Audio Engine Update & Game Freezes

Audio Updates

* Software audio mode (default) now uses the FMOD audio system for improved performance. (Notice: FMOD Sound System, copyright© Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd., 1994-2007.)
* EAX occlusion is now calculated for all sounds at better-than-default quality settings.

http://www.fmod.org/

Looks like part of the GW engine is cross platform, they may be keeping there options open for future cross platform.. or get in now for the updated GW2 engine so future stuff can be cross platform.

May also explain the "-newaudio" switch that was in gw.exe since a few builds ago

My audio is totally crap now by what ever has been changed. I get sounds through only 1 headphones speaker unless I rotate the camera view. Also the sounds seem as tho they're coming from 30 foot away from me.

As of the last update, I have absolutely no music or sound.

this audio update has ruin in game preformance for my the frame rate is down to 10-20 fps just earlier I got 50-75fps before the update, not good.

I'm guessing its an issue with the lack of hardware acceleration support in Window Vista since the audio stack in the OS where removed from the kernel.
This has ruined the game for me and I cant really play with such a poor frame rate, please anet fix this for me

Yes this is f-ing BS iam 10% furious right now!
WTH are they doing before Uppdate this S'it worked perfectly now i cant listen to music and play before music chokes for a second ore two man ARGH f-this
glad to know iam not the only one whith audio problemms,they should switch back ore put some kind of option thingy maybe...

Give this a try and see if any of these reanble the old sound engine
I opened up gw.exe and noticed several new "switches"

-dsound
-sndasio
-sndwinmm

gw.exe -switch

I haven't had a chance to test yet
Game is still updating, If I were to bet... gw.exe -dsound is the one

Yes, sound is now fuxxored again. Remember the last time they "updated" the sound engine? Well, new year, new audio nightmare.

If you had 4- or 5- channel audio, you'd understand why you're not hearing anything through your speakers/headphones.

The sound balance right now is about 10% front / 90% rear. With all volume sliders at max, I can barely hear anything from Guild Wars out of my front speakers. But the rear ones play game sound considerably louder.

Here we go again...

the switch -dsound fixed it for me , and the sound is way better now than before the update

It sounds like you guys need to check your driver revisions and in game settings. The update also changed the way EAX performs by default, personally here everything is peachy. Sounds great no crashes no nothing. Tested 2 different machines with different versions of windows. One with an nforce chipset one with out.

WIndows Vista Ultimate coupled with Creative Labs Audigy ZS2 Gamer.

Issue: Cracking in ventrilo when Guild Wars is Maximized. Only begun after todays update, probably a combination of Creative and Vista moreso than Guild Wars but thought id see if others had this issue. PM me if needed.

3 settings ive tried to fix this:
1) Max quality sound, no hardware or EAX selected
2) Max quality sound, hardware selected, no EAX selected
3) Max quality sound, Hardware selected, EAX selected

i got the same problem before this update even
if playing music or anything in the background the noise was crackling
what u can do is go into ur soundcard options in vista and change the " give programs exclusivity " or something like that, it might help
cant check atm on XP
and this was on an older Creative card so its not limited to ur ZS2

GW and Audigy 2 ZS on XP running fine here.. I think it may be also related to what mother board chipset you have.... I hate creative labs..

before the update i got very good sound but after the update it keeps scratsing or something.I don't know why.

I also had this crackling problem in this update at start or end of skill sounds and stuff.
Updated my drivers did just about everything I could think of nothing worked
so I added the -dsound mentioned above and it has fixed it and it's all smooth sound now thank you.

The -dsound works for me too... As long as they keep that, I'm ok with it, but before I did that, I had to mute the game, it was unbearable on any computer I used. And almost impossible to understand if using a TS or Vent program in conjunction, which everyone agrees anymore is almost a requirement for decent gameplay in PvP or GvG battles of any kind.

Changing game requirements under our noses for the win again... Whatever... Looks like I'll refrain from playing for a while again. after the updates today anything in DoA crashes any time I zone. its not worth it to fight the server every time atm. Hopefully they will realize the frell up and fix it by the end of the weekend. God knows I had to have sent 300 Crash messages to anet in the last 12 hours.

How you most do that ?

-dsound restored front/rear balance for me. Thanks for the tip.

Of course that switch probably just disables the FMOD "upgrade", but maybe that'll get fixed soon.

Where is that -dsound?

I guess DSound means DirectSound, Microsofts Sound API part of DirectX.
-dsound also fixed it for me.

On your desktop shortcut
click the GW icon and then properties
Go to where it says target and add -dsound to the end of the line.

Example
"D:\Guild Wars\Guild Wars\Gw.exe" -dsound
Notice the space between exe" -d

Well thats how I have mine set up.
Hope it helps