Hello, my problem lies with both the sound card and the video card. I play two games where there are sound problems. One is with the Police Quest series. I have absolutly no sound. They have these tests that they do at the beginning and everything seems to run fine, but during gameplay there are no sounds.

Max Payne is with both the sound and the video card. No problems with DirectX first off. Test wise anyway. When I turn everything up to high for the video settings, I get into the menu and actually start to load the game when the system will kick me either back to a messed up desk top, or in on instance, restarted my computer. I had a website restart my computer, but that has something to do with the NIC card I guess. Different subject. Anyway, the video one isn't a big deal as I could just lower the settings, but I thought that there wouldn't be a problem since I thought my card was good enough to handle it, but I guess I was wrong. The sound card is a little more annoying however. When I play the game I get no sounds. When there are cut scenes the sounds come on as if there were no problem.

Other games I play I do not have this problem with...so far anyway. I have no problems listining to music or with any websites. I have tried to "update" the driver and came out with no sound at all leaving me to restore a backup. Any help would be very greatful. Thanks.

Windows XP
Sound Blaster Live Value removeable
ATI Radeon 8500 AGP 64MB video card
512MB RAM

Any other information needed please let me know. Thank you.

Make sure there are no conflicts with the sound and video cards in Device Manager(sharing the same IRQ, etc.).
If that's ok, then start in Safe mode, open Device Manager, and remove any old sound or video cards from the list.
If still no good, then disable any special sound effects(3D, stereo expansion, etc.) in the sound card's software.
Also, uninstall and reinstall the problem games.

You'll need to re-configure your SET BLASTER= located in the autoexec.bat. Make sure you have the SB 16 emulation driver installed.

Here's my config (SoundBlaster PCI512)

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6

A220 = Input/Ouput Range
I7= Interrupt Request
D1= Direct Memory Access

The above configuration works flawlessly (for all dos games) on my system (default)

Also, some dos games require 650k of convential memory to run properly.

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

Ok, to answer the first reply, I have done all of that with no luck. No conflicts. Got the computer just a little while ago so everything is still new in it so no new sound cards or video cards installed. Uninstalled and reintalled games and fixed on problem so to speak. One of the games wasn't working at all until I did that.

On the second reply. I do the sysedit and get nothing in autoexec.bat. Blank page comes up. I get something in the winnt/win.ini file, but that's it. And another question about that, will that work with my card even though it's a newer card? Thank you.

I'll put all the specs of my computer down.

Windows XP Home Edition
1.8GHZ P4 processor
80 GB HD
ATI Radeon 8500 AGP 64MB graphics card
Soundblaster Live Value sound card
512MB SDRAM PC 800

Forget about adding anything to autoexec, setbalster= won't do anything in XP, that is for setting it for DOS. XP has no DOS.

I think your problem maybe more with DirectX than drivers, but make sure you have the latest XP version drivers first. Run dxdiag from the Run box....that should tell you if you have any DX problems.

Ah...

Running DOS programs in Windows XP can be tricky. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, XP is not based on the DOS kernel. Its like Windows 2000, based on the NT kernel. This is one of the things that makes XP more "robust" than Windows 98, but... it has its drawbacks. Because there is no DOS kernel, XP has to run DOS games in "pretend DOS" mode. The difficulty you'll have in running a DOS game properly will depend on your machine and on the game itself. You might want to try vdmsound (the link below) it will provide soundblaster emulation (works in any windows supported sound cards) through your Windows XP's DOS subsystem. Good luck.

http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/


P.S. Didn't noticed you were an Windows XP user... my bad ;)

mjc, well, when I run the tests, all of them work up to test twenty before I get no sound. Is this normal? I wouldn't think so, but I don't know since the previous 19 tests have no problem. Would this explain the sounds in Max Payne where they work in the cut scenes, but not in game? What should I do if this is the case?

nikko, no problem on the XP thing. Heck, I'm just happy to get the suggestions and help. Question, will this correct the Max Payne problem or is this a DOS only program? Sounds like a DOS only program. That's fine though. Shoot one problem down and then fix the next later on if need be. Just wish I didn't have to fix anything since it's a new computer. Guess that's how it goes though in the technology world. I'll go ahead and try it out and see if it helps. Crossing my fingers. Thank you very much.

Now one last question. Why would Max Payne, on the highest settings for graphics, boot me out while it loaded and even once reset my computer? This kinda sucks being that I thought I had a pretty good video card. I could understand if it just didn't all together work, but it will let me into the options screen, where I can pick a new game and such, and then boot me out. Is this normal? I do had a decent amount of knowledge when it comes to computers, but just enough to get me by with small problems....really small problems. :D Thank you everyone.

Well, not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if there's something special that I'm suppose to do, but it looks like there was no luck with that program. When I went into the game, just one of them, it says "unable to initialize your audio hardware." Bummer. Any other ideas?

PhilSlick: When I play the game I get no sounds. When there are cut scenes the sounds come on as if there were no problem.

try uninstalling and reinstalling sound card.

i have this feeling that there is some kind of conflict between your mouse/keyboard with sound card coz you said that during cut-scenes, sounds come.

btw, what type of mouse do you use ?

The mouse is a Logitech mouse which came with the computer. LED instead of mouse ball. I will try the reinstallation after work as I have to get ready shortly. Oh what fun. Thank you.

Ok, sorry it took me so long to get back. I've been staying at my fiances house so I haven't had access to my computer. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the sound card with no luck still. I e-mailed tech support for the Police Quest games and they gave me the same answer as Nikko, to install that program. I wish it would work. I think I'm going to look a little more into that and stuff like that to figure things out if I can. E-mail Creative labs again as they didn't respond to my previous message.

As far as Max Payne, it is a pretty demanding game, hardware wise, so either try cutting back a bit on the settings or try to narrow down the problem by doing som general hardware TS...like try to see if heat is an issue, not jus the CPU but the video card as well.

Running a demanding game could have greatly different settings if you are running generic RAM as opposed to the good stuff.

Just because you have a great vid card doesn't mean you can run all games maxed out, unless you know that all the rest of the components are up to it.

Also make sure that nothing is running in the background, not so much for resource conservation, under XP, but for confict management.

Look at the Event Viewer and see if it has any errors listed when Max Payne chokes.

Phil,
When you first start Max Payne and the little window comes up with the option to play or adjust settings, make sure D3D Hardware acceleration is selected and not software. Then in the options, make sure in the sounds that disable is not checked. Then try lowering the levels of sound variations and sound channels.
Also, try playing in a different resolution and color depth than your desktop and turn off "active desktop" if it is enabled.

And yes, with Max Payne it is normal for you to be able to get to the menu screen and then be booted out when you actually attempt to load a game.;)

Do you have the updated SB Live Value drivers for Win XP? The drivers that ship with the card are not compatible with XP. You can get the Win XP drivers here (http://www.americas.creative.com/support/files/download.asp?Centric=108&OS=13).

I have a SB Live Value in my Athlon system and had a heck of a time installing it in XP. I had to install the software from the CD than choose no when prompted to re-boot, install the updated XP drivers than re-boot.

Do you also have onboard audio and is it disabled in BIOS setup. If so have you reset the BIOS to defaults. Resetting the BIOS will enable the onboard audio and cause a conflict with the SB card

MJC, well, as I said, I thought that I had the hardware to run almost anything, but I guess that's where I found I was wrong. Oh well, I can't win them all. I can set everything to medium and have no problem and probably mess with things a bit to get it a little higher, but I'm sure that will be a hassle. Oh well, I guess that's what you have to do sometimes if one wants to play it at a higher level huh?

As for the RAM and such, all I really know is that it's what came with the system. I haven't cracked anything open as of yet, and hope that I don't need to anytime soon. Though I'm sure it won't kill me to just open the case. I'll have to check into that. I'm sure it's not the cheap stuff though as I haven't changed anything out on it.

And thank for the advice. I'll definately have to mess around a little more the see what works and what doesn't. As for the sound...

Malcore, that would be under the last pull down menu correct? Unfortunately, it only gives me one option to choose from, actually, that's how it is for all of them accept for the display. Is there something I can do to change this? I think I have messed with the sound channels a bit in the options, but I'll have to play with them again just to make sure. I'm willing to try just about anything to get this to work. Running everything in medium settings won't kill me, but playing without sound makes things a bit more interesting when you need sound in certain situations.

And last, but not least, Rond36. I have downloaded the drivers. The first time I tried to install everything that came with the download and ended up having to go back and install a backup as it totally killed the soundcard. After that I tried to just install the drivers. It didn't seem to kill anything this time, but at the same time it didn't seem to help anything either. Oh yes, forgot to add, there is no onboard sound thankfully. That would be another fun problem to deal with. Thus far it has only seem to be problems with these two games. I have ran Grand Theft Auto, first one, Pinball that comes with Win, and the first Civilization with no problems. I also love the tech support that Creative gives. Still haven't heard anything back from them. The one message that I have sent is still in pending status, since the 18th, on their website. I'll give them some more time before I send out another one I guess.