Music makes that special atmosphere in Fallout games, but the problem is that in my game Pip-Boy radio doesn't play any music.

When I select for example Radio New Vegas in Pip-Boy, I can hear Mr. New Vegas talking and when he says that now it's time to listen music, there's no music, only silence. I've got the same problem with Mojave Music Radio too.

The weird thing here is that every other radio in game does play music, the problem is only with Pip-Boy. What the hell is going on?

You guys really don't have any ideas?

There are so many reasons why the radio may have issues. I suggest you research radio issues in fallout 3 as well as this forum.

In General:

1) The fallout game engine hates certain codecs. They can cause all sorts of problems.

2) I actually solved my radio stutter in fallout 3 by buying a new video card with more memory ! (Less virtual drive swapping - which was tasking the game)

3) Currupt/missing game files - try a reinstall of the game

4) Update your sound card drivers.

5) Reinstall your Operating System ( O' yes ! Did I just say that? )

6) If you have a low end system or windows 7 - 64 bit - expect issues.

Best I can do - you might want to post your system specs and direct X dialog...

Open up Windows Media Player and set it so that all files (especially .ogg and .ogm) open with it by default.

Worked for me.

There's also the ffdshow audio/video DirectShow exception list where you add falloutnv.exe (if you have ffdshow installed, typical for K-Lite or CCCP users).

Well the radio suddendly started to work just fine, thanks anyways.

There was a Windows Media Player patch pushed out a little while ago for certain OS versions- that probably reset some of your associations and codec related settings essentially performing some of the steps reccomended above automatically.

For me this was caused by a rogue codec. Over the course of time, the "person in hurry" way of solving codec problem is to install "yet-another-codec-pack". The lite version . It's a valid approach, but since there are more ignorant "experts" than you think, most of the codec packs contain obscure codecs that are considered "superior" over those "crappy default windows stuff". The problem is (or what I think the problem is), the game developers work with the "default crappy stuff". Since everyone has it ... overridden by another codec ... oops.

For me it caused the game to crash on alt-tab and when quitting it. Not speaking of the music not-playing on the radio.

I used two utilities and I won't provide a full step-by-step description, since if you don't like to use your brain, buy a console and don't buy bethesda/obsidian games (I'm not saying you're lame, I have a XBOX360 and it's great with reliable software, F:NV isn't that software).

This is not something I figured out, I read about it somewhere either in this forum or else. So I don't want to take any credit.

1. Utility: GSpot2

Load the fallout music file, in the bottom there's an area called: "Proposed codec solution and tests", hit the MS A/V button nr.1. That should give you a string saying which codec is used (a file). Now use the second utility.

2. Utility: Installed codecs (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/installed_codec.html) (if posting links is illegal, feel free to delete it, but give a thought to the following statement "is my action helpful, or am I a rule loving drone?")

Search for your file found by GSpot. If it shows something non-default (i.e. it doesn't look like MS stuff), disable it.

I had to do it twice (you disable one svcker and another takes over). Finally I was using something that wasn't on the list. Probably the generic stuff doesn't show up (?). Anyway, it was saying it belonged to DirectX and it works fine now.

Done on win 7.

(BTW, if someone tells you to reinstall your windows, just stop listening (or reading . There's no reason, unless it's a hardware failure or you ran out of disk space (bad planning on a system partition ), everything else can be solved by the UTFG method)

Software made by Arcsoft (like Media Impressions) usually contains codecs that may disrupt the sound in any game and particularly in Oblivion, Fallout3 and FalloutNewVegas.

The Arcsoft codec that causes the sound problem is the "asaudio.ax" file. You can search for it then rename it to something like "asaudio.ax.bak" then run the game and see if the sound plays. If that works then just leave the file renamed, another codec will be used instead.

The other option is to uninstall any Arcsoft software package that may have installed any codecs.

The InstalledCodec utility is an excellent way to disable (temporarily) any codec. If that fixes the sound problem just leave the codec(s) disabled.

Interestingly, FNV seems to tolerate the use of the ffdshow codecs. But, both Oblivion and Fallout3 should NOT use ffdshow.

I am using http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html in a Win 7 pro x64 installation. It is much less intrusive and safer to use than the K-Lite codec package.

About codecs in Win 7:
Associating MP3 files (and OGG files) with the Windows Media Player DOES NOT prevent another audio codec being used by a game. In Win 7 the Windows Media Player (32bit and 64bit) uses an embeded audio decoder codec that is separate from other installed codecs. WMP (in Win 7) will always use its embeded audio decoder no matter what other codec is available. Moreover, games (like FNV) CANNOT use the WMP embedded audio decoder codec if that game is designed to use DirectShow and its list of codecs. So... Associating MP3 file to the Windows Media Player WILL NOT fix a codec problem that a game may be having.

Radio won't work again. Does those codecs work with Vista 64bit?

This utility works pretty well. The issue isn't that you lack the codec but potentially that a 3rd party codec is interfering with the audio in the game.

I am made somewhat doubtful of this being the true source of your problems by the fact that your issue seems intermittent. Still it is possible if there was a relationship between what (if any) programs had been opened between a fresh reboot and the sound either playing or not playing. Some programs may reset the default codec for certain audio files (either to a working or non-working one) between the default upon booting.

Anyways- this utility should allow you to view and disable codecs on your system. If you want, you could post what codecs it lists and we may be able to provide guidance as to which if any could be causing your problems:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/installed_codec.html

On the Sharky's website there is a tab for Vista, click that tab to get to the Vista 32 and 64 bit codec packages.

I'm sure I would use Sharky's Vista codecs in preference to the K-Lite codecs.

Regarding disabling audio codecs:
Use the brute force method. Disable ALL the audio decoders except for a couple of them, you can look up what the stock decoders are for Windows. Run the game, if it works - hooray! Now re-enable codecs one by one until it breaks the sound, now you've found the codec that you need to eliminate.

this was the fix for me. verified by uninstalling Arcsoft TotalMedia

Thanks for the tips everyone.

I encountered the exact same problem when I used InstalledCodec to deactivate a load of stuff to improve my framerate. I fixed it by using GSpot to find out what codecs I needed to play the Fallout MP3 files. The only one I needed was...

MPEG-I Stream Splitter

Once I reactivated it my music worked fine.

:)

Dan

Arcsoft is the culprit!

After 100+ hours, my pipboy sound stopped working suddenly. I tried everything before I found this thread. I uninstalled and re-installed Fallout. I reinstalled all my drivers. I reassociated files with Media Player. I cleared the game cache through Steam. I increased the audiobuffer size. I turned off audiobuffering. I installed AC3Filter. I made sure my speakers were set to 2.1 sound. I checked and unchecked "speaker fill". I switched from using my onboard RealTek to using an addon Xi-fi titanium card. I installed Alchemy and added New Vegas to its exception list. I even installed Steam and the game onto a different hard drive.

Then I read this thread and remembered that the same day my sound stopped working, I'd loaded the Epson Scan software which includes Arcsoft MediaImpressions. Uninstalling that brought the audio back immediately.

Now I can actually get back to work on my New Vegas radio mod!

Just wanted to say thank you! This turned out to be my exact problem. Turns out I had installed another MP3 codec to fix Fallout 3's music from stuttering way back when...which apparently FNV had problems with now! Used InstalledCodec to disable it, and it's working great now. Thanks again.