Bethesda Games and Asus pci-e sound card

[floppybootstomp]

In my main machine I use an Asus Xonar DX2 pci-e sound card and imo it's the best sounding card I've ever heard and used, it's brought most of my games alive, particularly the Call Of Duty series online.

Some of you may recall I had problems with it when it came to the two latest titles from Bethesda Games, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3. Basically, they just crashed after about ten minutes play.

This problem was widely acknowledged and discussed in many Forums and proved to be a disappointment with an otherwise excellent sound card.

The good news is that the last driver from Asus for this sound card appears to have resolved the problem.

I installed the driver and this evening re- installed Fallout 3 and applied the two patches up to V1.1.0.35.

I had left Oblivion installed.

I set Fallout 3 to all the graphic options maxed out (on the system shown in my signature) and have just played to about half-way through Level Three (Megaton City) with no problems whatsoever. The game runs fluid, looks gorgeous and this time I decided to play not only as a girl but a thoroughly nasty character as well.

I have the game installed on my AMD machine where I've been playing as a male and Mr Nice Guy (I swear I'm doing better as a horrible git, lol).

Then I played about half hour of Oblivion, side-quests as I've finished the main game, and again no problems.

I'm really rather pleased about this but it did take Asus almost a year to sort the problem out.

I must stress this sound card has had no problems with any other games or applications, just those two Bethesda titles.

So, if you'd been considering the Asus Xonar DX2 pci-e card, maybe this information is helpful to you.

I paid about £110.00 for my Asus card, it now only costs about £80.00 which is the same price as some of the higher end Creative cards. In my opinion a far superior alternative to the Creative cards now this problem has been sorted.

 

[TriplexDread]

What speakers are you using mate?

 

[floppybootstomp]

What speakers are you using mate?

Speakers that were only produced for a short time and are no longer manufactured, they're about 5 years old now.

Hercules XPS 5.100 Series, a 5.1 setup.

On a Soundblaster Audigy 2 they sounded lacklustre, on a Creative X-Fi Audio they sounded good and on this Asus card they sound quite incredible.

Which leads me to believe I may be better off upgrading to something better, top-end Logi's for instance.

On this Hercules setup the rear speakers are on floor stands seated at ear height, just to the rear of my ears.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I spoke too soon - ten minutes into play this evening Fallout 3 crashed again

Apart from this glitch I still like this Asus Sound Card but what do I do?

Sell it and buy something else?

I paid £110.00 for it, it now sells for £80.00 which means I'd only get about £40.00 for it.

Or do I just get resigned to the fact I'll just play it on my AMD machine (Creative X-Fi Audio and Win XP)?

I definitely don't want to buy a Creative card (moral and ethical reasons which I won't list here right now) so that leaves just the Auzentech range for gaming as far as I know.

Bloody frustrating

 

[Alf]

Its a shame that your drivers are causing the problem, or so it seems.

For a speaker recommendation, I suggest taking a look at Logitech Z-5500 speakers. They quite a bit of 'oomph' too them and they have been well received even 3 years later. I have a set an I don't even have to set them at half volume - they do get rather loud!

 

[Ian]

Does your motherboard have onboard sound Flops? If so, could you temporarily use that when you play Fallout 3 - as it seems a shame to have to spend so much money just to play a few games when it works so well for most.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Does your motherboard have onboard sound Flops? If so, could you temporarily use that when you play Fallout 3 - as it seems a shame to have to spend so much money just to play a few games when it works so well for most.

That's an idea isn't it?

I'm wondering though if I load the sound drivers and enable the sound in the BIOS will the Asus card automatically mute?

 

[floppybootstomp]

I've just searched the Asus site and there are no new driver updates for the card.

I also joined the Asus forum and posted this:

Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion both play for 10 to 30 minutes then the computer freezes with the sound card permanently oscillating. Call Of Juarez with the DX10 patch just won't run at all, it just crashes on opening.

Using the Xonar D2X pci-e soundcard with latest drivers 6.12.8.1765 from March 09 and the patch V1.0 from 16-06-09.

Brief system specs: Asus P5B Deluxe Motherboard Bios V1101 (Last non-beta version); BFG 9800GTX 512Mb video card; Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 CPU 2.4Ghz not overclocked; 4Gb Corsair DDR2 8400 Memory; Vista 32 Bit SP1.

The card works fine with these games, amongst others: Bioshock; Call Of Duty 4; Call Of Duty WAW; Orange Box (Half Life 2 series); Halo 2; Left For Dead Painkiller; GRID; GTR Evolution; Microsoft Flight Simulator X; Far Cry 2; Grand Theft Auto IV.

So it seems Asus have got it almost right but almost right isn't good enough is it?

The card, incidentally, sounds great (when it works) I'm using a 5.1 speaker system.

Is there any chance that Asus might pull their finger out and design a driver that allows me to play the two Bethesda game titles and Call of Juarez or do I bung the D2X on E-Bay and go back to a Creative X-Fi or an Auzentech card because this state of affairs is extremely frustrating.

Or does anybody here have any suggestions to make this card work properly? Would be extremely grateful for any suggestions. I have had a brief look round the forum and disabling GX made no difference to the problem.

There are lots of instances with people suffering the same problems as me and worse but nobody else seems to have mentioned Call Of Juarez.

I downloaded the latest sound drivers for Vista 32 Bit for my motherboard, unzipped them and I have a ROM file

What do I do with that then? Maybe Asus are assuming I already have onboard sound drivers installed and the ROM is an update to be applied within Device manager? Confusing.

Maybe I should just apply the drivers from the Mother board CD from November 2006 but I'm wondering whether they will work in Vista or not.

I also figured that if I use onboard sound I have to swap over the three 3.5mm jack plugs each time I want to play Fallout 3. Not really ideal

I'm loathe to use a Creative card, I just don't like Creative for various reasons and even the good Auzentech cards use an X-Fi chipset.

Hmm. Thinking, considering, wondering.

 

[Ian]

That's an idea isn't it?

I'm wondering though if I load the sound drivers and enable the sound in the BIOS will the Asus card automatically mute?

I don't think it would auto mute, but you could create a clever batch file that enables your onboard sound card in device manager and disables the other when you load a game. Bit of a pain to do, but would be a good stop-gap solution

 

[floppybootstomp]

Funny you should mention a batch file, I went to make one the other day to play Quake in Win98 then realised I'd forgotten how to write one

I have some notes somewhere, in this notebook I made years ago, about DOS, including how to write a Batch file but can't find the damn thing...

Quake wasn't a problem actually, I just created a shortcut to the Quake .exe file and stuck it on the desktop.

I am going to find that notebook though

I actually just played another hour or so of Fallout 3, just visited the Super Duper Mart and am now on my way to find the Radio Station. But it crashed.

I think playing an hour or so, saving often, is probably preferable to constantly swapping out 3 jack plugs and enabling onboard sound.

Seriously leaning towards an Auzentech card though or I may even knuckle under and buy a Creative card

Hell, if it works, anything for an easy life...

Or I could even put my Creative X-Fi Audio card back but the Asus sounds so much better.

 

[Ian]

Fallout 3 is such a good game, so it's worth playing it somehow - you'll get hours of fun from it

 

[captain zed]

Did you ever try contacting bethesda games to see if they might help you out somehow.
Are you sure its crashing because of the card?? I have had fallout 3 crash on my 360.
Hope you get it sorted out cos its a pain having games you love but can't play.

Zzzzz

 

[Alf]

I have a Creative card, no problems in either game... Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride Flops. But before that, i suggest you keep looking for a solution.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ian, I've mentioned it before but the game is installed and playable on my AMD machine so it's not the end of the world.

Playing on normal difficulty - which I thought was very hard actually - I played from exiting Vault 101 to just before finding the DJ at the radio station. I started playing 2pm one Sunday afternoon and finished at 8pm for that session

After re-installing it on my Intel machine (sig spec) I set it to very easy and it's amazing how much quicker I'm flying through the game. I think I'll play it through on very easy for now and also play it on normal on the AMD machine.

I'll just have to put up with it crashing occasionally, it usually lasts between 30 and 70 minutes before crashing.

zed, it definitely is the sound card as it's widely reported on the web and also I had no problems with Oblivion using a Creative X-Fi Audio card.

Alf: You're right, a new sound card I think but it's not a priority right now.

 

[V_R]

FWIW Flops, i've been using my Creative Xtreme Music soundcard for nearly two years and its been faultless the whole time, and tbh that has even suppried me!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well this is interesting. I just swapped the Asus Xonar and Creative X-Fi Audio over and so was using the X-Fi with Vista/Fallout 3/Oblivion.

I uninstalled all Asus Xonar applications from Control panel and also done a registry search for Asus Xonar and deleted about 30 entries.

Installed the modded Creative X-Fi Audio driver I was using previously and the Creative Console and all was working well within Vista.

But the X-Fi doesn't sound as good as the Xonar, it really is quite noticeable.

Ran Fallout 3 for ten minutes and it crashed.

I'm thinking now either there's still some debris left from the Asus Xonar installation affecting Fallout 3 or that it isn't actually the Xonar Sound Card at all but Fallout 3 clashing with my installation of Vista.

The fact I can't install Vista SP2 is also a pointer, perhaps, that something is wrong.

So what to do?

I'm considering a fresh install of Vista then hopefully being able to install SP2.

Whether the Asus Xonar Sound Card/Fallout 3/Oblivion/Call Of Juarez will all work together, I don't know.

It's still about 3 months to Win 7 Install so probably worth re-installing Vista.

Just had a thought - the Asus card is in my AMD machine atm which has a swappable copy of Win 7 in it.

Hmm, let's see if the Asus Sound Card will install in Win 7 then install Fallout 3 there.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I installed the Asus Sound Card in Win 7, there's a Beta Driver supplied for Win 7 64 Bit by Asus and it works well.

I then installed Fallout 3 and the first two patches, loaded my save Games from the Vista machine and it has worked well for an hour. This is far longer than Fallout 3 has ever run in Vista before crashing. So I will say hesitantly Fallout 3 is working with the Asus Xonar DX2 Soundcard within Win 7.

My Vista install is the longest running install of any MS OS ever - has now been running since January 2008 - and I'm starting to suspect it may be corrupted.

So I'm wondering what to do here.

Come October I'm going to have to do a fresh install anyway when Win 7 is released officially so what do I do? Reinstall Vista for three months or install the evaluation copy of Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit?

As it's only 3 months to official Win 7 release (If we can believe Microsoft) then I'm tempted to use Win 7 until then so I can see what games work with it and also I'll get used to it.

I can also then put my copy of Vista onto my media machine where I'll apreciate the Windows Media Centre and as it's only a media machine I can comfortably tolerate Vista's slowness is a few areas.

But it does mean I'll be using a beta OS on my main machine for at least 3 months. Decisions, decisions.

I wish they'd release Win 7 now, lol

I do have a few problem areas with Win 7:

SuperAntiSpyware won't update, it says a user with admin privileges needs to do the update. But I'm the only user - no password - and I have admin privileges

When Fallout 3 installed it wasn't in the Games or Start menu, I have temporarily pinned it to the start menu.

Is there a quick launch facility in Win 7 cos I can't find one.

And I can't set up a network. My network just shows as 'Internet Access' and that's it it. Three machines, 2 hardwired, one wireless, I can't figure out how ro set it up.

Other than those quirks though, Win 7 - compared to Vista - is well oiled.

 

[Madxgraphics]

I do have a few problem areas with Win 7:

SuperAntiSpyware

And I can't set up a network. My network just shows as 'Internet Access' and that's it it. Three machines, 2 hardwired, one wireless, I can't figure out how ro set it up.

Other than those quirks though, Win 7 - compared to Vista - is well oiled.

I can't even get Super to work. I installed it and that is it, Clicked on the Desktop icon to launch it and it just crashed the computer..BSOD. Deleted it, ran Ccleaner to make sure everything was gone, looked through program files and deleted any remainding evidence. Re-installed and it just BSOD'd on me again. So not going to bother anymore until W7 release in October and see if it works then.
I am in the same boat as far as you on setting up a network. So for now until I figure it out I just have my machines all hardwired to my BT router....

And yeah it is very well oiled compared to Vista, and *ecking quick ...

 

[Ian]

Are you dual booting with Windows 7 at the moment? If so you could just run them both for the next few months and get the best of both worlds

I got SuperAntiSpyware running ok by running it in Vista compatibility mode and selecting "run this program as administrator".

There's not the normal quick launch in Windows 7 (I think anyway), but you can pin items to the taskbar and it does a similar job.

 

[floppybootstomp]

No. not dual booting with Win 7, it has a hard disk all to itself (swappable caddy).

But there has been another interesting development.

The Asus sound card and creative sound card are now back in their original machines which means the Asus Xonar is running with the spec in my sig.

I switched Fallout 3 on at 9.30am this morning leaving it on and have been playing with it on and off ever since (it's now 14:15).

And it hasn't crashed

What I done in summary was:

Removed the Asus sound card.

Completely removed all traces of the Asus drivers and software I could find including around 20 registry entries.

(In between I installed a Creative X-Fi Audio then uninstalled it but I'm fairly sure that's not relevant).

Re-installed the Asus Sound card and only installed the latest Asus Sound card Drivers and the small patch that went with them.

Previously I had installed three former sets of drivers.

Not quite sure what I've done right but I'd hazard a guess it was removing all traces of former drivers, I reckon they could have been clashing with one aspect of Vista.

So I'm staying with Vista until Win 7 now, all seems good too many bugs/things not working properly within Win 7 at the moment. PS/Edit: have just noticed comments/fixes in Ian's post, I will try those.