Audigy 2 ZS - 1.09 & 1.08 Dropouts

[max power 21]

Have you heard of the high dynamic range sound engine? It works a lot like HDR graphics. This might explain why the volume bars do what they do... althought that behaviour is a little odd.

In high dynamic range graphics, based on some factors, the engine scales the brightness of the surrounding scene so that the majority of the area of the screen is in the middle in terms of brightness value. So, a dark scene will brighten up, as if your eyes are adjusting. If you suddenly look into a bright area, then, the darker details will fade out to near black.

It's the same with the HDR sound engine. Loud sounds will drown out quiet ones... so you can't hear your own footsteps if you're beside a running helicopter. If you're in a relatively quiet environment, though, your footsteps are actually quite audible. So if there's an engine running somewhere in the distance, you can hear it... if you discharge your weapon, it will suddenly become inaudible, then fade back into its regular loudness. This allows a more realistic loudness scale, like the HDR engine allows for a more realistic brightness scale.

[Misfit Leader 2]

This volume bar problem was the same in OFP, so i don't think it's HDR sound engine which i never heard something before.

And i can say this HDR sound engine isn't working at all in 1.09. Because AK rifle shots are louder than choppers & jets engine sound when they fire on you.

I don't think this is really realistic and if we add the problem of vegetation occlusion (i never see a tree capable of stopping the sound by its spirit ! ) it seems there is really a big problem insound.

For me, i've never heard footstop, which are so quiet, if you do a little test where you wait near a building and someone run from the rooftop to die on the ground you will never hear the guys hitting the ground.

Looks stupid, but it's the same for lots of sounds missing totally.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Don`t say that the Hardware Acceleration does not work, it works for me.

That means nothing i`m afraid, as i`m most probably the only ArmA-Player that still use Win2K.

[Misfit Leader 2]

It works for me too.. the problem isn't to work, but to work correctly.

[max power 21]

This volume bar problem was the same in OFP, so i don't think it's HDR sound engine which i never heard something before.

And i can say this HDR sound engine isn't working at all in 1.09. Because AK rifle shots are louder than choppers & jets engine sound when they fire on you.

I don't think this is really realistic and if we add the problem of vegetation occlusion (i never see a tree capable of stopping the sound by its spirit ! ) it seems there is really a big problem insound.

For me, i've never heard footstop, which are so quiet, if you do a little test where you wait near a building and someone run from the rooftop to die on the ground you will never hear the guys hitting the ground.

Looks stupid, but it's the same for lots of sounds missing totally.

Working in a forest for the majority of the year, I can tell you that vegetation does indeed occlude sound a great deal. In fact, on one particular occasion, I was talking to a coworker and we both decided to walk on opposite sides of a grown out tree stump, and the result was that her voice was occluded a great deal- the high frequency sounds being occluded much more than the low frequencies. The surrounding vegetation didn't bounce the sound back to me as a room would, and the soft ground also absorbed her voice. The result was that I could her the lower frequencies of her voice much more than the high frequencies from both the primary and secondary sources.

[Misfit Leader 2]

This volume bar problem was the same in OFP, so i don't think it's HDR sound engine which i never heard something before.

And i can say this HDR sound engine isn't working at all in 1.09. Because AK rifle shots are louder than choppers & jets engine sound when they fire on you.

I don't think this is really realistic and if we add the problem of vegetation occlusion (i never see a tree capable of stopping the sound by its spirit ! ) it seems there is really a big problem insound.

For me, i've never heard footstop, which are so quiet, if you do a little test where you wait near a building and someone run from the rooftop to die on the ground you will never hear the guys hitting the ground.

Looks stupid, but it's the same for lots of sounds missing totally.

Working in a forest for the majority of the year, I can tell you that vegetation does indeed occlude sound a great deal. In fact, on one particular occasion, I was talking to a coworker and we both decided to walk on opposite sides of a grown out tree stump, and the result was that her voice was occluded a great deal- the high frequency sounds being occluded much more than the low frequencies. The surrounding vegetation didn't bounce the sound back to me as a room would, and the soft ground also absorbed her voice. The result was that I could her the lower frequencies of her voice much more than the high frequencies from both the primary and secondary sources.

Do you think a chopper over your head should be occluded like if you are in the middle of a big building ?

Because that's the case. You put a tree between you and the chopper.. and tadaaaaaaaaa !

[max power 21]

This volume bar problem was the same in OFP, so i don't think it's HDR sound engine which i never heard something before.

And i can say this HDR sound engine isn't working at all in 1.09. Because AK rifle shots are louder than choppers & jets engine sound when they fire on you.

I don't think this is really realistic and if we add the problem of vegetation occlusion (i never see a tree capable of stopping the sound by its spirit !   ) it seems there is really a big problem insound.

For me, i've never heard footstop, which are so quiet, if you do a little test where you wait near a building and someone run from the rooftop to die on the ground you will never hear the guys hitting the ground.

Looks stupid, but it's the same for lots of sounds missing totally.

Working in a forest for the majority of the year, I can tell you that vegetation does indeed occlude sound a great deal.  In fact, on one particular occasion, I was talking to a coworker and we both decided to walk on opposite sides of a grown out tree stump, and the result was that her voice was occluded a great deal- the high frequency sounds being occluded much more than the low frequencies.  The surrounding vegetation didn't bounce the sound back to me as a room would, and the soft ground also absorbed her voice.  The result was that I could her the lower frequencies of her voice much more than the high frequencies from both the primary and secondary sources.

Do you think a chopper over your head should be occluded like if you are in the middle of a big building ?

Because that's the case. You put a tree between you and the chopper.. and tadaaaaaaaaa !  

I don't know, I've never had a helicopter hover with a tree between me and it.  It certainly seems to happen when a helicopter flies over the box canyon and becomes obscured by the tree canopy.  Rescue helicopters fly over all the time on excercise but I haven't had a chance to work with one because hovering over the canyon for rescues are too dangerous and expensive.  The sound occlusion engine is low fidelity, for sure, but so are the graphics and everything else.  I'd rather have the sound occlusion than not.

And I'm not sure who you're impressing with your tone. I sincerely hope that you're not being as sardonic as I'm taking you.

[hbien 0]

Not sure if this'll help, but sometimes I've had soundcards and other devices conflicting via IRQs. Worst was soundcard and video card. Check and see if they are sharing IRQs via Windows Control Panel. Unfortunately, with today's "super-smart" BIOS/PnP/Windows, you don't have a choice in assignment. I've found I've had to re-arrange cards here and there to alleviate this problem (of course, with PCIe video cards there's nowhere to move that, but you can often move the sound card around). Do you have any other devices that might either use up PCI bandwidth, say, a RAID/IDE controller that's in use while running the game, or any other devices? Good luck.

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

Don't worry about the strange sound volume ingame.

BIS don't really well managed the sound volume since ArmA was released.

To let you know what it's look like.

ArmA sound volume modify some windows volume mixer. (the best example i have is the ArmA radio volume modifying the TeamSpeak sound volume.. ahum! )

And the second erratum of BIS, there is no really volume bar. ArmA look the others volume bar to set it louder or silent.

Lets take some examples :

Effect Volume : 5  | 10

Radio Volume :  5  | 5

Music Volume :  5  | 5

First example 5 - 5 - 5

Same volume for all !

Second example : 10 - 5 - 5

Suddenly Radio & Music volume are like at very low without any reason (they are still at level 5 on the volume bar..) & effect volume is boosted.

This second example is the problem.. when you put a sound louder than the others, it will became louder and the others will become so quiet in comparison.

Hopefully the windows volume control are at last debugged (it's very annoying when using teamspeak, you have to set radio volume higher than effect & music if you want hear something.. but the problem is the ingame message reporting spotted ennemy that is too much louder in comparison to the teamspeak.. & bang bang the ears..)

But for the volume settings, the bugs still here in the beta.. persistant since 1 year.. be proud BIS !

How can you set your volume, if the volume change itself.

When you put radio volume to 5, you want it to keep that volume & not to become so quiet because you put effect volume on 7.

I am using an Audigy 2 ZS platinum. If you want my currently installed driver, i can send them on the internet on a sharing website. They are perfectly working, here is the name of the installation file :

"creative_pilotes_unifies_audigy_-_audigy_2_et_audigy_4_2.09.0016_3462.exe"

Doh and i should say you to never use EAX & hardware acceleration for audio settings. BIS never had them to work correctly and they can bring the game to an unstable status.

This is exactly the same problem I'm having. Was working fine and all of a sudden it's not.

I think it happened when I joined a server with a sound mod installed, but not sure.

Anyway, no luck in getting this resolved yet. I will report if I find a fix.

[sgt_savage 586]

Could this be a bug in the arma engine? I too have suffered similar problems.. When more infantry is on the screen the volume automatically dies down its bloody annoying. I too have an audigy 2 ... Why does this only happen with arma? Only thing I can think its a game bug. I hope they can recify this in the next patch.