[SOLVED] No sound after switching to external USB DAC

[entity279]

Hi dear Factorio ppl !


Getting the couldn't "initialize audio, audio disabled " message whenever I launch Factorio.

I'm using a Chord Hugo2 on USB output.

Sound used to work before, with PCI-E soundcard.

How can I approach to fix this? Other games' sound does work. Except to be fair Path of Exile, where I do get the same behaviour (thogh factorio is much more important, obviously )


Relevant logs sections :

0.189 DirectSoundCreate8 failed

0.189 No audio driver can be used. (error code: 1)

0.189 Warning GlobalContext.cpp:937: Installing audio failed retrying...
0.690 DirectSoundCreate8 failed

0.690 No audio driver can be used. (error code: 1)

0.690 Warning GlobalContext.cpp:937: Installing audio failed retrying...
1.192 DirectSoundCreate8 failed

1.192 No audio driver can be used. (error code: 1)

1.192 Warning GlobalContext.cpp:937: Installing audio failed retrying...
1.693 DirectSoundCreate8 failed

1.693 No audio driver can be used. (error code: 1)

1.693 Warning GlobalContext.cpp:937: Installing audio failed retrying...
2.195 DirectSoundCreate8 failed

2.195 No audio driver can be used. (error code: 1)

Seems i need to be looking for ways to test/fix Direct Sound

[entity279]

DxDiag output:

dxdiag1.jpg (67.18 KiB) Viewed 2409 times

dxdiag2.jpg (40.41 KiB) Viewed 2409 times

[CDarklock]

This actually looks like a driver issue. Some OEMs have crap drivers that don't respond properly to advanced DirectX calls, so while they work just fine in basic operation, more complex applications - most notoriously DAW packages - will be unable to initialise them. Not sure whether Factorio could do a fallback to a more-basic init if standard init fails, but that's the usual resolution on the ISV side.

[entity279]

This actually looks like a driver issue. Some OEMs have crap drivers that don't respond properly to advanced DirectX calls, so while they work just fine in basic operation, more complex applications - most notoriously DAW packages - will be unable to initialise them.

Oh, in my (possibly limited) view, a sound card just takes a PCM stream in. And the Windows mixer provides said stream. There shouldn't be much vendor specific stuff in the way.

In my case, The Hugo 2 being above and beyond a high end device (although of course it's not tailored to gaming), I'd hope it can at least be fed audio data

[entity279]

Okay, now I figured it out based on my previous line of reasoning.

It's prolly the fault of whoever is querying the soundcard capabilities.

I've been setting the DAC to 32bit/384 Khz in windows. Somebody just crashes in disbelief when seeing such high numbers.

When setting the DAC to pedestrian 16bit/44.1 Khz , all is well. Factorio has sound again.
I'd file a ticket since maybe a fix can be implemented in Factorio for this. How to do this?

[CDarklock]

I'd file a ticket since maybe a fix can be implemented in Factorio for this. How to do this?

Bug reports, Factorio 0.17 won't output sound to your 32bit 384k pro DAC.

I suspect it will be "won't fix" but hey, who knows. It might just be a matter of "Really? People are trying to do that?" and a couple lines in the init code.

[entity279]

The DAC does even 768 Khz, it's just Windows which can't set it that high . (I do set music player programs to exclusive mode so they'll play @ whetever sample rate the actual audio file is at.)

Ridiculous marketing specs asside, Factorio plays and should play sound at whatever bit rate and sample rate it's designed to (so 16/44.1 prolly). Since it doesn't adjust sample rate, it shouldn't care at all what the soundcard is set at.
It's the Windows mixer's job to detect the missmatch and do the upsampling.

That's why I see this as a bug in Factorio or whatever sound library is in use

LE: right, found the support email address