Hi,
I have a bug report. I get the impression this may be a common bug from a couple of other posts. I'll try to give as much detail as I am able.
When first running the client (after updating) on creating my first character there is highly distorted sound or music. The distortion is constant and gravelly (I've as yet had no further sound problems, including during gameplay). In purely sound terms it's similar to the noise you would hear if listening to a welder. In electronic terms it's similar to the electronic interference an unshielded power tool may make on an AM broadcast. The problem has not recurred since, including when going back into the character creation.
In computing terms, and therefore more likely, it sounds like either (though I can't claim to be an expert):
1) A mismatch between two pieces of recording equipment in terms of impedence, or
2) (more likely) a mismatch either between the input of an analogue device (e.g., microphone) and digitiser; or digital source and analogue output (e.g., D to A converter in a sound card). The most typical cause of this sound I've come across in IT support and amateur music making is having the audio analogue input volume to high for the digitiser; though this (I think) is usually a problem only in 256 bit sampling with WAVs.
It sounds like an analogue-related problem as it is constant and distorting, rather than the clicks and whistles you tend to get with missing digital sound data.
The problem has not occurred again (yet, anyway). If you're using different sound files on first run to subsequent then it could be a corrupted sound file. Otherwise, I guess there could be something different about how the client is handling sound output on the first run?
My sound card may have a problem with output to speakers, but I was using headphones. I've used headphones the whole two years I've had the PC and never had any problems. When occurring. the problem persisted even when turning the (resistance) volume control down on the headphones, suggesting to my mind the source is sound card, D to A convertor, driver, client or sound file based. But as the problem is non recurrent I haven't been able to try another set of headphones.
My sound card is a Realtek AC'97 Audio, (PCI bus 0, device 4, function 0), running driver:-
Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Driver Date: 22/11/2005
Driver Version: 5.10.0.5970
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Pub.
No hardware conflicts are reported. If you need more info, I will need more specific data.
Generally, my PC is:-
A Targa Ultra AN64II 3700+ running Windows XP Media Center 2005 (SP2).
Ian
