[Mr_Blastman]

I never had this before but lately I get this strange audio popping noise (sometimes a crackle) every time a new sound plays.  For instance, say in the hangar and I click on a door to open, when it plays the sound I hear a quick pop and then the sound.  If I switch to a new door I hear a quick pop again and then the sound.

I don't get this in other applications--only OpenAL related ones maybe?  It is strange and makes little sense.

I'm running the same hardware as always, a SB X-Fi Fatality Pro card.

Any ideas?

[pecenipicek]

i think thats related to audio buffers being a smidge too small. sure smells like it. however i know not what can be done about it, but its familiar to me from shenanigans i had with my audigy 2 zs...

[Mr_Blastman]

I think I've narrowed this down to specifically being a Windows 7 64-bit, Nvidia n-force Chipset / X-Fi issue from all the research I've done.  Supposedly there's a way to fix it by changing pci interrupt latency timers but... none of the tools to change the timing for individual PCI devices work in Windows 7 64-bit, thus, why nobody can ever solve this issue.

Yeah, crazy right?  So I guess the only solution is to ditch the Nvidia n-force motherboard chipset.

http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=24669

[pecenipicek]

I think I've narrowed this down to specifically being a Windows 7 64-bit, Nvidia n-force Chipset / X-Fi issue from all the research I've done.  Supposedly there's a way to fix it by changing pci interrupt latency timers but... none of the tools to change the timing for individual PCI devices work in Windows 7 64-bit, thus, why nobody can ever solve this issue.

Yeah, crazy right?  So I guess the only solution is to ditch the Nvidia n-force motherboard chipset.

http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=24669

have you tried? http://www.nhancer.com/

[Mr_Blastman]

Yeah, that doesn't work with the latest drivers though--I've got a 670 GTX in the machine now.

I did find this, though...

http://downloads.guru3d.com/NVIDIA-Inspector-1.94-download-2612.html#download

Nvidia inspector.  It seems to be a more recent replacement candidate for Nhancer (which stopped being updated back in 2010).  I'll have to play with it a bit and see.  It would be nice if I could figure out how to fix it and then post it for others... I'm sure there are plenty of Creative users with Nforce boards.

[mjn.mixael]

I have a similar issue occassionally, but I'm using my mobo's onboard Realtek card... which is probably the issue. I've been meaning to pick up a good sound card at some point, but I need to make sure I have space in my case for it first.. which requires work... which requires I not be lazy.