About a month ago the mic port went on my motherboard integrated sound card so last week I finally replaced it and I’m having some strange issues with it.
First tech specs.
Card: ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 channel PCI
Driver: 7.12.8.1794
OS: Win 7
Issues: I first noticed the problem is Diablo 3. Atmosphere sounds are normal but voices fade in and out and the book narrations can’t be heard at all. I checked all the in game sound controls and they were all normal. I tried turning voices up and all other sounds down but there was no effect other than lowering the atmosphere sounds.
I was watching a youtube video (Tabletop) and the music was normal volume but the voices were so low they couldn’t be understood.
Also the mic still doesn’t work which makes me think that the onboard sound wasn’t really the original issue.
I’ve looked for updated drivers, verified that it’s not just my headset that’s the issue (multiple mics, none work) verified that the new card is the one enabled and that the onboard card is disabled in the bios.
I’m at the end of my troubleshooting knowledge and google is no help.
Any suggestions? I’ll try almost anything short of shooting the PC.
how many speakers are you using? It almost sounds like the game is in surround mode but you’re using stereo speakers (or earphones.) Most of the dialog/narration would be sent to the center channel in a surround system.
I’m using a headset but there doesn’t seem to be an option for that vs surround sound. The only options in game that seem to apply are the number of sound channels and it’s currently still on the default setting of Low (32).
I clearly don’t understand what sound channels means in that context if 32 is low.
The most ridiculously high-end (realistic) home theater setup would have 7.2 channels.
“channels” in that context means how many different sounds can be mixed simultaneously in the game engine or by the sound driver, it doesn’t have anything to do with the sound card outputs.
When you install the latest drivers, a control panel is usually put in the task bar. Double click that and see what you have there as option for either speakers or channels. You can also try going into window’s sound settings in the control panel (or right click the speaker icon on your taskbar) and see how the ASUS playbakc device is setup.
It does sound like you have more than 2 speakers/headphones setup.
- That’s not a game setting, but a Windows setting. Go to (in Windows 7) the Sound control panel, select your speakers/main output device, and click “Configure” to ensure the computer’s configuration matches the physical number of speakers you have. For a headset, unless you have a super-fancy 5.1 one, you probably want “Stereo”.
BTW, as a general rule, I’d adjust my audio using the standard Windows control panels and a very simple audio-generating app (like playing a YouTube video) before I started tinkering/blaming a video game for problems.
- “Channels” in a game software context reads as “number of simultaneous sound effects to play”. By that definition, 32 is indeed “low” (the normal number is “infinite”) but probably more than sufficient for a game like Diablo III. Or most games, really.