Weird new crashing problem

[jamesg 0]

Hi, I've been playing Arma (SP and MP) fine for months now without any serious hitches, but in the last week Arma has gone to hell in a handbasket since adding an X-Fi Xtreme Music sound card.

What happens is that after a few mins of playing (seems to be after a random amount of time) Arma crashes bringing up a Windows error message box "arma.exe has failed to respond". Weirdly, once its crashed Windows looks like it has dropped down into some super low-res mode and a low number of colours (16 colours at a guess, not 32-bit).

At that point the only option is to click on close this app down at which point the graphics card stops sending a signal to the monitor. However, I know that Windows itself has not crashed as even though I can't see anything using the keyboard and mouse I can still run apps, shutdown Windows etc etc

The only way to get anything on screen is to shutdown Windows (alt F4, or soft power) and reboot the PC at which point everything returns to normal.

I've tried the WHQL and latest BETA X-Fi drivers from Creative and the WHQL and latest BETA Nvidia drivers (for my 8800 GTX), but these haven't solved the problems. This in Windows XP SP2, and once again Arma has been running happily for months now without ever encountering this problem.

Other games appear to be perfectly happy with the system at the mo, I played Supreme Commander for several nights over the last few days while waiting for Queens Gambit.

Has anybody else experienced anything like this?

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

Try editing your arma.cfg to enable hardware sound and disable eax, worked for me and improved fps too.

If that doesn't fix it, then also you might try window's controlpanel->sound settings to use 'normal' directx sound settings instead of full acceleration?

[jamesg 0]

Thanks Warwolf, unfortunately that hasn't stopped the crashing. It's getting really annoying now having to reboot my PC every time I want to play Arma and it crashes

I see somebody on the Nvidia forums is experiencing a similar issue (Arma crashing to desktop into crappy resolution and low colour depth), so its not something unique to my setup. In the meantime, I've tried several maxmem settings and updated DX9, but still no joy.

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

Try a low acceleration setting then, or write a snotty letter/email to Creative if I were you - sounds like their drivers are buggy as hell. Unless there's an IRQ conflict somewhere - but I'd assume you already checked in your

control-panel/system/hardware for conflicts?

Also, check yer BIOS - is onboard sound enabled as well as the new soundcard? I have a VAGUE memory of reading someplace that there's a problem with some onboard sound not disabling properly on some mobos too with certain new soundcards. As I said, vague, but I do think it was Creative new cards it was talking about. For the life of me though I cannot remember where I read it.

Suggest try Google for similar stuff.

[jamesg 0]

Right, I tried going back to the motherboards onboard sound (ADI Soundmax) after uninstalling the X-Fi but the same crash now occurs there too (crash to desktop in VGA mode, then switch off signal to monitor).

Next, uninstalled the onboard sound, put the X-Fi back in, uninstalled Arma + QC = still crashing as before.

The weirdest thing is that Arma has been working fine for nearly 6 months without any having this problem before. I'm beginning to suspect something some dodgy hotfix from MS has borked Windows itself. Still, other games work perfectly stably, and Arma was working.

[Mr_Tea 0]

You have to deactivate the onboard sound in the BIOS too, to uninstall the drivers is not enough.

It could also be the source of you're problems, that you didn't deactivated the onboard sound, before you put in the X-FI.

Did you switched the X-FI to game-mode before you started ArmA?

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

Echo above - plus after you have deactivated the onboard sound in the BIOS, I would suggest that you uninstall the drivers in Windoze for BOTH the X-Fi AND the onboard sound.

THEN reboot, and check that windoze doesn't try reinstalling for the onboard sound again.

THEN shutdown, put in yer X-FI and reboot+install it's drivers.

[jamesg 0]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, but been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I even used DriverCleaner between reboots to flush out any last remants of the old drivers.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Done that stands fore, "enabled game mode for the X-FI" too?

Too many people seems to forget, that the X-FI cards have different working modes.

[Dwarden 1125]

1.08 arma should be able detect that and autodisable eax/hw acceleration when software X-fi is enabled ....

tho i suggest to verify it as it may react differently on someone else hardware

[jamesg 0]

Yes, I've set the X-Fi to 'gaming mode', although I have also tried the other two modes in desperation. Re 'hardware accelerated audio' and 'EAX' within Arma I've tried every combination. i.e. one off, the other on, both off, both on.

[Rocco 0]

huh? wait, if i got a x-fi gamer i should turn EAX and hardware acc off in arma??