At 01:32 AM 6/30/2002, David A. Abbe wrote:
>Hello Gang,
>Long post so please bear with me:
>I have sitting here in front of me:
>
>Mainboard:  Epox EP-MVP3G2
>CPU:  AMD K6-2 500MHz
>RAM:  256MB
>OS: was Windows Me, now Windows 98SE clean install.
>Video:  TnT2 AGP
>Audio:  was Crystal Labs, now Creative Labs PCI 128 (CT-4750)
>CD-ROM:  Asus
>------------------
>
>This system came in for more RAM and a new CD-Rom drive as the other one
>would drop discs and or not read.  They are also complaining about the
>sound in some of their games.
>
>These games used to work perfectly.  They are all by the same company,
>Ratbag, and include Dirt Track Racing, Dirt Track Racing Sprint Cars, and
>LeadFoot.
>
>Music cd's play fine.  Windows internal sounds are fine.  The introductions
>to the Ratbag games even sound fine.  Other games work fine.  After the
>intro on the Ratbag games, there is such static and some kind of a beeping
>noise all in addition to the engine, announcer, and crowd noises making it
>almost impossible to differentiate between the mix.
>
>I installed all patches, updated and down-dated all drivers, changed
>soundcards, just for kicks tried a different HDD with a clean install of
>Windows 98SE, re-set the BIOS, did a full virus scan.  The owners also
>complained that the music would sometimes quit although I can't re-create
>that one.  Mainly it is with the racing games.  The sound is so
>horrible.  The sound is sort of ratchety, which also seems to make the
>video stutter.  The performance is off during the games. I played these
>games on this system a couple of years ago and I know they were fine then,
>the owners can't really remember when this happened.

I have seen this one many times and it is always an IRQ issue.

Games are typically the worst written software applications.  They
work best when they get a sound IRQ they expect, such as IRQ5
or 7.  We know that Windows loves to be creative with PCI sound
card IRQs and often moves it to IRQ9 or another one.  You may
need to disable PCI IRQ Steering in order to move the IRQ for
a SB128 card back to IRQ5...   but, I am willing to bet that it
will solve all the problems.

     Bob Wright
The NoSpin Group
http://freepctech.com


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