Certain Sounds Bugged

[M0Rf34S]

*PROBLEM FIXED* It was Realtek's driver.

 

Hello, I have been playing Oblivion for 9 years now, on different machines and on different settings. As of 2015, about 3 weeks now that is, certain sounds in the game are non-existent: NPCs don't "talk" (the subtitles are there, they move their lips but no sound files play) when you go face-to-face with them but they talk normally when you approach them or exit the conversation. The sound of opening containers is also gone. There may be more sounds missing but those were the major ones I immediately noticed. Everything else, sound/generally wise seems normal. I did not change any of my settings, but I think my graphics card driver got updated sometime during this period (NVIDIA 670). All game settings seem to be fine. Loading different/much older saves doesn't fix the problem. I highly doubt any files have been messed with/gone missing or that any mods interfered with the game as it has been running perfectly smoothly for about 2 years now on this machine, on the same settings. I don't know much about sound so any help would be greatly appreciated. My audio is NVIDIA/Realtek according to the Device Manager (?).

Edited January 22, 2015 by M0Rf34S

[Striker879]

Do you have Windows set up to automatically update drivers? I've had occasions where that didn't go well (wasn't sound drivers in my case though).

[M0Rf34S]

The driver updates popped up on the Windows Optional Updates menu, and I ticked them for update, after checking it wasn't any junk updates (3D, silverlight stuff etc)

[Striker879]

Then I'd suggest trying to roll back the driver update and see if that fixes the problem. Either that or go to the Realtek site and manually download the correct driver from there and install that one.

 

In the case that I had the driver MS installed didn't work at all (was drivers for a front panel display I think). I imagine they just have an automated web crawler downloading the stuff from where ever and no actual quality control in the loop. I manually update drivers when I believe they're needed since then (and that was years ago).

[Morokura]

So except updating your drivers you didn't make any changes (new mods, mods updates, etc)? I had sort of similar problem. Weapon hit sounds and few other sounds didn't work. It was caused by new version of Oblivion Stutter Remover so I'm using v4.1 and everything works fine.

[M0Rf34S]

No, I changed absolutely nothing else other than the drivers. I'mma try tolling them back and post the results here, but I don't suspect that to be the problem. I don't use any "major" mods either, or mods that would mess with game settings. I'm not familiar with OSR, could you explain what it is and what happened in your case?

[Striker879]

I have a non-gaming laptop that uses Realtek audio. Here's the link to their HD Audio drivers page ( http://www.realtek.com.tw/Downloads/downloadsCheck.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false ). You'll need to tick Accept and then Next to bring you to the page with their latest drivers listed. Pick the server closet to your location next to the Windows version you are using. If you want to check out the details on which hardware a driver supports etc. you can download the Readme from the links (hard to spot in amongst all the Windows versions).

 

Used to be that you had to uninstall the old driver before installing the new but they changed that a while back and now the installer for the new driver takes care of the uninstall of the old.

[Morokura]

OSR makes Oblivion not stutter as much, and generally feel smoother, prevents issues related to stuttering and framedrops and can reduce the frequency of stutter related crashes. My problem with the latest version was, that some sounds were missing or extremely quiet like hitting something with weapon or spell. Other than that I didn't have any problems.

 

I'm convinced that in your case it's driver update related. It couldn't break itself somehow and only change you did was updating drivers. You can also try to delete your Oblivion.ini file (backup the old one first!) and start a new game.

 

I'm interested to see the results.

[M0Rf34S]

Fixed, thanks everyone for the help.

 

So here's what I get (not much):

 

I updated my NVIDIA driver and my headset driver (basically nothing) along with a bunch of Windows updates that day.

 

Windows updates are ruled out, and the headset update couldn't have done anything as the problem persisted through speakers, monitor sound and the like.

 

Made one last check in starting a new game/disabling all mods in case anything was corrupted/malfunctioning. Nah.

 

Then I rolled back my NVIDIA GTX 670 driver to October. Nothing

 

Rolled it back to July. Still nothing.

 

Rolled each on a clean installation. STILL nothing.

 

Rolled everything I had without GeForce or NVIDIA's Audio stuff. You know the drill.

 

I really didn't feel like removing the .ini file or reinstalling Obli, saves, and all that sh*t, so I followed Striker's lead and reinstalled Realtek's audio software (your link above is bad btw) and after a few restarts my sounds are fixed.

 

Now the question is, how on earth did that happen? I didn't touch my Realtek stuff and it hasn't updated in ages. Every other sound is fine. It wasn't in any recent Microsoft Update history either.

 

Again, thanks everyone. Problem solved, thread locked.

[Morokura]

Quite a few people had problems with Realtek on-board sound cards when playing Oblivion. Like stuttering, fps drops and sound issues. Anyway good to hear that you fixed it, enjoy.