Audio Dropouts with External Sound Device

[El_Leon]

<p>Hey everyone,</p><p>I am experiencing audio dropouts when I am using an external audio interface, while playing Everquest II.</p><p>I am using a laptop with an Intel 965 express chipset graphics card and a Presonus Firestudio Project audio interface.  I also use the audio interface for music production, and I have it connected to two powered studio monitors.</p><p>Someone told me it could possibly be a graphics card conflict of some sort.</p><p>Can anyone help?</p><p>Thanks,</p><p>Ryan</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p>Greetings,</p><p>Is your game working well with that graphics card?  I believe that is actually at or below the minimum requirements and that could be part of the problem.</p><p>What driver versions are you using for your graphics/sound chips?  If you haven't already, please go to the laptop manufacturer's website and download the latest driver releases.  They may fix the issue in this case.</p>

[El_Leon]

<p>Yes it isn't the best graphics card...but the game, graphically, is fine by my standards.  It works well with the built-in sound card...and other similar mmorpgs play better, soundwise.</p><p>Thank you for your support.  My next step is to make sure all my drivers are up to date, for both my computer and the audio device.  It's kind of a pain in the (you know what) because my computer provider hasn't provided an update since early '08...but I managed to somehow install on from Intel.</p><p>Thanks again, I'll keep you updated!</p><p>Anyone else have any advice?</p><p>Thanks,</p><p>Ryan</p>

[BDoodle]

<p>Chipset graphics info can be found here: <a href="http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma3000/gma3000.pdf">http://www.intel.com/products/chips...000/gma3000.pdf</a></p><p>It's the equivalent of a 256MB graphics card, but uses system resources for graphics memory. As a result, most would expect to see a lose of overall system performance. But as EQ2 is so heavily dependant on Direct3D and software rendering, it would be interesting to see the results. (This is off topic, but I would be very interested to know what settings you run the game at, and if the Multicore setting gives your system a perfomance boost.)</p><p>And drivers for it are available here: <a href="http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-022768.htm">http://www.intel.com/support/chipse...b/CS-022768.htm</a></p><p>This particular chipset has seen some issues with DirectX9. It would be worth while making sure your DirectX details are up to date.</p><p>DirectX download can be found here: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en">http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en</a></p><p>I used to run an external sound card, until one hot summer it started playing up and eventually died. The issue, in my case was overheating in the sound unit, (as testified to by the burn mark on my desk!)</p><p>Make sure your sound device has plenty of vetilation and if it's too hot to touch, (in fact well before it gets that hot,) give it a rest and let it cool down by itself. (Cooling it by placing in front of an air-conditioning unit is bad. It can have similar results as putting hot glass under cold water.)</p><p>Unfortunately, once a sound device starts to have problems that are caused by heat, the device continues to degrade to the point where it can be unusable.</p><p>I hope for your sake that it is not a heat issue,</p><p>Good luck,</p><p>BD</p>