Steam BTS buzzing at start

[thefrasers]

Had many happy hours playing BTS (downloaded from Steam on top of vanilla C4). Haven't played for a bit but think Steam installed a patch. Now every time I load BTS i get a horrible buzzing noise which makes game unplayable. I've looked through forums but haven't found same problem. Any ideas? (my audio is Realtek 97)

 

[ori]

Welcome (back) to the posting side

try disabling voice capture in the ingame options.

 

[thefrasers]

Don't know if checking box enables or disables it. Either way no joy.

 

[ori]

when you turn off audio in the ingame options (i.e. still with enabled sound on you machine) does that do the same?

 

[thefrasers]

When I turn audio off everything goes quiet! But i cant play it silently.

 

[ori]

so it is actually some sort of abuse it is giving your speakers.

would you mind posting your dxdiag results file?

 

[thefrasers]

A little more info.
Buzzing occurs OVER sounds which can be heard in the background.
By turning audio off I assume you mean turning master volume down as I cant see a single kill audio command.
No sound problems on other programs.
Realtek AC97 MB using Plantronic headphones (I don't have speakers).
RTS used to work fine, seems to have changed after a patch(?) got downloaded through Steam.
Have tried changing voice capture/speaker options etc. No joy.
Terrified of uninstalling RTS since I don't know whether Steam will let me simply reinstall.

Thought; anything to with 'INIT audio' (and how colud I change that anyway?).

so it is actually some sort of abuse it is giving your speakers.

would you mind posting your dxdiag results file?

How long should this take. My dxdiag process seems to stall.

 

[ori]

dydiag should take a few minutes at most.
Update DirectX:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&DisplayLang=en
The ingame audio options should have the master slider and a few detailed sliders (sound, voice etc) each of them has a box for no sound. Tick that for the main sound. I guess it goes away. Then enable main sound again and disable all the individual sounds and enable only one at a time - is there any setting where the buzz goes away?

 

[thefrasers]

Uninstalled /reinstalled BTS thru Steam.

Reinstalled dx9 over old (cant uninstall without massive effort IIRC.)

Still no joy.

dydiag should take a few minutes at most.
Update DirectX:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&DisplayLang=en
The ingame audio options should have the master slider and a few detailed sliders (sound, voice etc) each of them has a box for no sound. Tick that for the main sound. I guess it goes away. Then enable main sound again and disable all the individual sounds and enable only one at a time - is there any setting where the buzz goes away?

Have unchecked WHQL box as I read somehere it can slow things.

The horrendous DXdiag file is attached.

 

[thefrasers]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[ori]

the audio drivers for the realtek audio are kind of old - but that won't be the problem since your headset does not actually use that but rather goes directly via the usb port. One idea: does this headset say whether it is for USB 2.0 or 1.1? It *could* just be that your USB port is for the old 1.1 version and that the headset needs the newer one.
Apart from that I am stumped - I have not seen anyone around here using a usb audio driver so I don't even have any idea whether it can work with this game though I don't see a reason why it should not...

 

[thefrasers]

Headset works perfectly for everything else and USED to be fine here. Ill try and uninstall reinstall.

 

[ori]

try that - does Steam allow you to install the unpatched version?

 

[thefrasers]

Reinstalled old game on brand new PC - same problem at basic Civ 4 level. There are similar problems mentioned here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=233030 but no solution that works.

Maybe I give up.

 

[ori]

unfortunately I am out of ideas

 

[thefrasers]

Many thanks for trying

Have found some sort of solution (for basic at least) - I turn off all hardware acceleration ion the sound properties on Control Panel. But it doesn't sound great for anything else. Is there any way I can either only do this for Civ 4 or get Civ 4 to work normally?

Weird - got it working by plugging headphones straight into PC (and Realtek Sound card) rather than using the Plantronic USB headphone connector. Anybody know why?

 

[ori]

I guess that the usb adaptor has some problems with holding a steady current - voltage fluctuations could be picked up by the headphone as a buzzing noise...