Hi Everyone!I've searched for a solution every where, and have found a few others with where the following happens, but so far no cause or solution has been offered.When in "Free Flight", I'm sitting on the tarmat, I bring up the ATC window, and click on the ATIS line. The test version starts scrolling across the top with no problems, showing all the values for weather. The ATIS audio speech however goes something like this... with no lead in words it just says, "Wind...wind...wind..altimeter...altimeter...altimeter...temperature...temperature...temperature..etc...etc..etc." until the scrolling completes. Tower requests, and other ATC audio chatter re-acts the same way.Of the few that have reported this... one person says the ATC in the missions works fine, it's just the Free Flight area it does this. But I have not tested this yet, as my fun happens in the free flight arena.I've done all the usual for sound problems, Device drivers all updated, including Sound, Graphics, etc. Disabled the onboard Sound chip via the system Bios Setting (I have a card now). Uninstalled FS9... cleaned registry... defragged...re-installed FSX, defragged again. Changed the Sound accelleration value for full to none, and all settings inbetween... confimed no problems with DXdiag utility. At his point though I get great frame rates, plenty of eye candy with the default out of the box settings on everything... the ATC audio in Free flight is unusable. No sound other sound issues in FSX... or on any other of my games. I'm completely open to any suggestions at this point that I have not tried... here are my system specs:Dell 8400 with 3.0ghz Pentium 4 w/HT1 Gig RamATI X800 Graphic Card with 256mb of ram (current drivers)Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-fi Sound card and console (current drivers)MS ForceFeedback 2 JoystickBose 2.1 PC speakersDVD DriveThanks in Advance. Maybe this will generate more messages on this, as it is affecting only a few of us apparently. Jim Carter

Ok. I got home tonight and revved up the Missions section this time. The ATC in this are works for the most part....but I must add seems like it is probably scripted and not using the same area that Free flight is.Is there a temporary sound/weather file that can be purged and have FSX rebuild when it is re-started. Having flown this puppy from the commadore64 days... I seem to remember that there was a simuliar problem in one of the previous versions when ATC first came out. It should be noted that FS9's ATC worked fine on this machine with the same configuration. If someone else is having the problem.. maybe share your rig info and lets see if there is a pattern here. Thanks for any help!Jim Carter

Hi Jim and others,I do not have the solution to the problem, but hope by adding my situation that somebody sees the answer.I am encountering the exact same problem. All I can add to your system specs is that I run FSX on XP SP2. We seem to share the same Dell 8400. Could it be something specific to this machine?Something in addition: In FS2004 I have lost ATC comms and chatter as well. No further problems with FS2004. Just the ATC voice disappeared completely (so not even a stutter like you describe in FSX). I think this happened after I have experimented a few months ago with software like AISmooth, FSPassengers and Rader Contact 4. All programs that impact on ATC in Flight Simulator. I think (but am not absolutely sure) that de-installation of these packages did not go smooth in all instances.Could the ATC problem (FS2004 and also FSX) be related to third party software overwritting one or more soundrelated XP system files? I could imagine that in case of an incorrect de-install these files may not be restored to the original.Obviously I hoped that the problem in FS2004 would not repeat in FSX. No such luck. The weirdest thing I find that in Missions the comms are crystal clear and in free flight all screwed up.Hope there is somebody out there with a suggestion (or two).ThanksMartien

I have same exact problem. But I don'thave Dell 8400 or anything else shared with your system specs, except maybe the actual processor.P4 3.0 Ghz P4Intel D865P MotherboardSoundblaster Audigy Gamer sound cardThis weekend I'm going to try removing my soundcard and using my onboard sound chip to see if that works.I think we should all run dxdiag, click on "Save All Information" to a txt file and email it to [email protected] with the title "ATC SOUND DOES NOT WORK!!!" and then copy/paste the 2nd paragraphc from Jim's message above.Maybe if they get enough of these, they will address it. If anyone figures it out please post to this topic.Matt

Fellas; I had the problem in fs9 when I was tracking down a CTD problem. I had suspected a bad stick of ram so I removed what was in my machine and inserted a single stick of known good 256MB. After cranking all sliders wide open....including traffic and heavymulti layer clouds, I encountered the same symptoms you're having:ie; ATC stuttering...repeating ect. Try backing of your other settings and see if the problem stillexists.

Ok... this evenings update on what was tried. I tried the suggestion of lowering the sliders.... no joy. So I took it too the extreme....1. All graphics to 'minimal'2. All sounds EXCEPT the ATC voice turned off3. ATC voice slider set to 204. Unchecked the Sidewinder Pro2 Joystick.5. Cleared the Weather.Revved up the Sim with crossed fingers and very quiet speakers.. brought up the ATC window.. Hit ATIS....Annnnnnnddddd....."Wind...wind...wind...altimeter...altimeter...altimeter...etc...etc...etc..I've now returned everything back to the installed default setting...and still getting great frame rates. Please keep the suggestions coming... somebody is going to hit on a solution. Even if it's Microsoft with a patch. hehehehehe!Jim Carter

Hi Jim,Have you tried setting the DirectX sound acceleration to "Standard" or "Basic" by using dxdiag? That fixed a lot of ATC voice problems in FS9. I know it's counterintuitive but it only take a few minute to try it. R-

Hi Rob!Thanks for helping us that are having this problem try to find the solution. I did try that tweak too, to no avail. By using the DXdiag is how I found out that the onboard sound was still active, even though When I installed by X-fi board.. it was supposed to disable. Intially I thought the onboard sound was the problem, as it's got the evil Soundmax chip in it. Known to cause problems in the past. So I went one step further and disabled it using the system BIOS this time.Now DXdiag sees my X-fi and my modem card (modem card has microphone capability apparently, hence the sound2 entry in DXdiag. I've tried disabling that also in the hardware profiles in the control panel>System, but the bug still manifested itself. Keep the help coming guys! It is greatly appreciated!!Jim Carter

I have Soundmax on Motherboard also. I wonder if that's what's causing the problem. I also have it disabled through BIOS.Matt

It shouldn't be a factor since you also disabled it using the system BIOS. If you look in your DXdiag, and/or your Control>System/Hardware areas, you will see it doesn't even show as being disabled. Windows.. DX, and FSX can no longer see it even exists. So we "should" be cool on that front.JJCarter

Hi Again!Ok... since most of the usual suspects have been tried, Sound drivers, acceleration, Graphic and sound settings, reloaded DirectX with the most recent (October) version of 9.0c, etc., and I'm still getting the bug. Lets try something different.I've hunted down the FSX.cfg file and snooped around. There several ATC referenced entries in there, and a small section just for ATC. Maybe someone that has working ATC can post their [sOUND] and [ATC]sections of the FSX.cfg file for us?? Maybe there will be a clue in there.If Tdragger sees this, maybe you could offer any hidden switches in this area that we could play with too? Thanks to everyone helping out.Jim Carter

Bump....As there are several users with the problem... still hoping to get a copy of the FSX.cfg where the ATC is working. Thanks!Jim Carter

Just checking to see if anyone had found a tweak, solution, fix, or if the MS team has verfied the above error with ATC. If you too have the error... please remember to file it with the FSinsider feeback link, and include a copy of your DXdiag save file.Thanks for any help!Jim Carter

Jim; I might have missed it but does you onboard sound show as disabledin Device Manager?

Do you have any FS9 add-on scenery installed that eats memory and doesn't throw it up? I had similar probs as yours while at the same time the sim would stop for a moment. About 1 gig memory use from FSX should be normal, i had it use 1.7 G at that time. From scenery not compatable.Regards, Gerrit