Choppy Sound in FSX & Win7 x64

[AzJazz]

I am running FSX Deluxe + Acceleration in Windows 7 (x64).

I have a decent system:

- Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe V2 (With Analog Device SoundMAX 2000 HD Audio)
- CPU: Intel 920 Core i7 Quad CPU
- GPU: nVidia GTX 285 (single)
- Memory: 6 GB 1600 DRAM

I have the latest hardware drivers for everything on my system.

When running FSX, I experience choppy sound: The sound jumps ahead by a half-second or so randomly, a few times a minute.

I have my frame rates fixed at a target of 30 FPS, which FSX seems to be able to maintain through most of the flight.

Can anybody help?

Cheers!

AzJazz

[WallysWorld]

Try turning down the hardware acceleration of your sound card to see if that helps.

[AzJazz]

Thanks, WW - I tried to do your suggestion, but I couldn't find a way to turn down hardware acceleration in Win7. From what I read, there isn't a way to do that.

On the plus side, the problem seems to be fixed. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what fixed it. One of the following issues was the cause, however:

• I previously installed FSX on a RAID 5 drive. When I reinstalled FSX on a RAID 0 drive, the sound problem went away.

On RAID5 small file writes are slower than a standard drive, but file reading is much faster.
On RAID0, all data reads/writes are faster.

I'm not sure why this would have any effect on the sound. I was hoping that the improved data read rates would help my FPS rate (and it appears to have done so on the RAID 0 drive).

• Another possibility is that I had issues uninstalling FSX just prior to the previous (bad sound) installation. The latest (good sound) installation was after a clean uninstall of FSX.

• Finally, my previous installation of FSX was installed when the stock Win7 x64 audio drivers were installed, and I installed the SoundMAX updated drivers after FSX (with no noticeable difference in the audio problem). With the current FSX (good sound) installation, the SoundMAX drivers were installed prior to installing FSX.

AzJazz