Slow audio output system-wide (Solved)

[dragoonadept]

I'm getting slowed down audio output, and it's noisy. Really terrible quality. I've done the Preferences -> Audio -> Win32 WaveOut thing, that works. VLC plays fine now. Only, nothing else does. What is the cause of this problem? Is it codecs? Uninstalling or installing new codecs does nothing.. It worked fine yesterday and I hadn't messed with anything at all..

OS: XPSP2
Version of VLC: Recent
RAM: 2048 Dual-Channel (DDR400) 184-pin
HDD: 50+ GB Free
CPU: AMD X2 4400+ (2.2~)

EDIT: Before someone jumps in and says "check for updates!", let me say this:
I know quite a lot about computers in general. All of my drivers are completely up-to-date with everything. I've got the newest Forceware for my 8800.


What I did to solve my problem:
Exploring my sounds and audio devices, I stumbled onto the fact that my Raeltek AC97 reverted to 7.1 surround sound! Modifying this back to Desktop Stereo speakers seems to have fixed the problem! (I also reset my default Windows sound scheme, I am unaware of which of these solved my problem. Perheps it was both?)

Update: While listening to a song, I changed the speaker setup to and from different surround configurations and back to Stereo speakers, it is this option that caused my slowdown. Hope this helps someone!

[DJ]

What do you mean by:

nothing else does.

If VLC works, what's the problem?

BTW VLC is not a Direct Show Player.

[dragoonadept]

I mean, audio in other players plays slowed down. WMP and all the other popular ones. VLC did it prior to my changing the audio settings to use the WaveOut option.

If VLC works, what's the problem?

VLC plays nearly everything, but there are some things that WMP plays better. Plus, I don't often use VLC to play my music in.

EDIT:
Also, when using the Voice test in Battlefield 2142, my voice playback is slowed down and has the same qualities of my audio. Not only my voice, but everything someone says; Even the walkthrough voice is slowed down! When somone yells "Enemy spotted", it too has the same slowed down qualities. Safe to say this is affecting all my games and more!

Anyone know anything?

[DJ]

What you did in VLC was to use the older method for addressing the audio card or if you will, shut down DirectX of which most other players use.

Try updating your audio drivers. Of coarse updating DirectX runtime wouldn't hurt.

[dragoonadept]

I changed the title and added a lot of information to the OP.

..I also stated that my drivers were, in their entirety, fully up to date. Taking in the knowledge that I play games (such as BF2142, for example in my last post) one can assume I have the most recent DirectX runtime files. (Which happens to be 9.0c, and it is currently installed and working properly.)

I think you were just throwing stuff out there without fully understanding my problem (Or reading everything I typed..)

I know you're trying to help, but you really should pay closer attention to what is said. I specifically stated that all my drivers were completely up-to-date in my OP (opening post).

Thanks, though. It's solved.
(Renamed the topic a few hours ago..)

[DJ]

I read almost every post here daily. As we are short handed it is amazing you get answers at all. We are doing the best we can!

Doing updates for DirectX the version never changes from 9c, however the last one was in Feb. I think! These are NOT automatic and Microsoft does updates every few months. Just because you play games doesn't guarantee you are up to date. In fact some games store info in the registry for video and gives problems for other programs. This makes it necessary to go back to the defaults for the video card to get rid of the issues they created.