Audio problems, again

[Legoguy]

[edit] I meant to post this into the 'collected audio fixes' thread, guess I hit the wrong button - sorry about that. Feel free to merge the posts if you want to..

 

Alright, I got my new laptop last thursday - I'll start with the specs of that:

 

OS . . . . . . . . Windows XP Media Center Edition (w/SP2) Processor. . . . . Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz with HyperThreadingMemory . . . . . . 1GB DDR333Video Card . . . . 128MB nVidia GeForce FX Go5700 w/ 77.45 drivers, powering a 1680x1050 17" widescreenAudio Device . . . Integrated Intel ICH5 AC'97 controller (identified to Windows as a "Conexant AC-Link Audio")

 

 

All of which meets the requirements.

 

I thought this was going to be a kick-ass laptop for playing SA, but I was wrong, and here's what I've found:

 

I start up SA for the first time . . . wtf? peds are missing polygons, almost the whole body dissapeared at times! So I go to update the video drivers... The laptop came with the old Detonator 55 series drivers from sometime two years ago, and HP hasn't released new "Go" drivers yet. So I ended up going to www.laptopvideo2go.com and getting a modded inf file and installing the official ones. Not a bad move really, I guess. So that fixed the ped problem.

 

So I start playing around with it some more, and then notice severe, and I mean awful, sound problems -- just random skipping, repeating, etc. I looked around here for similar reports and found that I was not alone - so I went to downgrade the DirectX version (because of the reports of it causing problems with AC'97 chips) only to find that I can't - DirectX 9.0c came with this computer, so there is/was no backup or older version available to me, even on the Windows CDs which also have 9.0c.

So as a last resort, I completely turned off the sound acceleration in dxdiag. Amusingly, It works now, mostly - the radio stations still skip randomly, and i still get a stutter now and then, and of course the cutscene sounds are way out of wack.

I think the only way for me to really fix the problem is by downgrading DirectX, but I'm worried at what will happen to Media Center if I do that, because Media Center ships with it and it may need whatever's different from DX 9.0b.

I think this is a joke, I mean come on R* North ... what happened? Did you get so caught up with the glory of having Creative as a sponsor that you somehow 'forgot' about people with onboard/laptop sound? You know, the performance PC market is no longer limited to full desktop computers...

 

What I ask from you guys at the forum: Is there anything else I can do besides wait for a patch and/or a new DirectX version?

 

I just want to add a question that someone might know the answer to - is it possible to get back the "Audio Driver" or whatever option that Vice City had? The only way that Vice City sounds right on this laptop is if I switch it to "dsound3d software emulaton" (hardware support sounds like its trying to play in surround sound, but I have my system set as a 2-speaker setup...), and I'm thinking that if I can switch San Andreas to that too, it might work... - any thoughts on if it's possible?

 

Also, strangely enough, Vice City says I have Creative EAX support on this soundcard, when I clearly do not with this integrated intel audio chip... something's really fishy with this...

Edited June 23, 2005 by Legoguy