Sound Issues with P47 w/ WIN7 64 and Creative SB X-Fi

[mJolner]

I will just start at the top and provide as much initial info as possible to get started.

First off, built new rig:
i7 920 OC'd to 4.0GHZ
EVGA X58
6 GB DDR3 Corsair dominator
ATI 5870 (latest CAT drivers)
Creative SB X-FI ExtremeGamer Pro ( Latest x64 driver 2.18.03 with OPenAl and Alchemy)
Win 7 64 bit clean install less than a week old

Installed OS over a new formatted WD Caviar 1T, so there are no carry over issues from previous installs.

I installed FSX (not in OS root or programs) and then Accelerator ( I did not install SP1 first, much research has me believe that is an unnecesary step ). The A2A P47 with Accu was the first and only 3rd party product I installed on this clean FSX install. I like to install addon products one at a time with testing and reboots inbetween, I have not gotten past the P47. Also I did install the P47 update as well.

For the sound card, under the creative launcher I have disabled all the enhancements including the 3d surround and crystallizer effects and EAX as well, just to eliminate those factors.

Many sounds work fine, however, there is serious reverb and distortion on many cockpit sounds. The energize inertial starter sound does not work at all despite being present in the sound folder, and the priming sound results in a ear piercing high pitch squeal. Additionally, the intercooler and oil cooler flaps are intermittent. These are a few examples

For troubleshooting purposes I enabled my onboard HD audio and removed the drivers for the creative sound card and pulled it from the slot. I ran FSX with the onboard audio and everything worked fine. So I now know that my current install of the P47 ( did a reinstall aswell) is working fine just not with the creative sound card. I reinstalled the card and all drivers then loaded some other 3rd party products from PMDg, Level d, Realair, and carenado. These other products worked fine.

So I know the X-fi win7 64 drivers are to blame. However I am hoping that there is some setting or the way accu sim handles wav files that can be changed (on my side, not implying a patch ) in some way to fix this issue. Or maybe others have dealt with and fixed this issue with older drivers? Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated.

Using the onboard HD audio is an option I hope to avoid.

[snave]

Apparently, if you open the X-Fi control panel and set it from `Entertainment` to `Gaming` this can resolve many issues.

I don't have an X-Fi card, but it only takes seconds to try it and see!

[mJolner]

Thanks for the tip Snave. Unfortunately, I have tried that several times. I switched from game mode which is the default mode and then switched to entertainment, tried it and then switched back. No joy....

Seems so strange that all of my other 3rd party stuff works just fine. Its just the P47 with accsim. I am not blaming the software at all because it works fine with the onboard Realtek sound. The darn thing is very perplexing.

[Lewis - A2A]

Hello Jolner sorry to hear of your problems,

your other addons may work fine as they are made the same as the rest were as the accu-sim stuff is a first to really use outside coding to get around limitation of the simulator and bring you the realistic experience and never before seen features that were never meant to be seen in FSX.

Ill ask the team about this X-Fi issue and see if we can look into a bit more at our end or maybe have a poke at creative to look into whats happening there end.

thanks,
Lewis

[mJolner]

your other addons may work fine as they are made the same as the rest were as the accu-sim stuff is a first to really use outside coding to get around limitation of the simulator and bring you the realistic experience and never before seen features that were never meant to be seen in FSX.

Thanks Lewis appreciate any help. I have never been disappointed with Shockwave customer support.

With respect to my other products, I know that the PMDG MD11 and the 747-400X (Both very complex simware) use "outside" coding for sound and multiple other functions same as the P47. Take no offense, accsim is awesome, just wanted to give credit where credit is due. As for the Realair, Classic Hangar and Carenodo, those are simple in terms of coding but of course brilliant products in thier own right.

Thanks

[Lewis - A2A]

Hello!,

I've contacted a few of our beta testers and it turns out that throughout the whole process (Same great beta team for all accu-sim products) a couple have been using X-Fi cards without issue.

Ive notified FAC who mentioned he also uses win7 just in case he can offer any tips or advice for you.




Re: PMDG, yes they do some amazing work and make totally out of this world stuff but are simulating computers alot of the time, something thats different to the totally random elements we try to model with the old pistons.

[FAC257]

mJolner

Just checking a few things and it looks like you and I are almost identical in the sound card and drivers areas. The only obvious difference I see between what I have and yourself is the 32bit vs 64 bit.

I'm also using the Creative SB X-FI ExtremeGamer Pro with the 2.18.03 driver set. It looks like Creative released the same driver set for both the 32bit and 64bit W7. The newest upgrade I have in the Creative drivers set, is that it upgraded my Creative ALchemy driver to 1.41.02.

I haven't ever made any changes to the default X-Fi installation sound settings.

To be sure something hasn't changed on my end, I just loaded up the P-47 and went through a complete manual start up and all of the sounds were functional and sounded great.

It's not of any real help but as Lewis mentioned, I've been using the X-Fi with all of the Accu-simed aircraft pre-W7 and then kept it when I went to W7 last summer. I haven't had any real issues at all with the X-Fi and Accu-sim combo.

One thought....Windows7 has impressed me with it's own library of built in drivers for various pieces of hardware. Have you tried removing all of the Creative drivers and possibly your on-board sound drivers if you loaded any, and then boot up with the X-Fi installed. I'm wondering if the default 64bit drivers that Windows7 may try to load for that card may work better than that 2.12.0013 Creative set.

FAC

[FAC257]

mJolner

I was thinking about this a little more, and the one thing you didn't mention is whether or not you've updated your DirectX set of drivers. This could play a part in how the sound card and the OS are reacting in certain situations.

There's a fairly new set dated 02/05/10
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 6652cd92a3

FAC

[mJolner]

Thank you FAC257 for the suggestions.

I tried updating DirectX and apparently I had the most recent version already installed so that made no difference.

I also tried deleting the current X-fi drivers and let windows try to install some default driver. WIN7 (x64) Professional would not install any drivers and suggested that I refer to the manufacturer website for driver updates.

So I am still at square one. I purchased the CUB with Accusim and I am having the same sound issues now with both products. I have followed the threads listed in the CUB troubleshooting FAQ and the issues dealt with there do not help with the issue I am having.

Despite having to disable sound at certain points to avoid the "squeal" both the P47 and the CUB are graphically and functionally perfect. I am experiencing the best frame rates I have ever seen in FSX, the game runs great.

The other games on my hard drive include Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, DragonAge Origins, DCS Black SHark, IL2 1946( 4.09 ), Lock On, SH4 ( multiple mods ) and many others all with no sound issues of any kind. The reason I mention that is because with all other things being equal, I would suspect a hardware issue the with X-Fi card itself but that is just not the case.

So it must be some DLL conflict or something probably very simple on my side that is the culprit. I do not have the skills at this point to resolve this on my own.

Should I carry this post into the CUB forum? Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome from anyone at any time.

Also one other note. I did mention in the first post that my system was overclocked, to rule out any issues with that I restored to the stock speed and also had no effect.

Thanks

[mJolner]

I am still dealing with this sound issue. I have gone through a complete re-format and OS re-install and re-installation of FSX with the CUB and P47 and my sound issue remains.

Just out of curiosity, hoping someone is reading this, anyone running with the latest x64 creative drivers with any X-FI card and WIN7 64 BIT or even VISTA 64 BIT and having sound issues or not having sound issues for that matter with the P47 or Cub.

Thanks

[Flettner]

You are not alone mJolner. My Razorback struggles with exactly the same Accusim issues. The brand new machine has i7 920,12 Gb RAM, nVidia GTX 285 and
SoundMAX integrated Digital HD Audio, Windows 7/64, SP2. A2A Piper J3 with Accusim flies flawlessly and sounds are spot on!

-Heikki-

[Plexi1]

I also have this problem with the AccuSim Pack and W7 64bit with X-Fi soundcard. Also tried many different drivers with no luck at all. Sometimes it works for a few minutes and then totally crashes giving even a bluescreen.

But it works without problems with the J3 Cub or the Stratocruiser.

[Krycekuk]

For what its worth I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and have a Creative X-Fi Fatality edition and the Piper Cub, Stratocruiser and P-47 all work fine on my rig and I have accusim on all of them.

Creative drivers I am using according to Windows device manager are 6.0.1.1373 dated 3rd of June 2009. I haven't looked to see if there was anything newer and I wouldn't update anyway seeing as how fussy X-Fi cards can be. The Creative console launcher I am using is version 2.60.27.

My machine is an Intel quad core QX9650 with 4Gb of DDR2 Corsair RAM, BFG nVidia 280 gfx card and an ASUS Striker II Formula motherboard.

The only time I have had some serious sound issues and it then happened in everything was with a 5 port USB card I added internally that seemed to be in contention with the X-Fi, as soon as I replaced it with a different make all those problems went away.

I seem to remember seeing a thread about an old audio dll file being left on a system giving problems but if you have done a clean reinstall that shouldn't be the issue.

[Plexi1]

I did a complete clean install and have the latest drivers for my soundcard and I only have this problem with the P-47, the J3 and B377 work fine (both with AccuSim). But I do have an additional internal USB card, I will remove it and see if it makes any difference.

[mJolner]

Plexi1 and KryceUk, thanks for info. I will look into the USB port issue with my motherboard. While I am not using any PCI USB cards I am using the extra USB buses on the mobo. When I get a chance I will disconnect them and see what that does. I am willing to try anything at this point.

I am exited about the B17 Accusim upgrade, however am hesitant to purchase it ( when released ) until I get this figured out. I am pooling funds to purchase a PCIe based X-Fi card to see if that will make a difference.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.