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Is It My Sound Card?

Rl'Halsinor

Explorer
As several of you know I have been unable to load NWN once it is installed (see previous post) and many here as well as other sites have mentioned the sound card drivers as a major culprit. The thing is I have an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 sound card. The latest and last driver is two years old but the quality is excellent and it runs fine with other games that are much newer than NWN. I have been in contact with another person who has been experiencing the same thing over at Overclocker's Forum and here is what he had to say. keep in mind that my OS is 32-bit Windows XP Professional with SP2. I'd like to know what you make of his information. From Alex...


1. revo 5.1 's drivers have 3 bugs as i've noticed
- a. the 32 bit version seems to conflict with the nforce4 chipset - as seen in dolby digital 5.1 movies with the output set to 5.1 from the revo control pannel (i happen to have 5.1 sound, when i set the output to stereo, then i get no reboot)
- b. the 64 bit version is so unstable that it crashes win xp x64 immediately after installation , either stereo or 5.1
- c. the microphone seems to have some problems in google talk; it also resets its settings (i use to mute it) upon restart.

the problem with the driver is that creative have bought sensaura and they're really anal about allowing 3rd parties to do new implementations of the algorithms.
a good thing is that vista seems to recognise the card by default (*i'm not sure here, because i never installed it on my pc, but m-audio revolution 5.1 is listed all over it: in windows media player 11, when setting the output to 5.1 from the control pannel also mentions that a revo 5.1 is recommended). so high hopes there.

now m-audio support site is down, but i'll keep bugging them.
by the way: could you put somewhere safe for keeping some of the minidumps from those blue screens you say you got? (m-audio believed me after i have showed them 3 from windows xp x64 - 32-bit one doesn't throw any due to the special nature of the problem)

_______________________________________________

If I am reading Alex right (and he has been speaking to M-Audio tech support quite a bit) there may be really no answer for my dilemma, plus I am getting the crashes with the NOT-EQUAL blah, blah, blah message the inevitable physical memory dump. So if I can't resolve the driver issue is the only recourse a Creative Sound card? Thoughts please!
 

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Rl'Halsinor said:
So if I can't resolve the driver issue is the only recourse a Creative Sound card? Thoughts please!
I had a number of issues with NWN on one of my machines until I bought a Creative card, so it's very possible.

Have you tried getting one and trying it? Or borrowing one from a friend?
 

freebfrost said:
I had a number of issues with NWN on one of my machines until I bought a Creative card, so it's very possible.

Have you tried getting one and trying it? Or borrowing one from a friend?

freebfrost, another person on Overclocker's forum who had the same issues as me with the Revolution 5.1 suggested (it wasn't the Alex I mentioned in my fiirst post) that I look into my IRQ numbers because his Revolution 5.1 was interfering with another PCI card due to the sharing of the same IRQ. Lo and behold BOTH my video card AND my sound card list IRQ 18. I have a feeling this is my cause for the BSOD.

Anyone concur? I hope I don't have to get another sound card just to play NWN 1.
 





I disabled the built-in audio because realTech onboard has issues of its own. I just read that X800 video cards have issues and lo and behold I have an X800GTO. Supposedly the latest driver fixes this. let's hope.
 


freebfrost said:
Any updates Rl'Halsinor?

Yes, and thanks for asking. There still isn't any resolve as of now for the X800 cards and NWN. I misread that the 6,8 catalyst driver resolves the issue because it doesn't. However, I do know, at least at this point my M-Audio sound card should be fine. The Stop Error/Blue Screen of Death has been due to my Sunbelt Kerio Firewall of all things. Someone was able to read and analyze my minidump. Yep, its my forewall alright.
 

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