The "Sound Dampening" issue

[mrcash2009 0]

Hi,

Ive personaly experienced the "sound dampening issue" since patch 1.09 where bullet cracks (near) seem to dip the sound to the point of everything falling silent for a time or even never recovering in some situations.

Many people post about this in all sorts of sound threads, even to try to diagnose with DB levels in sound configs etc and ive had the dam issue since 1.09 ..  after the tweak with in-vehicle levels etc.

I have been using an Audigy 2 ZS with latest driver and updates throughout this time, in fact I had the same drivers for the card from 1.08 then through to 1.09beta & final, and issue started happening since the beta. This is in vista 32bit BTW before and after SP1.

Well after a nice little upgrade I purchased an X-Fi Fatality gamer card, installed it today to the same machine (nothing else changed other than swapping cards and installing latest Xfi driver for it).

I loaded the missions where I have alot happening and without a doubt always had dampening issues. Im using (as normal through this time) combinations of sound mods and EVA / various sound addons. Using this same mod install and missions known to bring out this isssue in minuits of playing ... not a sausage, nothing. While all is going off around me and cracks going off near my head like the dozen I have no sniff of the O.T.T dampening.

So in my experience it proved to me that it was the older card adn arma (since 1.09), and newer card wont have the problem, im very happy because it was starting to realy p*ss me off too.

Anyone else have this issue post your sound specs and discuss, hope this helps, though Id start this thread because there seemed a grey area for this problem and just splintered posts about it.

PS - before you think "thats bloody obvious" it may not be to alot ive seen posting in soundmod threads about there sound mods "fixing" this problem in configs, plus it would be nice to know if anyone actualy has Xfi's that still experience this issue if at all.

[volkov956 0]

I downgraded to a Audigy 2 ZS from my XFI Elite to solve my sound issues with Arma.....

[sk3pt 0]

I have an old Audigy 2 ZS, and I don't have any problems that I am aware of.

[oktane 0]

Are you sure its not a different setting of EAX or HW accel in sound options? Either of those options could toggle on or off on a new card making the comparison kinda un-scientific.

[mrcash2009 0]

No in a nutshell, I forgot to add this in original post, whther all on or all off, eax on HW off made no difference.

Its realy a mystery because even reading here theres no consistent solution to it, very "odd".

I can assure you any near bullt cracks from fire, heli fire etc repeated each time would dim overall volume to the point of no recovery sometimes, was VERY annoying.

Downgrading worked for you, wow ... gets stranger and stranger.

[Guest]

I purchased an X-Fi Fatality gamer card

.....

Downgrading worked for you, wow ... gets stranger and stranger.

To make you a bit more confused. I have the fatality gamer card and still suffer from the lowering sounds.

I upgraded from a audigy 2zs as well like you did.

My best bet is (unproven though, totally speculating) is some windows update is causing this. Cause, when I formatted my computer, installed latest drivers, installed Arma my sounds were awesome. Finally dropping of sound seemed to have gone. Also sounds of closeby vehicles did not make my ears explode and I could easily hear where shots were being fired from.

This only lastet for a bit though.....nowadays (2 weeks later) again vehicles make my ears explode, I cant tell incomming fire direction and I loose sounds so I am back at disabling hardware acceleration now to at least make it playable but its far from perfect.

[mrcash2009 0]

Man alive it is wierd eh .

[sparks50 0]

Ive started to have this problem lately too(cant tell when it started) and I have no sound card.

[mrcash2009 0]

Ive started to have this problem lately too(cant tell when it started) and I have no sound card.

Just to clear things up, do you mean you have no dedicated sound card and are using on-board mother board sound?

Interesting, seems theres no escape. I would expect some oddities with on board and not dedicated, but seems relevent to all.

I cn say for me its all been since 1.09beta onward, as I said in original post ever since they rfixed audio levels for vehicles etc, thats when I started noticing it.

[sparks50 0]

On-board.

[cjph 0]

Hi

Another Audigy 2Z user here - have noticed after some loud sound (typically strafing from heavily calibre aircraft weapons or close exposions) that the sound gets seriously reduced - found recently that alt-tabbing brought the normal sound back. Is there any stress effect in Arma, ie some form of stun effect ?

I use the Fromz sound addon, in case that helps - can't remember it heppening before that.

cjph

[max power 21]

Hi

Another Audigy 2Z user here - have noticed after some loud sound (typically strafing from heavily calibre aircraft weapons or close exposions) that the sound gets seriously reduced - found recently that alt-tabbing brought the normal sound back. Is there any stress effect in Arma, ie some form of stun effect ?

I use the Fromz sound addon, in case that helps - can't remember it heppening before that.

cjph

This is due to the high dynamic range sound engine in ArmA. It's like the hdr graphics engine. Very bright things cause proportionately darker things to darken. Proportionately loud things cause quieter things to get more quiet in order to preserve a high range of sound volumes.