FSX Sound not quite right :-/

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

All, Here's a conundrum I'm trying to solve. Any assistance greatly appreciated. Basically, the engine sounds in my FSX don't always stay the same when I flip between views within the aircraft I'm flying. Apologies in advance for the long post as well, but you need the full story to understand whats happening.

For example, while flying around in VC view I have engines set half throttle & everything's A-OK, I throttle back to idle for whatever reason, and the sound changes to match the revs etc. If I flip to Spot view, Tower view and back to VC as you do enjoying the various views of the plane, at all times with the throttle still set at idle and the gauges showing this, the sound whacks back up to half or near 3/4 power sounds, (plane still idling visualy though). The only way to stop this incorrect sound setting being to advance the throttles up to the sound level they are sounding like and then back to idle again, where the sound being generated again drops back to what it should be doing in the first place

PC is a modest HP box with Intel Core 2 2.2 Ghz CPU / 2Gb RAM / graphics is an ATI card with 256Mb with ram on it. FSX with the two service packs and minimal addons. Current OS is Windows 7 32bit. DX10 is not on as far as I can tell. Its not a high end game PC, but does me OK at the moment.

The machine had Vista 32bit on it when I got it and it was doing this since I put FSX on it. It wasn't bothering me then though, because in Vista I could only really run FSX with most of the sliders well to the left. Because of that, I stuck with FS9 instead for most of my flighsim stuff, which ran OK on it, only ever going into FSX if someone brought out a plane I fancied playing with to see what it looked like etc.

Now I have Windows 7 installed (Clean install from scratch, not an upgrade, all the software back on as new etc ) and I can now run FS9 with most settings well to the right and FSX with sliders towards the middle, making it worth while playing with FSX now. I was a happy bunny once Windows 7 was on because everything started to work much faster, even made FSX more worth while playing with, but this pesky sound problem has stayed, even though its a new OS. This is only happening in FSX, FS9 is faultless. It does this on almost all but some of the default aircraft FSX came with, i.e. the Cessnas are OK for some reason. At first I thought it was a fault re twin or multiple engine aircraft but it does it in most single engine models as well.

Anyone come access anything like this in the past?
A Virtual pint of Cairngorm Wildcat ale awaits the provider of the best solution...

[DaveG]

I very occasionally get a sound glitch similar to the one you describe. Doesn't happen very often so I've not tried to search out a permanent solution, but when it does happen I just press "Q" twice to mute then restore the sound. Works for me, but obviously you're problem may be different

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Cheers for the tip Dave, I'll give that a once I've done the dishes

[HawkerHart]

I have that problem. Thought it was with multi engine aircraft, as it does it with all the multi default aircraft plus the rapide and mossie(only have a small fsx hanger at the mo). But I have no problem with the Flight1 Islander, so so much for that theory. Pressing Q doesn't solve it. I tried looking though the sound configs, see if anything leapt out at me, like the goose problem, but nope.
Seems many had a similar problem which was fixed with SP2, but not on my machine. So I just avoid the aircraft in question

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Thanks Tom, At least I'm not the only one having this problem

Strange you should mention the Mossie. If its the Justflight model you have, I also have that aircraft and its one that shows this problem quite loudly .
The Justflight Tigermoth does it as well, but its obviously a single engine, so that rubbishes the possibility its a multi engine only issue. DM's Beaufighter also does it so its not a Justflight issue only either.

Pressing Q twice doesn't fix it, but does make the sound it should be producing a bit louder. Its like the program is not stopping one sound set when it starts another to reflect the change of engine activity, and / or the change is not passed to the next view when you press S or Shift S to cycle through the views.

Thanks all, I'm still looking into it. ( )

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Quick update, I've been trawling the web more re this and there are many others with a similar problem out there. It's begining to very much look like a vista / windows 7 issue, possibly related to newer multi core processors as well, not that that helps. Is there anyone here with the same problem as me but running FSX on XP by any chance? In case I can eliminate the OS as a cause.

[DaveB]

Hi Gordon

I can't recall having this problem with XP SP3.. certainly not to the same degree. I'll see if I can find my FSX icon this afternoon and have a quick blast

ATB

DaveB

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Thanks Dave any help appreciated (though I'd suspect you'd have known about it before now if your PC was doing the same, it spoils the realism of program a bit to much to miss it here at least )

I've found a few suggestions posted on other random Flight Sim forums for others having the same problem, things like sound quality settings, tweaks to the FSX sound.cfg file and disabling other audio devices with speakers and microphones & the like being suggested. I'll try anything, and I'll keep you all updated in case its useful for others here too.

Hm, the is meddling with the mind of this one it is...

[DaveB]

Hi Gordon

I've been up and down, round and around, in and out of a whole collection of various aircraft from the default Cessna to the payware Sea Vixen, Catalina, FSHeliCH Alouette, Alphasim Texan, Alphasim Tonka F3, default King Air, DG's Beaufighter and Rapide.. the widest selection of aircraft I could muster beyond those above and my sound has remained as expected throughout. This is no guarantee of anything in particular except that FSX appears to run well on WinXP SP3 on what is a pretty mediocre system.. E8400 intel dualcore/3ghz/nvidia 8800GTX 768mb/2gig Crucial Ballistix/2 x 500gb sata2 HD's

ATB

DaveB

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Thanks for that Dave, much appreciated. On the principle that FSX was created to run on XP I suspect its some behind the scenes change in the sound system in Vista / Windows 7 that's casing the problem. Might be a bug that would have been fixed if MS were still interested in flight sim but I'll just have to search out a workaround instead