[Kelly Osbourne Kelly]

I have Realtek HD too and find the voices are too quiet even at max.

[Jynx Anthropic]

I have to turn the volume up all the way on my Toshiba to get an average-level of volume, not to mention it's running through a Line 6 USB audio device as well. Just plugging headphones into the laptop wouldn't be loud enough at all - but then it seems like that's the case with most things.

[Nancy RIP]

You're lucky then. A lot of people have this problem...
What sound card do you have? I have Realtek HD

Maybe I'm lucky. I don't know...this is the first I have heard of this as an issue for anyone (though I'll admit I don't catch everything on the forums). Not saying it isn't, though, by any means.

I just use my on board (motherboard) sound. No dedicated sound card. Realtek drivers.

[Guinevere Wood]

I thought it was just me! lol... thanks for pointing this out. It's true. Like what the heck.

[Lady Shocka]

PC Player. Never experienced this problem. I did adjust the music volume in the in game audio setting because I wanted the music louder than default. No other volume issues since then...

Xbox player. Never experienced any sound related problems whatsoever.

[Louise Dennis]

The volume is extremely low. I have a nice receiver, so I can turn it up pretty loud. It's not a problem until I open a YouTube video or something and get blown out of my chair because my volume knob is at 60.

[Bethany Short]

The voices have always been quiet for me and no .ini tweaks have helped so far, music seems fine for me , it's mainly the dialogue voices

[Lew.p]

I had to tweak .ini and set it to read-only to get the sound to an acceptable level.
I don't think I'm deaf quite yet...or maybe everyone's just too polite to admit they're shouting at me

Spoiler

[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=2.4000
fVal7=1.0000
fVal6=1.0000
fVal5=1.0000
fVal4=1.0000
fVal3=0.3000
fVal2=0.2500
fVal1=1.0000
fVal0=0.8000

Nice tips. Thanks

[Big mike]

Xbox player. Never experienced any sound related problems whatsoever.

It seems this is mostly a PC player problem. Something definitely wrong here, because so many people are experiencing it.

[Phillip Brunyee]

If you've got a codec pack like ffdshow installed make sure to add an exception for TESV.exe.

[Nims]

Hmm that would svck. Check you ini files? Since 1.2 I've been able to use 192khz, 24 bit sound output and it sounds great!

[james tait]

Poll added. Let's see how many really got this problem.

Hmm that would svck. Check you ini files? Since 1.2 I've been able to use 192khz, 24 bit sound output and it sounds great!

This problem started on my very first game. Regenerating .ini doesn't help...

[Elizabeth Falvey]

I'm using a very basic 2.1 speakers on a Creative Labs X-Fi and sound is very low unless I turn SVM on. And even then, it's somewhat faint (compared to normal Windows system sounds) even after increasing master volume in INI file.

If I turn SVM off, everything is low, even the interface tones.

[Scarlet Devil]

same problem, Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro... the low sound makes the game almost unplayable for me.

EDIT:

SVM does help, but unfortunately it makes all sounds louder.. even the ones that shouldn't be, so there is almost a constant level of sound/noise

EDIT 2:

2.1 speakers, set up as 2.1 speakers connected via anolog out on soundcard

[WYatt REed]

Low volume for dialog.

[Jonathan Braz]

Hmm that would svck. Check you ini files? Since 1.2 I've been able to use 192khz, 24 bit sound output and it sounds great!

How do you know if the sound is set to "24-bit"?

[Naughty not Nice]

I have onboard sound, and I am using Corsair HS1 headphones.

The only issue I had was I was not able to change the volume in game. The headphnes have a volume control, and it was disabled in game. After reading some other posts I found I could change the volume if I brought up the Steam menu.

[LuCY sCoTT]

I always have to turn up the volume for Skyrim, and then remember to turn it back down before turning on internet radio.

[Kevan Olson]

I have Creative Xtreme Gamer and find the voices are too quiet even at max.

[Nany Smith]

Same issue for me.... the 1st telltale sign was at the main menu.. i could BARELY hear the opening theme... i thought that was just an aberration until i started playing the game and found out that i had to turn the volume to nearly (normally for other programs) ear deafening volumes....

Using an onboard audio card (IDT High Definition Audio codec or sumthing like that)

[Eliza Potter]

I have this problem, but 'fix' it by just having my speaker volume higher and keeping the software volume low for everything else.

[DarkGypsy]

My sound gets lower if there a conservation between more then one npc and me. Like the dialog between a jarl, his defend-operating guy and his general.

[Julia Schwalbe]

Me too.

Setting fAudioMasterVolume to a value higher than 1.0000 (I use 3.0000) in SkyrimPrefs.ini and flagging that file as read-only seems to have done the trick.

[An Lor]

Wow so almost 70% of the people have a low volume issue here? That's a lot. I hope Bethesda can fix this. It would be bad to have to do a volume changing routine for the next... year or so... we'll play Skyrim.

Me too.

Setting fAudioMasterVolume to a value higher than 1.0000 (I use 3.0000) in SkyrimPrefs.ini and flagging that file as read-only seems to have done the trick.

Just tried that... didn't work. Darn

[Hella Beast]

just started the game (didn't play in like 3 weeks)

the volume in a fight aswell as in dialogue is too low (this can be fixed by not targeting the npc with your crosshair) or not working at all

didn't had this at launch really weird.