Hi

I have installed on Windows 7 (x64) and It only plays Music. There is no Sound FX or Voice. Also the dialogs (from the subtitles) from NPC's are very fast, you cannot read them.
I am connected with Optical Output on 5.1 system. I have also tried to install the latest Drivers (anolog Devices Soundmax), and set the speakers to 2.1 but the results are the same.

Fallout Audio Controls do nothing. It doesnt matter if I lower the music or increase sound fx, it still plays the same.

DxDiag reports all good.

any help?
game is unplayable...

I just read a helpful post on how to fix this: try ctrl-alt-del, and on the task manager right click falloutnv and change the priority to 'high'. Worked for me! The only problem is that you have to do it every time you start the game...

I have exactly the same issue. And every time I try to change the priority I cannot get back into the game. The game doesn't crash, but alt-tabbing into it leads to nothing, it just doesn come back up again.

Great!

I have a Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, totally normal sound card and it should work perfectly, as with any other game.

The funny thing is: IT DID! This issue started when I was a few hours into the game. OMG! -.-

I have a similar issue and it started back in Fallout 3. Fallout 3 used to work fine: I could hear the NPCs talking, had music, sound effects, and could hear audio notes. Then one day I started it up and I could no longer hear NPCs or audio notes. I didn't change any settings, hardware, or even unplug and re-plugin in the speakers.

Now, with FO:NV I still can't hear NPCs or audio notes. Again, music and sound effects are fine. I have no idea how to fix this but I really wish I could.

Additional: I forgot, I also can't hear the DJ in NV (if there is one, I'm guessing there is), but I could hear the one in FO:3.

I FIXED IT.

Okay, one of these or all of these fixed my problem:


1.) I noticed that the game, while running, used the ffdshow audio decoder that got installed with the K-Lite codec pack some months ago. I remembered many people telling me that these audio codec packs usually cause more trouble than fixing problems.

So uninstalled it, used a registry cleaner afterwards and restarted my system.


2.) I did one very obvious thing: I used to play with STEAM in offline mode, so I connected to STEAM and let it install the latest patch. ^^


3.) I got into the menu for my audio configuration (tried both the windows options and the one that came with my Creative Labs sound driver) and noticed something odd: I did the standard test where Windows plays a sound for every speaker. I use a 5.1 audio system and my middle speaker - which is the important one when it comes to dialog in games - was much too quiet compared to the rest of the boxes.

I then entered the Creative Labs settings again and simply hit the "Reset to Standards" button. My audio crackled a bit as the driver was resetting and afterwards my middle speaker was fixed and equally noisy as all other speakers.

I think THIS is what finally fixed the problem. Somehow my audio driver got screwed up or misconfigured (although I didn't touch anything, so it could've been the codec package as assumed) and by resetting it to it's standards the problem fixed itself.


Since then I already restarted my PC two times, restarted the game, tried different audio modes (which are available with my X-Fi) and tried many savegames...and it's still fixed. Fixed for good it seems. I hope.

Thought I could share the infos I gathered with you and hope they might help.

I just remembered ffdshow a little while ago and was wondering if I could uninstall it and see if it would fix the problems. I don't even remember how it got installed. Although I do know that FO3 and FO:NV are both set to not use ffdshow. I'm going to try uninstalling it anyway and see if it helps me out.

Thanks for the info!

Don't forget to test your speaker setup via the Windows configuration. Maybe resetting your audio driver / configuration will solve the problem, too.

I may just buy a sound card. So far I've been using the one built on to the motherboard as it's adequate for me (I'm no audiophile). But getting drivers for it can be a hassle because I always forget what motherboard I have.

Good idea, but remember: It shouldn't be necessary. It should run as is...

People running under Vista or Win 7 with a Creative Labs card may also want to install Alchemy and add the Fallout directory to it. This solved a lot of audio issues for me without having to mess around with audio codec settings.

Thanks for the advise, totally forgot about Alchemy. I added Fallout NV just to be save, though I only have one other (older) game installed that needs to be added there.

Seems most games simply use DirecrSound3D these days. Or OpenAL. Or Rapture3D. EAX is getting oooold.

What is this FddShow and what are codecs?

Codecs...are some kind of driver used for video playback. As you may now (or not) there are different video formats, like mpeg, wmv, avi and so on. Each needs a specific codec to play. But while the three I mentioned are quite generic formats which are automatically supported by your normal Windows Media Player, there are also more exotic formats, like mkv, bnk or ac3. And then there are much, much more.

A codec pack installs codecs of all kinds to make sure you can play every possible format. Now while this can be helpful it can also be harmful. For instance when you don't know which one is the best to use or how to configure them.

This problem here is a perfect example: As MrEntropy said, Fallout 3 and Fallout NV are both set to NOT use the ffdshow audio codecs, yet the codec is used because I have installed it and set it as standard. Hence causing problems with Fallout NV.

So it's better to avoid these codec packs unless you're sure you really need them, or are an expert in configuring them. Most, if not all video and audio formats can be played via the Windows Media Player and the free VLC player, which uses it's own codecs without installing any of them. That's all you need!


PS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_codec

Salah-ad Din, you were totally right. I figured before I'd remove ffdshow I'd check the settings on the card. Turns out my center channel is so low it can barely be heard. Unfortunately, there's no way to adjust this (I don't get it, but there you go) so I had to switch to stereo instead of 5.1. But now I can hear everything again. Thanks!

Glad you got it working.

But have you tried to switch to stereo and back to 5.1, seeing if that fixes your center channel? There are other possibles ways to think of, like reinstalling your audio driver, or contacting the manufacturer of the soundcard (or mainboard if it's onboard) and ask for a solution.

I have this same issue on Windows 7 x64 with Realtek HD Audio chip and a Stereo speaker setup, any ideas on a workaround?

After I uninstalled my codec pack, then re-installed it the missing sounds came back but now whenever NPC dialogs or and sound effect other than background noise the game runs at less than half speed but that doesn't effect framerate, making the game completely unplayable.

If you can hear all the sounds again, make sure your game isn't set to high priorty, if you had tried that fix that is. This may lead to slow motion and such.

X-Fi Ti Pro PCI-X1 DTX Expansion on headphones... sounds awesome!

Nope, not set to High Priority. This is a ridiculous launch of what might still be a great game but when you release something that has bugs hidden behind other bugs on an engine this aged In think they really should have considered holding launch back as stuff like this is going to destroy the games reputation.

Setting the priority to above normal or high on my system definitely fixes the audio, but the CPU has put I/O at a lower priority, so if I want to move around the keys get stuck and I keep walking long after I took my finger off WASD. I realize I'm running older hardware, but I ran Fallout 3 fine on medium settings with my setup, as far as I can tell they haven't screwed with the engine too much.

Athlon 64 3400+
Radeon HD3850 AGP 8x
2gb DDR400
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP Pro SP3

Is it me, or is everyone with this audio problem using Creative soundcards?

Guess there is some point in the Dual Core requirement, have seen many single core users say that they have audio issues. Yeah, same here. I'm running Athlon 64 3400+

To clarify further, installing Alchemy AND AC3Filter solved all issues for me. If I had AC3Filter without Alchemy I often got stuttering but the two together work flawlessly.

No, I've got Realtek HD audio and I have the same issue, and setting priority hasn't solved the issue (neither has several other suggestions I've read on other posts).

Yes I believe you, I'm using Alchemy since you first suggested it and it works flawlessly.