HL2 & Looping Sound

[ringo2143z]

I'm having a bit of a problem with half-life 2 and looping sounds. I'll start with my specs and move on to the problem itself.

Athlon XP 2600
ABit KD7-G mobo
Gainward Geforce 6800le 128mb
1024mb DDR400
SB Audigy
+some other bits and bobs
Note: all drivers are up-to-date and windows is fully patched.

When I first got the game, everything ran swimmingly, then I downloaded Lost Coast and a couple of mods and, bang, a problem (yes I have tried it without these mods present).

Here's the issue. I run the game, or any number of mods, and the game will run ok initially, perhaps for 10 seconds, perhaps for 30 minutes, and then all of a sudden the screen will go into standby and the sound will loop. The only way out is a push of the reset button.

A little searching about and I found this Steam Support post . I've followed the advice given and haven't had any success. Things like turning off sound, changing the DX level, updating drivers, window mode, etc. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling HL2 and I've done a format recently so the PC is running nicely. I'd hoped that was the issue gone but alas it seems valve have made a balls up in updating steam. It seems I'm not alone in this problem however as there are hundreds of posts on numerous forums about this problem.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? Has anyone been experiencing the same thing?

[CCT]

So you tried decreasing direct sound acceleration as recommended and no joy?

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=85938

[ringo2143z]

Yes that's correct. I've tried all the solutions on the support post regarding the issue and it still crashes with loops

[CCT]

Just as a thot, can you select the IRQ's on your mobo and if so can you select a separate one for the audigy card?

Or, failing that, disable other resources sharing the audigy card IRQ as a test.

edit: info re this suggestion;

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=111552

[ringo2143z]

Thanks for the reply. That link is an interesting read. According to System Information, the Audigy has it's own IRQ of 17. It's positioned as close as I can get to the graphics card. The 6800 is on IRQ16.

The comment about changing the HAL on the guru3d forum is interesting and I'm curious as to whether it might work. I have however played with that previously and totally minced my PC. Having formatted last week, I'm less than eager to mess things up now.

Currently, the Device Manager says I'm running an ACPI Uniprocessor PC. Has anyone had 1st hand experience of changing the HAL and what kind of problems did you encounter? What is the best method (I'd prefer to avoid a reinstall)? I've been looking about on the web for suggestions but any ideas are welcome.

[gemstone]

Try giving it more RAM to play with change the command line in the shortcut to add -heapsize 256000 -novid so it now reads -applaunch 220 -heapsize 256000 -novid. I don't suppose I need say how much memory this gives the engine (natively it uses 64Mb) and with 1Gb it shouldn't leave you wanting elsewhere, the -novid is also fairly easy to decipher it just stops the opening vid from loading which doesn't kick out of memory as fast as it might.

I tried all the suggestions I could find before I found this tip, nothing before stopped the sound looping everytime a load came along. I have to say that because I have 2GB I gave it 512 but all the problems went and never returned.

[ringo2143z]

thanks for the tip. i'll give it a shot if i get a chance this afternoon and report back. i take it you were running a creative soundcard and a nvidia graphics card too? they seem to be the main culprits from what i read.

[gemstone]

Audigy 2 Plat ZS and ASUS 7800 GTX

[ringo2143z]

i gave your suggestion a shot in lost coast and really pushed it to force a crash. stuck on noclip and went through scenery and that crashed it nicely. i might try increasing the heapsize some more next time i'm home and see if that helps. does your screen enter standby mode when the crash occurs? that's the most annoying thing about it cos you can't see what's causing the crash.

what nvidia/audigy drivers are you using currently and what level of DX sound acceleration are you using? i've read things about changing bios settings to help things out, but i've never had any success with that.

[gemstone]

Using Asus drivers version 91.31 and Audigy whatever the latest is, it's a combined driver for 2's 4's and later version 02.08.0004, DX accel is on full.
I have noticed that having anything set in EAX will mess the sound up so make sure all those settings are off.

[ringo2143z]

increased the heapsize to 384mb and managed to play through lost coast (for the 1st time) without a crash. i suspect that is a good sign since lost coast is quite graphically intensive. i'm gonna continue testing the game at the weekend and running my various mods to see what happens.

thanks for all the help so far gemstone.