FSX-MS Sound has a mind of its own!

[rhodges 6]

I have had Win XP Pro 64bit on an i7-975 CPU for a number of years with no sound problems at all. I recently upgraded as follows (and love the performance!):

 

1. ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe/GEN3 Motherboard

2. Intel i7 2700K CPU

3. Mushkin 997057 (4Gx2) Memory

4. GTX580 Video Card

5. Corsair CWCH80 Water Cooling

6. Win 7 64 Bit

 

My problem is that in FSX my aircraft sound has a mind of its own and varies all over the place. I do not know whether it is my setup settings in Win7, Realtek HD Audio, FSX, something else, or some combination of these that is the culprit. I have tried about every combination I can think of but there are so many options. If someone has experienced these problems with this or similar hardware in FSX and figured out the optimum sound setup, I would appreciate it if you would share it.

 

My present setup was made with the PMDG 737NGX as my bird of choice and it works well at least most of the time, I particularly like hearing the whine begin and increase as the throttles are advanced, However, at times sound, assumed to be the engines is a continual roar that can only be turned down by turning speaker volume down. FSX options have no affect. When I switch to another aircraft selection it is a turkey shoot and anything may happen. This also may or may not occur after a MSFSX startup with an FSX default aircraft. Examples of some of the things that happen are as follows:

 

Scenario 1: Sound is overwhealming and volume is constant (engines assumed). The only way to be able to hear ATC (I use PF2000/PFE), is to turn the sound off with the "Q" key. FSX sound slider options have no affect. If I turn the speakers down to an acceptable aircraft sound level, I cannot hear ATC loud enough any more.

 

Scenario 2: Sound is not overwhealming, but constant. In Windows Mode, engine volume does increase and decrease with throttle input, but the whine is sometimes there with the 737NGX, and at other times it is absent. In the outside view, the sound is constant and does not change with throttle input when the whine is absent.

 

Scenario 3: Aircraft has very low, or virtually no engine sound at all regardless of sliders.

 

Scenario 4:Results vary when an aircraft is seleted. Sound may be normal and acceptable for a flight, or may be one of the strange constant undesirable scenarios.

 

Note: In all scenarios, the condition remains constant for the flight in question. Regardless of whether it is acceptable, or out of control the scenario does not change during flight.

 

I have Creative 5.1 Surround Speakers

 

There is no problem in FS9 and all aircraft sounds are normal and as expected.

 

Any Ideas?

 

Respectfully:

RTH

[OldMaintChief 7]

Do you have 24 bit Studio sound selected?

 

Dave

[mhlarsen 2]

Hodges,

 

First, I would suggest that you get a headset for the ATC sounds as this separates ATC communication from engine sounds.

 

Second, check your sound output device properties (speakers) in the Control Panel and verify that your settings in the tab Communications is like this:

 

 

Before I had this setting my sound in FSX would fluctuate and act weird.

 

Hope this helps.

[rhodges 6]

Thanks for the prompt replies folks::

 

Dave:

 

I do have "24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality" selected under Sound>Playback>Speakers>Speaker Properties>Advanced.

The test cycles through all five speakers correctly.

 

I do see that there is also an option for "24 bit, 44100 Hz (Studio Quality)". I will try that and see if there is any change.

 

 

mhlarsen:

 

I do have a good headset and have tried it extensively. I see no difference in the results between useing speakers or the headset. I very seldom, almost never use MSFSX default ATC. As I mentioned in my original post, I use PF2000/PFE provisions and it is separated from FSX sound. With FSX sound disabled ("Q" key), PFE ATC still works just fine, but of course there are no FSX originated sounds. As I also stated, sometimes with FSX sound enabled, it is so loud regardless of what I do that I cannot hear ATC. AT other times it is manageable.

 

I do have "Do Nothing" checked as you recommended.

 

 

 

Thanks Again. Later today or as soon as possible, I will try to take screen shots of everything I can find relative to my setup.

RTH

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Before considering hardware issues take a look at the sound files. I have heard engine noises on-going where they should not have been. So what did I do? Swapped out the Sound folder with a new sound set. First, I would check a default aircraft with default sound. Everything ok?

 

If so, move on to one of the planes causing the issue. Once found, check the Sound folder. Is it an alias to somewhere else? May need to track it down. Try using another sound set and see if the problem persists. Try another aircraft with the troubling sound.

 

As you can see, the idea is to reduce the variables to help pin-point the direction of the problem. If all that fails, then I would move into hardware.

 

just some ideas,

 

Clutch

[rhodges 6]

Update:

 

I think I may have found my problem, but school is stll out to confirm this over the long haul.

 

I found that in my FSX>Settings-Sound options that "Sounds" and "Voice" had "Default Primary Device" as the settings. I changed this to be "Speakers (Realtek High Definition)" and it appears that aircraft sounds are as they should be at least at the moment.

 

I tried the default Baron, King Air, and Boeing 737 along with a few third party birds including the PMDG 737NGX (Engine whine is back where it should be loud and clear).

 

The one exception so far was the Aeroworx B200 King Air. Initially it is fine, but if I wander away from the windows screen and look outside or at some other display and come back to the windows view, sound is too loud and constant again. This is a FS9 conversion so may be unique to this bird and the import/modifications for FSX. I will have to give it a little more time to reach any conclusions.

 

Clutch: Thank you for the suggestions.

 

The first thing I tried was to replace the PMDG 737NGX Sound folder with the MSFSX Default 737 folder. No difference. I also tried another bird or two with the same results. Again, all of the aircraft in question had no sound problems before my hardware upgrade. No aircraft sound folders/files were changed.

 

The default aircraft had problems of their own when I checked them. Although I have not flown MS default aircraft for many years and/or versions of MSFS I have the default Baron as my FSX startup default aircraft located at KLWB. I realize that this is a debated method of startup between developers, but it has worked well for me for many years. PMDG says it is not necessary and even advises against it, but I have found some third party aircraft, usually sinple ones have strange engine startup characteristics without a default MSFS aircraft startup. The Baron was fine some of the time, and strange at others. When I selected the default King Air, I had virtually no sound at all. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what the results were, but when I switched to the default 737, 777, and/or 747 sound was not as it should have been either. Resetting the FSX>Settings>Sound, Sound and Voice options as noted above may have solved this problem. Time will tell whether it holds up or not.

 

One last observation/clarification: Attached are screen shots which may or may not turn out to be legible. With Windows XP, I had "Microsoft Photo Editor" which I used for resizing screen shots to an acceptable size for AvSim attachements. Win 7 does not include that program or any other I have found so far that will let me resize screenshots. I copied that program to my Win 7 computer but have not found a way to get it to work yet. Therefore being that I still have a parallel WinXP 32 bit computer I copied the screen shots to that computer, resized them and moved them back to this computer. The original size of the folder containing eleven screen shots was a little over 62MB. A single screen shot was too large for AvSim. After resizing to the same size I have previously used many times for attachments, the size of the entire folder is only 484KB. The down size is when I look at them, they are not legible. I will attach them in the hope that they look differntly as attachments, but I doubt that they will be of much use. More Update Growing pains I guess.

 

To be continued:

RTH

[mbarcos 0]

Thank you. Changing from "Default Primary Device" to "Speakers (Realtek High Definition)" solved my volume variation problem.

[MohadAli12 0]

Update:

 

I think I may have found my problem, but school is stll out to confirm this over the long haul.

 

I found that in my FSX>Settings-Sound options that "Sounds" and "Voice" had "Default Primary Device" as the settings. I changed this to be "Speakers (Realtek High Definition)" and it appears that aircraft sounds are as they should be at least at the moment.

 

I tried the default Baron, King Air, and Boeing 737 along with a few third party birds including the PMDG 737NGX (Engine whine is back where it should be loud and clear).

 

The one exception so far was the Aeroworx B200 King Air. Initially it is fine, but if I wander away from the windows screen and look outside or at some other display and come back to the windows view, sound is too loud and constant again. This is a FS9 conversion so may be unique to this bird and the import/modifications for FSX. I will have to give it a little more time to reach any conclusions.

 

Clutch: Thank you for the suggestions.

 

The first thing I tried was to replace the PMDG 737NGX Sound folder with the MSFSX Default 737 folder. No difference. I also tried another bird or two with the same results. Again, all of the aircraft in question had no sound problems before my hardware upgrade. No aircraft sound folders/files were changed.

 

The default aircraft had problems of their own when I checked them. Although I have not flown MS default aircraft for many years and/or versions of MSFS I have the default Baron as my FSX startup default aircraft located at KLWB. I realize that this is a debated method of startup between developers, but it has worked well for me for many years. PMDG says it is not necessary and even advises against it, but I have found some third party aircraft, usually sinple ones have strange engine startup characteristics without a default MSFS aircraft startup. The Baron was fine some of the time, and strange at others. When I selected the default King Air, I had virtually no sound at all. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what the results were, but when I switched to the default 737, 777, and/or 747 sound was not as it should have been either. Resetting the FSX>Settings>Sound, Sound and Voice options as noted above may have solved this problem. Time will tell whether it holds up or not.

 

One last observation/clarification: Attached are screen shots which may or may not turn out to be legible. With Windows XP, I had "Microsoft Photo Editor" which I used for resizing screen shots to an acceptable size for AvSim attachements. Win 7 does not include that program or any other I have found so far that will let me resize screenshots. I copied that program to my Win 7 computer but have not found a way to get it to work yet. Therefore being that I still have a parallel WinXP 32 bit computer I copied the screen shots to that computer, resized them and moved them back to this computer. The original size of the folder containing eleven screen shots was a little over 62MB. A single screen shot was too large for AvSim. After resizing to the same size I have previously used many times for attachments, the size of the entire folder is only 484KB. The down size is when I look at them, they are not legible. I will attach them in the hope that they look differntly as attachments, but I doubt that they will be of much use. More Update Growing pains I guess.

 

To be continued:

RTH

i did this a million times but it keeps reverting back to default primary device, my sound fist started glitching for few seconds then BAM it was gone, so i looked at many forums/threads and did the above but when i change it then see if the sound come back t doesnt, then when i check again if i did it right it changes back to default primary device.