Tomb Raider: Underworld slight audio crackling.

[Metalhead4ever]

Hello I'm getting slight audio crackling while playing the game, its the Steam version not the disc.. How would I resolve the issue? Would I need to provide any more information?

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690
Speakers: Sound Blaster ZxR
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

 

[Wozza63]

Have you tried a different audio output? Like a pair of headphones?

If that doesn't work try this:

• Right click on sound icon and choose 'Playback Devices'
• Right Click on current device and choose 'Properties'
• Then go to te 'Enhancements' Tab
• And I think it could be any of the 3 options displayed, so try various combinations of them applying each time and also one at a time

Hope this helps

Also have you tested other games or audio

 

[Metalhead4ever]

Ok will try that thanks, will get back to you

 

[Metalhead4ever]

Have you tried a different audio output? Like a pair of headphones?

If that doesn't work try this:

• Right click on sound icon and choose 'Playback Devices'
• Right Click on current device and choose 'Properties'
• Then go to te 'Enhancements' Tab
• And I think it could be any of the 3 options displayed, so try various combinations of them applying each time and also one at a time

Hope this helps

Also have you tested other games or audio

OK I tried that and it still lags, could it be the in-game settings? It doesn't happen in any other games only in tomb raider.

 

[NilSatis]

Hello mate

Im pretty sure I had this exact same problem and the only way I could fix this was to update to the latest "non official" Creative Sound Blaster drivers. The voice and the music was crackly and laggy and after I updated I had no problems. It took some courage to go the way of the non official drivers, but it worked in the end. It was a long time ago but I remember this was the thing that worked. There was a guy who used to produce lots of drivers for Creative, better ones than the official ones, but he got warned off doing them. I still managed to find them online with some searching, maybe you can too.

Edit: After looking again, I remember the guys name: Daniel_K. Here is one of his many threads on unofficial drivers. Daniel K drivers I would say use them at your own risk, but I have found they work much better than Creative's terrible offerings. They also sorted out the crackling problem with Tomb Raider, and also a crash I was getting on LOTRO with the Creative ones. I however am not sure I used the ones I have linked as it was a long time ago and I have a different SoundBlaster card. His drivers are still installed and have worked flawlessly for a couple of years I may add.

 

[Metalhead4ever]

Hello mate

Im pretty sure I had this exact same problem and the only way I could fix this was to update to the latest "non official" Creative Sound Blaster drivers. The voice and the music was crackly and laggy and after I updated I had no problems. It took some courage to go the way of the non official drivers, but it worked in the end. It was a long time ago but I remember this was the thing that worked. There was a guy who used to produce lots of drivers for Creative, better ones than the official ones, but he got warned off doing them. I still managed to find them online with some searching, maybe you can too.

Edit: After looking again, I remember the guys name: Daniel_K. Here is one of his many threads on unofficial drivers. Daniel K drivers I would say use them at your own risk, but I have found they work much better than Creative's terrible offerings. They also sorted out the crackling problem with Tomb Raider, and also a crash I was getting on LOTRO with the Creative ones. I however am not sure I used the ones I have linked as it was a long time ago and I have a different SoundBlaster card. His drivers are still installed and have worked flawlessly for a couple of years I may add.

I'm a bit of a noob but how do you install the driver, I tried but I cant get it to work.

 

[NilSatis]

I'm a bit of a noob but how do you install the driver, I tried but I cant get it to work.

The page I linked you to was just an example of some of the drivers he does. I believe your card is quite new and am not too sure how the state of the drivers are by Creative as yet. That being said to install the drivers you would just click the standalone .exe file and restart the pc. The ones on the link above will just be standalone driver files (unofficial) and therefore will not contain all of the other sound altering software Creative would include. I would personally start here and download the latest driver for the card from Creative and retest. Then if this doesn't work go down the route of trying one of Daniel_k's drivers.

The link to the latest driver for your card from the Creative site is here:
SoundBlaster drivers

You simply download this, then run the file and follow the instructions.

For Daniel Ks drivers, he usually does a whole package like this, but on the link I gave you initially it is just the driver on its own. It should still work the same way by running the file on its own but try and download the latest official drivers first. When you say it didn't work.....what did it do? Im afraid I cant test it as I have an X-FI card. You will see on that forum that there are many beta/unofficial drivers for Creative cards; as their official drivers are known to be pretty bad. Hopefully the latest one will sort this issue out for you and if not then you will have to explore the others as an option. Hope this helps.