Test Drive Unlimited Popping Sound Issue

[AndrewJ]

Hi guys, wow some forum here.

Right this problem has been plaguing me for ages now, my specs are on the left, and I am running Windows Xp Pro Sp2, I am behind a NetGear Router, of which I am hardwired too, and my partner runs Wireless on her DS and Laptop.

So onwards with my issue, on Test Drive Unlimited, and only Test Drive Unlimited revving certain cars to and above 4,500rpm or where boost kicks in, in 3rd gear or above brings a popping sound, to best describe it, it's like 0.5seconds of sound missing each 4seconds.. or less, it is rather irritating in Ferrari 280GTO have to run with Nightwish playing over the engine sound because it does get on your nerves.

My sound card is the X-Fi 7.1 Audio, so far to fix this issue I have tried.

Moving down from Windows Vista RC1 Sp1 to Windows XP Pro Sp2

Updating my bios to the beta latest...

Updating all Creative Drivers to latest.

Moving the Sound Card OUT of the pc and removing all drivers related, and using onboard

Reinstalling Direct X,

Reinstalling the game after using a patch from another location *1.66a patch required for online play*

Disabling all hardware acceleration on the game.

I've tried asking on the Atari forums for TDU but have had little advice other than it must be my pc and that then it was my soundcard.. when proven it was a issue with the game I got silence.

So I am wondering if their is something I have missed in trying to nail down what is causing this issue, the few things I can think off are.

1) Motherboard Drivers even though I have updated them something could be wrong.

2) Problem with the game, sadly Atari are less than useful on their forums so I am limited in what to test probe and tweak

So yeah...HELP!


*god that is a long post...sorry*

[kalniel]

Well truth is, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. TDU will be calling a sound library provided by MS and it's technically the job of hardware manufacturers to work with MS and provide drivers that correctly interpret the calls and reproduce the sounds properly.

The stuttering at high revs is a problem some other people have reported as well, but equally the majority of people have sound that works fine (like myself) so it's not a fundamental flaw in the game.

Whether developers should work around the problems caused by other people is an interesting question - in the PC market it's generally assumed that they do up to a certain point, but it's just something you have to accept with PC gaming.

As far as we can tell with TDU, it plays certain wav files when certain conditions are met - blending and adjusting the pitch etc. as required. Stuttering at high revs could be because you have a problem with one of your wav files, or you have some codec or something also trying to grab them. We don't really know. Someone else from Hexus initially had the problem but then cured it.

[AndrewJ]

I would LOVE to know how, about the whole codec thing... I run Mp11 with the Klite codec pack. I may try removing the Klite pack and see if it makes a difference.. also I run Foobar 9.5.1 as my main mp3 player.

[AndrewJ]

So far today

I have tried lowering the sampling rate both in the Creative panel and in the sound properties, this has helped only a tiny bit but not by much.

Really if someone knows how to fix this PLEASE let me know as it is ruining a good game for me.

[Lowe]

Unfortunately it's one of those bugs that's just kinda stuck. No amount of tinkering fixed it for me - which is why it's on the shelf and won't be played again. For me it actually got worse once they patched it!

[AndrewJ]

Unfortunately it's one of those bugs that's just kinda stuck. No amount of tinkering fixed it for me - which is why it's on the shelf and won't be played again. For me it actually got worse once they patched it!

GRRR, does anyone know of any similar games which work well with the G25?

[kalniel]

There's nothing out there that has anything like the free-roaming aspect of TDU, but there's tons of games that take advantage of the G25 (better than TDU does) - Race07, GTR2, LFS, rFactor.

[AndrewJ]

Just tried Rfactor. Missed the heart for me, going to order GTR2 in the morning I remember that on the keyboard ages ago excellent fun.

Will google up Race07 and LFS.

Thanks mate.

[Lowe]

LFS is my personal favourite - mainly fake cars (no licenses) apart from an F1 car and a kart thing, but the handling is great.