Live card also. The sound that is generated when switching views is really loud, especially when using headphones as I do. Hurts the ears.

[Carob 2]

Are there any cards out there that are known not to have this problem?The guy above says he has a SB card also and doesn't have this problem? What does that mean? Is that just because he maybe doesn't have one of these funky gauge issues?If it is a gauge issue, is it possible to work around the problem? Not by muting the sounds and bringing it back but another way? Muting the sound or pausing doesn't always work for him either. Only some of the time I guess.

[Guest Roath]

Not everyone has the problem, but it seems to be the SB 5.1 that's doing it. I found the gauge by going into panel.cfg and commenting out each gauge but in this case I suspected the sound so tried the GPWS and that was it for the Precision Panels.The Ariane panel has voice push-back built into the overhead gauge and I suspect that was it.Read one other person had the exact same problem with the SB Live 5.1 and a Dash-8 panel (don't know where he got it). Is this the card your dad has?Phill Roath

[Guest Roath]

I don't use headphones but when the spot-view-soundblastingstatic comes on, it can be heard a couple of rooms away.I am really considering going to the Audigy and a visit to the Creative labs web site shows I'm at the latest level of drivers for this SB Live card. I also never had any problem like this in FS2002 but FS9 is so superior that 2002 is off my HD.Phill Roath

[Carob 2]

He has the SB Live Value from a couple of years ago.I don't suppose by chance you know which gauge is causing the problem in the fokker or the HJG DC-8, do you?If I knew of a $30-$40 card that didn't have this problem I would just buy that and install it for him. The problem with that is I don't know of any.

[Guest mberg]

Creative SB Audigy 2 with updates works fine with 5.1 sound system--no sound issues. I had the same problem with SB live. Going to audigy 2 type sound card is worth the bucks.

[Guest dasher 7]

Hi CarobFirst of all, your description of the soundproblem was right on from my experience, - also based on SB Live 5.1 I'm afraid there's not much to do except individually going through each panel like Roath did, thanks Roath for the tips on 737NG. The discovery that the GPWS gauge causes the soundproblem in the 737NG probably gives the solution for the Fokker since the 737NG uses the GPWS from the Fokker project!Furthermore, for those of you considering upgrading to SoundBlaster Audigy: BEWARE, the SoundBlaster cards have always disappointed me, I only use them on my gaming comp (for price reasons) but next time, na-ah. For one thing they seem to always oversell their products, as a (budget) recording musician and producer I know this for a fact. Like: Claiming full duplex ability for the AWE Gold series meant recording in 44.1 khz while listening to crappy 22 khz in he headphones. Or, heavy latency problems even in the Live 5.1 which in most instances makes it impossible to play midi-instruments just approximately on the beat. Or, claiming to be a "true" 24 bit card while the 24 bits in reality only refer to sound in full digital mode, I'm even thinking this might apply to the Audigy, not sure though.) Thus, on my "music-computer" I'll NEVER buy a soundblaster card again. I'm pretty sure that for the money you'd have to fork out for an Audigy you're better off buying something else, I'm not going to recommend any, though, as I don't know enough about soundcards in the gaming range. Anyway, most recording or midi-forums are filled with disappointed soundblaster customers.Roath mentioned Turtle Beach, maybe someone else could mention other options also.Until all panels have been dissected: Watch those ears SBLivers, especially when headphoning! Cheers,halabraham

[Guest _patrol_]

I to have this problem (SB Live Gamer). It didn't begin immediately, but rather about a month or so later when I installed a particular addon A/C. I assumed that only the addon would have the problem but no, now all or most of my A/C had it. Same as everyone else I could stop it temporarily using the "Q" key. Since then I repartitioned and reformatted my HDD, reinstalled WinXP, FS9, necessary drivers, and nothing else. The first time I ran FS9 the problem was still there! So maybe the addon initiated the problem, but the trouble then seems to reside outside FS9, at least for me, but effects no other programs. I read somewhere about fixing problems on SB Live cards by "resetting" them using some sort of diagnostic utility. Does anybody know anything about this?ThanksDavid