SB Live! Sound Problems (DirectSound?)

**Jinded** · April 29th, 2004, 09:30 PM

I have a Dell Dimension 8200, Windows XP SP1, DirectX 9.0b, and a SoundBlaster Live! Value installed on my computer. I'm not sure what motherboard is installed, but I know that I have BIOS revision A09 installed.

During DVD playback using Cyberlink PowerDVD 5, I'll get absolutely no sound at all, and the movie skips about every 2 seconds. Using Intervideo WinDVD 5 the movie plays perfectly fine. Using InterActual Player, the first few seconds of the movie will play, then stop. I'm pretty sure this is a DirectSound problem, because if I use Zoom Player to play the DVD and deselect DirectSound in the options the movie plays fine and I get normal sound. Otherwise, using Zoom Player, the movie will play for a few seconds without sound then stop.

I've only noticed this in 1 game so far, but after playing for about 10 minutes, the speakers start making these really loud rapid crackling-type noises that only go away when I quit the game, at which time the noises stop instantly. I'm not sure, but this may also be a DirectSound problem.

Another symptom I'm getting, which I'm not sure is related, but there may be a good chance, is that in Windows Media Player 9, playing some movies will result in me receiving an "Out of Memory" error message, though the movie will continue to play without sound until I press the Close button on the error dialog.

I've tried completely uninstalling the SB Live! drivers and reinstalling them, taking the card out of the PCI slot and putting it back in, and reinstalling DirectX, but all to no avail. I haven't tried using another PCI slot yet. But other than this, are there any other suggestions?

**NooNoo** · April 30th, 2004, 03:07 PM

Welcome to Windrivers Jinded

Ok, first of all have you been to www.creative.com for a driver update?

If you do decide to change slots, make sure you uninstall ALL the liveware and the card before shutting down and removing it.

Also go to www.intel.com and get the latest INF update for your chipset (850).

**Jinded** · April 30th, 2004, 10:47 PM

I have updated drivers from Creative and the chipset, but this has not helped. I have determined, though, that my DVD problems only occur after playing a game that uses DirectSound. I've only played one game so far, so I'll post again when I've determined if the problems are caused by multiple games or only this one game (One Must Fall: Battlegrounds).

**confus-ed** · May 1st, 2004, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

.. Ok, first of all have you been to www.creative.com for a driver update?..

Well no offence - but that's probably the cause ! ... 'bloatware'

(odds on you have some 'stupid' creative process running to add EAX or whatever running in the background, beating the living daylights out of your card & pci bus & cpu -these cards are all s/w driven {no hardware acceleration capabilities - try DXdiag.exe & see !} & if you have this stuff on {which is really designed for the high end cards they do} then they can't keep up once you start with heavy graphic loads too ..)

Best thing is to remove any Creative drivers completely including all those control panel extensions & 'sound effect/sound enhancing stuff' it just sucks up memory & performance ! .. creative themselves know their bloatware does this sort of thing, you need to find CTZAPXX.EXE either in a driver file or from their site - How to completely uninstall Sound Blaster audio cards?

Then you want just the driver pack, if you want all the bloatware you are on your own !

Alternatively serach your open process list (ctrl-alt-delete to bring up task manager) & figure out what they are all for - one or more of them will probably be creative bloatware - simply changing these services to 'mannual' or 'disabled' can be enough .. (obviously don't be turning off services you aren't sure of but usually a quick google of them reveals all

)

**Jinded** · May 1st, 2004, 01:05 PM

I have tried completely uninstalling everything related to the card and only installing drivers, but that did not help. There are also no CT programs running in the Task Manager. The best advance I have made so far is updating the INF of my chipset, which stopped loud crackling I was experiencing in-game. It didn't help the DVD's though.

**NooNoo** · May 1st, 2004, 01:11 PM

so next stop powerdvd downloads check your version for updates/patches.

**confus-ed** · May 1st, 2004, 01:17 PM

Codecs !??

**Jinded** · May 1st, 2004, 09:05 PM

I downloaded the PowerDVD update, and that seems to have fixed PowerDVD playback, but I'm still having problems using ZoomPlayer. The only time I can't play the movie is if I'm using DirectSound. The last codecs I downloaded is the K-Lite Codec Pack. Can you recommend a better one?

**Jinded** · May 1st, 2004, 09:46 PM

Ok, I have made another discovery. It appears that Zoom Player doesn't play movies if I use the open source AC3 Filter (http://ac3filter.sf.net/) in combination with DirectSound. I can use one but not the other. I don't know why this is, because it has worked for at least half a year now, and suddenly has stopped working.

**TripleRLtd** · May 1st, 2004, 09:57 PM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

Well no offence - but that's probably the cause ! ... 'bloatware'

(odds on you have some 'stupid' creative process running to add EAX or whatever running in the background, beating the living daylights out of your card & pci bus & cpu -these cards are all s/w driven {no hardware acceleration capabilities - try DXdiag.exe & see !} & if you have this stuff on {which is really designed for the high end cards they do} then they can't keep up once you start with heavy graphic loads too ..)

Best thing is to remove any Creative drivers completely including all those control panel extensions & 'sound effect/sound enhancing stuff' it just sucks up memory & performance ! .. creative themselves know their bloatware does this sort of thing, you need to find CTZAPXX.EXE either in a driver file or from their site - How to completely uninstall Sound Blaster audio cards?

Then you want just the driver pack, if you want all the bloatware you are on your own !

Alternatively serach your open process list (ctrl-alt-delete to bring up task manager) & figure out what they are all for - one or more of them will probably be creative bloatware - simply changing these services to 'mannual' or 'disabled' can be enough .. (obviously don't be turning off services you aren't sure of but usually a quick google of them reveals all

)

DITTO!!!!
But, I have to say...your honesty sometimes REALLY makes me laugh!
Good call -ed.

**confus-ed** · May 2nd, 2004, 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by TripleRLtd

DITTO!!!!
But, I have to say...your honesty sometimes REALLY makes me laugh!
Good call -ed.

I struggle very often to 'put it right' so I just say it how I see it & hope nobody gets too upset & can take what I hope comes out as constructive

.. doesn't always, but being confus-ed is good 'cover' !

After all that, Jinded was ahead of me anyway !

So turning now to 'codec hell' & where to get more codecs - installing all the ones for media player very often helps - lots of these player packages are dependant on what comes with windows, because the 'ownership of copyright' position with many is unclear - you need to buy some with your product - some from somewhere else .. etc, etc. - very tricky ! Especially with what are really proprietry methods ..

I've had help from other places with 'tough' codec questions before, try Codec-download.com or moviecodec.com (somebody helped me loads here - very knowledgeable!

)

**TripleRLtd** · May 2nd, 2004, 08:05 AM

I struggle very often to 'put it right' so I just say it how I see it & hope nobody gets too upset & can take what I hope comes out as constructive

.. doesn't always, but being confus-ed is good 'cover' !

confus-ed techno rants.

**Jinded** · May 6th, 2004, 05:58 PM

Hey guys, haven't been here for a while, due to exams. Anyway, it seems that if I use PCM 24 bit sample format instead of 32 bit format, DVDs play just fine. I still don't know why this is, since I've used 32 bit sample format since I installed the filter.

My game problem has resurfaced (I doubt it ever went away, I just thought it did).

Thanks for the help so far, guys.

**Jinded** · May 6th, 2004, 06:07 PM

Don't know if this means anything:

I ran DirectSound tests in dxdiag and all the sounds played, but the last few played at a much lower volume than the rest. Still audible, just about half the volume:

Mono, 8-bit, Software Fine
Stereo, 8-bit, Software Fine
Mono, 16-bit, Software Fine
Stereo, 16-bit, Software Fine
Mono, 8-bit, Software Fine
Stereo, 8-bit, Software Fine
Mono, 16-bit, Software Fine
Stereo, 16-bit, Software Fine
Mono, 8-bit, Hardware Fine
Stereo, 8-bit, Hardware Fine
Mono, 16-bit, Hardware Fine
Stereo, 16-bit, Hardware Fine
Mono, 8-bit, Hardware Quiet
Stereo, 8-bit, Hardware Quiet
Mono, 16-bit, Hardware Quiet
Stereo, 16-bit, Hardware Quiet

Lowering Hardware Acceleration did not yield different results, except that Emulation and Basic Acceleration did not perform Hardware tests, of course.

DirecMusic tests worked fine.

**confus-ed** · May 7th, 2004, 04:50 AM

Originally Posted by Jinded

Hey guys, haven't been here for a while, due to exams. Anyway, it seems that if I use PCM 24 bit sample format instead of 32 bit format, DVDs play just fine. I still don't know why this is, since I've used 32 bit sample format since I installed the filter.

My game problem has resurfaced (I doubt it ever went away, I just thought it did).

Thanks for the help so far, guys.

Pushing the card too hard with 32 bit

& the reply I got which I see you've edited was on about diskeeper running in the background ? Well since this cards pretty much s/w driven you've got to watch out for all those endless tasks that 'stuff' loads up very kindly for you & puts your cpu under stress before its even started dealing with the data stream from the sound card, add that to what still looks like 'iffy codecs' ( I'm pretty sure thats why its going quiet - whatever codec its using is only able to translate part of the sample) & I think thats the answer ..

..& thanks for the thanks, its nice to be appreciated & of course good manners cost 'nowt' !