Kind of unique sound problem

[mrboots]

Okay... I've read a great many threads here dealing with sound problems in Bioshock, but I've yet to read one that came close to my problem.

My problem...

I load up Bioshock no problems, got through the opening videos, have made it to the surgery wing, all with zero crash issues.

The ONLY problem is after about 3-10 minutes of playing the sound in the game "pops" once (only way I can describe it) and I lose [U]some[U] sounds... I lose the voices in the diaries, the plasma effect sounds, the hacking mini game sounds, and the picking up objects sounds. Also, sounds I can hear sound muted... I can still hear them... they just sound a little different.

I've reinstalled drivers, downloaded both FMOD and OpenAl, and reinstalled the patch. If I can solve this problem, then Bioshock should run perfectly.

I've got a Creative X-FI Xtreme Gamer card and am using Windows Vista (SP1)

Any help is greatly appreciated. If you need any more info, please let me know. Thanks!

Oh... and this is just a quick question before I make it into a full blown new thread, but for whatever reason, I cannot complete Dr. Steinman's mission because his body disappears on me... I can kill him, disappears, I can knock him over, disappears, he can jump in water (due to fire) and he disappears. Anybody know anything about this little issue as well?

[nova6868]

I have this EXACT same issue. After a few minutes of gameplay, I lose certain sounds, and the sounds I do have sound like they're underwater.

System is Vista HP 64-bit SP1, q6700, Asus P5Q, DDR2 1066, Creative X-Fi, and 8800GTS (G92).

Does anyone have any idea what's going on with this?

[Atlas-Puppet]

You need to tell us your specs first, we can't help you if not. And do you use Realtek Audio?

[headkase]

Brand new x-fi drivers just came out, you can find xp and vista downloads through this: Link!

[nova6868]

I'm using the Creative X-Fi sound. It's the Xtreme Music.

Here's what I've tried so far:

1. Installing Brand new Creative Drivers
2. Re-installing OpenAL
3. Running Bioshock in XP-SP2 Compatibility Mode

Nothing seems to work. The sound is wonderful at first, then something happens, I hear the sound "pop" or "crackle", then bam... I'm missing some sounds and the sounds I do have are not right. Exact problem as the OP.

[FubarGuy]

Similar problem here, running an HT Omega Striker 7.1 card however. Vista Home Premium, SP1 installed & latest sound card drivers too. I don't hear this "pop" though, my sound is just never right from the start. I thought it was something to do with the sound card setup, perhaps it is. I can post exact sound settings from the game, if it helps at all.

[joe_dude]

You guys have probably tried this, but try installing the OpenAL 2.0.3 off of Creative's site. There's also a version 2.0.6 from some game, although I'm not sure if it helps any.

If that's not enough, try editing this line in Bioshock.ini, under [ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem]:
UsePrecache=False

Third option is to try reducing the number of sound channels from 32 to 16 (it's in the same section).

I suspect that on X-Fi cards, X-RAM is being used to offload sound samples, but it's running out of memory.

Good luck!

[FubarGuy]

I ended up re-installing the HT Omega drivers from the CD (accidentally, didn't even remove the first install. Oops.) and my sound seems to be fine now! Not related at all to the X-Fi users but there ya go.