The Sound Problem

i get a strange double echo when i cast healing sig, anyone else havethe problem?

Yes, some sound effects loop for awhile and some I don't hear at all. Before update every sound was clear and no loops.

Have you all updated your soundcard drivers and directx? It works fine for me. Better than fine, in fact; it sounds much better than before.

My speakers can handle some 3D (as in when to play from the left and right, etc), but nothing too fancy. I keep my slider at the middle. Any position to the right of that results in some echoeyness, most likely since I cannot handle extreme 3D. I use SoundMAX Digital Integrated Audio (I'm all for graphics and none for giant sound systems)...

sound is piss poor now please fix or tell us how to fix

Has everyone complaining of this problem fully downloaded the updates for Factions? I let everything download before I played this afternoon and, if anything, the game sounded much better, sounds were richer. No looping or anything. I'll play with my sound settings and see if I can reproduce your problem on my system.

I was PUG'd with someone last night who was experiencing sound problems. He got disconnected...when he got back in, he said the sound was working better, but not fully (he had been getting no sound at all). Maybe some updates streamed to him between logging back in and finding us again.

I fully downloaded all the forced updates. I never remember, is the kb/mb count with the lightning bolt on the top of the screen the count of something updating while you play? If so, I may have a little bit remainign there to update. The 900+ files in Battle Isles and the 400+ files when initiating the GW client are all in.

If no-one minds I think I am going to post rather a long moan about this as it may make me feel better.

First thing is that I have lost music. I am not talking about the total loss of music....what I get is as follows:

Whenever I enter a new area, town, or go through a portal, the music will play ONE track from the soundtrack. Then it will play NOTHING ELSE.

This is really demoralising. If I leave town for more than 2 minutes I am basically playing a musicless game. This is doubly annoying as I bought additonal music from DirectSong. GW was so immersive until I had this problem but now without music it feels utterly soulless (or should that be Soule-less?)

It may seem extreme but I just cannot be bothered to play until this is fixed - if it is fixed. I was hooked on GW but am just now not looking forward to playing it as I am finding the lack of music downright irritating. What's also worrying me is that I don't hear many others voicing the problem - meaning it will go uncorrected. I spoke to one other guy in a town who said he had the same, but it seems it's quite specific.

Second thing is the horrible and pointless change to the positional audio.

Previously, the volume and left/rightness of sound effects was determined by their position from the camera. If you're zoomed out, quiet noises. Zoom in, loud noises. Pan the camera around and the sound changes as per your position.

Now what seems to be the case is that sound level and balance are set by the vector of the event from your character. Near to the character - loud noise. Far from the character - quiet noise.

Read this as follows - if you're a ranger, you won't hear much. If you're a warrior, turn the sound down.

This 'improvement' might have been an interesting concept but this is NOT a first person game. It's a third person view. The camera-focussed noise of before was perfect and immersive. Now it just seems totally false.

Imagine this - your character is standing half a screen away from a fire. You twist the view around and the fire is in the foreground. The burning should be loud. You spin the view again and the fire is far away, behind the character. The burning should be barely audible. This is what it used to be like.

Now, because the fire is always the same distance from your character, the sound is always the same volume.

Another example - imagine your character is standing next to the fire and it's just on your right. You're zoomed out. Character and fire are fairly central in the screen. OLD sound would have been a quiet fire (you're zoomed out) mid-speakers (it's fairly near the middle of the screen). NEW sound is a very loud fire (it's next to you!) bursting out of your right speaker only (as you look at it, it's on the right of your character).

Third thing - the 'tinny' aspect of some sounds. Particularly where you get hit by Light or Cold damage (from Monk or Necro profession creatures).

I don't mean to sound like a flamer but this is just rubbish. The game just doesn't 'feel' right any more, and added to the fact that some sounds are now tinny and the music has gone, the pain is all the greater.

I am on the verge of leaving GW because playing it under these conditions is negative enjoyment. The phrase 'it was perfect yesterday, why did they ruin it?' keeps going through my head.

Specs as follows:

Dell Dimension 8250
SB Audigy 4 (bought it this afternoon as I thought the problem was my SB Live! - in fact experience is near identical on both)

Can anyone else who has the time pls experiment and see if they are also getting the 'sound effects relative to character' issue, and pls post if they do?

Does anyone's sound still reference the camera, and if so what soundcard do you have so maybe I can waste some money on one of those?

BTW I have the sound slider on highest quality (I have a new sound card!) but have tried every other position.

Anyone reading from ArenaNet, I have logged a query (and didn't get it answered yet) but FYI I will post in here if and when this is fixed by any mini patches.

Please put my name down for the 'for the love of God just make the sound like it was before' button.

I've been reading this forum a while but haven't posted. If the length or tone are inappropriate please accept my apologies and I will just go and find a piece of concrete to repeatedly bang my head against.

OMG I have just re-read that DS3D post above and realised that my investment in a SB Audigy 4 to replace my SB Live! was officially a total waste of money. It doesn't matter if I have the latest 64-channel EAX hardware, they are using a software solution. Wonderful. I now get to feel like a muppet for spending £59.99 on a new soundcard to unsuccessfully address the problem with one game.

koa - I agree fully with your long moan...I've noticed the "tin-ness", the dramatic differences in sound positioning, the lack of music, all of it. Shame, shame, ANet...

yeah... fix the sound anet ):
aatxes hit me and there's no sound of their horns cutting through my flesh. it's pretty sad really.

my slider must be screwed up and i hope it gets fixed asap! The quality is better when i go left and it sound like a talk radio playing music when i put it all the way right. I can never get any of the sounds right, when i click a stance i dont hear anything from it which angers me. Its either hear a skill go off or switch it so i can hear if im hitting the enemy. I think this quality stuff sucks, CHANGE IT BACK!!

What's your Spec, sir? Do you also have a Soundblaster + Dell combination?

I have noticed many sound effects are low now. I dont know if this is deliberate to change default sound settings - not a complaint just saying. But I dont like it much either.

3AM here now so im not logging back on . Im going to try lowering the music, and increasing the sound effects.

Um...I don't know how to say this...but...

DS3D allows for Hardware Acceleration since DirectX 5. Which means, if you have a DS3D capable card like an Audigy then DS3D will take advantage of the sound card. EAX a while back added extra functionality to the DS3D software. Now EAX has evolved a bit but still helps to enhance sound when DS3D is used.

ON my machine, I have an Audigy 2 and I can crank up the quality without performance issues but some people with integrated audio notice slow down in the frame rate because the CPU has to work overtime.

No you didn't if you listen to DS3D and Eax, EAX sounds much better. I have many many games that support EAX (for the best try Max Payne 2 w/ EAX on, the sound is very impressive) and very little that supports DS3D (one of the reasons why I was surprised to see GW use it but makes sense for many reasons). Gw just doesn't supprt EAX, in fact Doom 3 didn't support EAX until the latter patch.

Also there are 4 version of EAX so your SB live supported EAX 1 via hardware, 2,3,4 had to be software emulated where Audigy 4 supported 1,2,3 at the hardware level and the "new" 4 in there new card line has to be software emulated (more cpu resources).

Make sure you using the most current drives, creative have set up a web site to autoscan your system and give you the correct ones: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/su.asp

Agree with Omega X, about intergrated audio, and most users will keep there video cards up to but neglect there sound card drivers.

Thanks for that. I suppose I am no worse off with this sound card; maybe just financially.

I got a reply from GW Support -

Thank you very much for contacting the Guild Wars Customer Support. We received your ticket about a problem in regards to Guild Wars. We are handling all customer requests in the order of their arrival, and you will receive an answer to your request as soon as possible.

No way! They have a lot of queries....

Hmmm never noticed, lol. I never have sound on, I'm always playing music. I perfer rock over their crappy stuff anytime.

I have a slightly different problem. If I turn the sounds quality up all the way, when in combat the sounds can be "muffled". Other times it's really clear. It's as if I am bunged up (due to having a cold) and my ears clear suddenly. ANet, can you fine-tune the sounds please? I think there might be something that stops the sound from being high-quality all the time.

Looping is quite annoying, feels almost like playing a Valve game at times.