No sound

[Thanny]

I know there have been other "no sound" threads, but I'd rather start a new one, since I'm not commenting on the other users' problems.

I just bought this game from Steam, since a) it's only $20, and b) the trailer looks interesting. Sound works fine on my laptop, but doesn't work at all on my desktop.

On said desktop, there are four sound playback devices present, none of which is an old modem (I've never used an internal modem in my life):

ASUS Xonar D2X Audio (PCIe audio card - default playback)
ATI HD Audio rear output (4870 X2 HDMI audio device)
SoundMAX HD Audio (onboard sound, used for mic input)
ASUS Xonar D2X Audio Converter (part of Xonar device)

Disabling any of these would not be an acceptable option just to play this game. But to be thorough, I did try disabling the ATI and SoundMAX devices. The Xonar Converter device is not a separate piece of hardware, so cannot be disabled via the device manager. The result was no difference. The sound sliders aren't actually at zero (they are stuck at the middle), but no changes are saved. I changed them to max after disabling the other devices, and the changes still didn't stick, while the silence remained.

Like others, I do not have any audio issues at all with any other games or applications. They all find and use the default playback device without complaint. Some even let me choose the audio output device.

I did read many responses on other threads, so my (first) question is, how long are you guys intending to wait on some kind of answer from MS? If DirectX audio doesn't work, why not just switch to DirectSound and be done with it? If you're using a 3rd party audio library, why not make it their problem, and insist on a fix?

Hopefully you can find a solution soon.

[jeff]

Basically the version of DirectX audio we are using is the what DirectSound has become.* We're talking with the folks at Microsoft and really have no other choice other than that they can fix this at this point.* We'll let them know how this is affecting people and see what we can do.





Thanks for all your information.





Jeff

[snotrocket]

Glad to see the commitment that Hidden Path has to the gaming community. I thought twice about buying this game, but really love the idea of a dedicated TD game, so I did. Unfortunately, I did not check out all the threads that basically say "we have no idea what's going on, nor do we care enough to assign a tech to any post-sale issue with the authority to say more than 'WTF ITS MS'"

THANKS GUYS

[jeff]

I'm sorry you get that attitude from the forum posts.* That isn't the case.* We have people ready to go and when we got the first workaround from Microsoft we had it ready to go the next day.* The problem was that it didn't work.* We're still in waiting for Microsoft mode and we check in with them often.* The second we have a workaround that works, we'll get it in your hands.





Jeff

[stealthmaster]

im haveing the exact same problem and im not good with computers so if there is a solution i might need a walkthrough to fix it (if fixable on my end)

[jeff]

Hi folks,





Here is what we know about sound issues today.





1. There is a known bug in the Microsoft Xaudio system that we use for audio.* Here are the details:


- for this to affect you, you must have more than one audio device on your computer system, perhaps two sound cards, perhaps a modem that has a speakerphone option, perhaps some other device that advertises itself to Windows as having an audio channel





- Then, one of your audio devices on your computer needs to not properly respond to queries from DirectX and give Windows*an invalid response.





- The bug that happens is that instead of ignoring that device, the XAudio system shuts down and no audio goes to any device.





- Microsoft is still working on a workaround where they believe we can make a change to the game to prevent this from happening.* They also plan to update DirectX so that this won't happen.





- In the meantime the thing that you can do is go to your Device Manager in Windows and disable any sound device you are not using.* The most common offender is an older modem - usually people aren't even using it even though it is in their computer.* The second common offender is audio built into the motherboard when they also have a specific sound card.* Disabling the unused audio device resolves the issue for most people.





Hope that helps.* We'll definitely let you know when we have an update that can work around this problem.





Jeff

[jeff]

I'm told that Microsoft has fixed this in the next release of DirectX (it turns out there was no available workaround for us to do).* The next release of DirectX should be coming within 2-3 weeks (perhaps sooner).





Stay Tuned, those of you without sound should be getting it shortly!





Jeff

[jeff]

Microsoft has released the March 2009 DirectX and we are told it has a fix for the audio issue some of you have been experiencing.*





Go to the link below, download the latest DirectX from Microsoft and let us know if that does not solve your audio issue.





Jeff





http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en

[c1jdk]

I've downloaded the new directx (april 2009) and made sure that my motherboard sound (AC97) was disabled in the bios, and still no sound through my soundblaster card.

All other games work, so surely there has to be a proper directx initialization that will work here.

Would love to play the game, looks like fun - any chance of a patch?

[Mr. Weedy]

Was it so that you had to tinker your sound settings because if I recall correctly there can get set to zero volume. Pull them up or at least do something to them, save and quit the game and relaunch. It could be this issue.

[jeff]

To our knowledge, the March DirectX does in fact fix the audio bug.* As Mr. Weedy says, verify that your volume sliders are not at zero (they can be left at zero from previous times you've run the game and couldn't initialize sound).





If neither is fixing the sound, please email info @ hiddenpath .com and reference this post.





Thanks,





Jeff

[Thanny]

I downloaded the March 2009 DirectX web setup, ran the update, rebooted, and sound still doesn't work in Defense Grid.



It also doesn't work in The Maw, which I'm guessing uses the same audio library.



All other sound-generating programs work fine.

[jeff]

Send us a dxdiag output file and a msinfo32 output file (older format) so we can learn more about your computer.* Send the files to info @ hiddenpath .com and reference this post.





Thanks,





Jeff

[jeff]

Thanny's DxDiag output shows that the Asus Xonar card is error'ing out even on the simple DirectX tests and isn't properly working with all parts of the Windows audio engine.* Whether that is something Microsoft or Asus needs to fix we don't know.* We've reported the issue to Microsoft and passed along the relevant information.





That's what we know at this point.





Jeff

[haughki]

Nothing much to add. I'll send my dxdiag to you. I have multiple audio cards, as well as onboard audio.

I did run the March 2009 dx update. Made no difference. I'm not interested in fiddling around, enabling/disabling various audio devices.

Fwiw, I have another 15 odd games (at least) installed on this PC. None of them have any trouble initializing audio on any of my cards. As an end user, this is my experience. I can appreciate that this is a difficult problem to solve, but it's really hard to imagine how "Microsoft" is to blame. It might be worth your while to give a more detailed explanation of the problems on your end. I'm always surprised at how reasonable people can be when they get a straight answer, and in hind-sight, how easy it is to give one.

[jeff]

Hi,





Our goal is to have you playing the game and up and running.* We don't really care about blame.* In this case Microsoft is the only one with the power to fix it and that's why we share this info with you.*





We've talked with them and they've been very helpful and good partners on this, but they're the only ones who can make this work.* It's not something we can do without rearchitecting the game and getting a completely new audio engine.





We had several examples of the audio*not working (it affected just under 3% of our uses by the end of January), we then got those examples*in front of the Microsoft folks, and the March 2009 DirectX update did fix all of the examples we could provide.





Since the release of the DirectX update in March, we've seen one type of USB modem (Zoom Series 1063 56k), and one type of audio card (Asus Xonar) that are not fixed by the DirectX update.





I'd very much like to know what hardware you have on your computer so we can try to identify which component isn't working with DirectX and add that to Microsoft's list to address.* That said, some fiddling will be needed to isolate it if you don't have one of the*two components I listed above.*





Each time we identify one, it gets sent to Microsoft and they*plan to*release an update that will fix the problem.* We don't know when that will be, however.*





Another popular game that is in the same boat as us is "The Maw" - they use the same audio engine as we do in DirectX.* It is becoming more popular recently as it is the same audio engine used for the Xbox 360 and has been brought to the PC via DirectX in the last few years.*





Obviously on the Xbox 360 there is only one hardware configuration to worry about, with the PC, there are thousands, and in conjunction with Microsoft we seem to be closing in on finding all of those configuration that they weren't supporting as they have expected.* PC combatibility is a tough thing, and they're working on it.*





To be honest, we didn't know about their compatibility status up front on the audio engine, and if we had, we may have chosen a different route.*





That said, we did choose it, and now we're working to try to get it to the 100% compatible that both Microsoft and we desire.* It's just going to take time unfortunately.





Oh, one other thing.* Some people have found since installing the March DirectX update that they *also* needed to go get the latest drivers for their audio hardware and if they did that, it would solve the problem (i.e. they needed both new audio drivers *and* the latest DirectX to solve the problem).








Jeff

[haughki]

That's an exceptional response. Thank you, Jeff: I really, truly appreciate it. If I'd read more carefully through all the various posts, I may have better understood what you so clearly explain here. It makes a lot of sense to me now, and I'm glad to have a clearer picture. Apologies on my end for the grumpy post: it was late, and I was frustrated at not being able to play the game.


I'll look for some updated drivers.



My config, in short (i'll send the full dxdiag shortly):



Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.60GHz


Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Professional (Win32 x86) 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)


System : Dell Inc. Dimension 8400


Total Memory : 2GB DDR2-SDRAM




Video System


Adapter : Radeon X1900 Series



Physical Storage Devices

Hard Disk : ST3160023AS (149GB)

Hard Disk : MEGARAID LD 0 MEGARAID SCSI Disk Device (559GB)

CD-ROM/DVD : _NEC DVD+-RW ND-3530A (CD 48X Rd, 48X Wr) (DVD 6X Rd, 6X Wr)



Audio Playback Devices:

Description: SoundMAX Digital Audio [builtin]

Description: Modem #0 Line Playback (emulated)

Description: M-Audio Delta 66 Multi

Description: M-Audio Delta 66 1/2

Description: M-Audio Delta 66 3/4

Description: M-Audio Delta 66 S/PDIF

Description: MA730 Bluetooth Audio

Description: Sennheiser USB Headset





thanks,

hawkeye parker

[haughki]

The SoundMax (onboard) drivers appear to be up to date. I upgraded the Delta-66 drivers, but that didn't seem to help.



I've seen other mentions of the "Modem #0" device in other posts. I haven't been able to figure out how to disable this "device" on my machine: it looks like it's an emulator, and so I'm assuming I'd have to disable this somewhere other than the device manager...? Dunno where.



I'll be going through and disabling various hardware now. I need it all to work, at some point, but it might give some better sense of what's causing the trouble.



My best guess is that it's the Delta-66. From dxdiag:



"The file delta.sys is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer."



Unsigned driver. The latest is still unsigned.

[jeff]

What I might try in order to isolate and see if the modem is the problem is make sure you know the type of modem you have and a copy of the driver for it, and then use add/remove hardware to uninstall the hardware and physically remove the modem from your computer. Then try rebooting and see if the game audio works. If it does, we at least know then the modem is the cause and we can get that info to Microsoft.





Jeff

[haughki]

As I mentioned in my last post, "Modem #0 Line Playback" was listed as an audio device in my Sounds and Audio Devices control panel, but wasn't showing up under Device Manager. I think this is because it was an emulator, not an actual hardware device. The way I "disabled" this device was to uninstall it, under Control Panel > Phone and Modem Options, on the Modems tab. BUT, since this was a software device, this meant that uninstalling it was "forever", not like enable/disable for a hardware device driver.



In any case, I uninstalled the modem (it was a Conexant D 850), and I was able to hear sound in Defense Grid. I wasn't entirely happy with this solution, since who knows when I might need a dial-up modem. I'm guessing most of the world actually still runs on dial up. Whatever.



I was willing to live with this. But, then I noticed a few other problems:



-Winamp playback was distorted.

-iTunes audio playback was skipping/choppy. I use iTunes to watch video.



These weren't "small" problems for me. It sounded pretty bad. And, I use this machine for audio programming, recording, production, and performance (and gaming :), so I really didn't like to be having strange audio distortions of any kind. Other audio playback seemed to be working ok, but interestingly enough, Defense Grid audio was distorted in the same way Winamp was. Windows Media Player sounded fine....



At this point, I had changed quite a few things to get Defense Grid audio: new sound card drivers for the Delta 66, new DirectX, removed "Modem #0", and this and that.



I googled around a bit. Didn't find anything useful. I rolled back my Delta 66 drivers. I removed some software here and there, just in passing. Checked all the audio options in dxdiag, drivers, windows update (again), other related audio settings, etc. Still nothing. This all took most of an evening, and a number of reboots.



My gut was telling me that it was probably the directx update. That's the sort of thing that could affect multiple different pieces of software in different ways, and conspicuously work fine for MS software, but not some other apps. Directx is now very tightly integrated with windows, so much so that there's no official way to uninstall it. And, even if I could uninstall it, I'd have a hard time finding a legit older version.



I actually ended up whacking the DirectX key from HKey_Local_Machine (apparently this used to force a reinstall of dx 8.1), then restoring my registry, then using some crappy random-dude app (DirectX Extractor?) to rip directx out of my system, and that really hosed things up nicely. Just following different google searches hither and yonder. I actually haven't had to do this sort of thing on my "working computer" for a few years. I knew I could deal with the consequences one way or another, but I was getting pretty careless, and the consequences were looking more and more like an OS reinstall. I have ~100GB of software installed on this machine. Irk. Either OS reinstall, or some serious scrapping around in the registry, dx dll hell, etc.



I ended up using System Restore and rolled everything back to pre-Defense Grid. I'd never actually done that before, and it worked amazingly well. All is back to normal, almost like a fairy tale. Very nice technology, the System Restore. As it happened, in the mean time, I had played ~20 levels of Defense Grid. Fantastic game! Really enjoyed it. I've played enough to feel like I got my money's worth, and I'm not interested in trying to install it again at this point.



Anyhow, thanks for the nice attention and good luck with your game development.



Kind regards,

Hawkeye Parker

[jeff]

I'm sorry for you going through all of that - obviously having all your audio devices*work in one place is what is most desired.





I do think that getting your info to Microsoft is worthwhile and we've done that to try to help in the future.





Jeff