[Kathyf]

I have an older computer.. AMD Athlon XP1800+ running Windows 2000. I have a game cd for my grandson and when I try to play it on this computer I get an error message about sound card not compatible or something. I've used the directx diganostic and it says my sound card does not support hardware buffering. Do i need an new sound card or just an updated sound card driver? How do I know which driver I need to get and where do I get my sound card information? In device manager I found VIA AC97 enhanced audio and something about Legacy sound drivers... I don't know which is for the sound card. Please advise.

THANKS
Kathy

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Hi Kathyf, I suggest you download Everest Home edition and run it. It should give you information on your sound device, whether it's onboard audio or a discrete card. Try running a report and select "system summary only", then post the top-half of the report into your next reply.

Cheers

[Troy]

Hi Kathyf, I suggest you download Everest Home edition and run it. It should give you information on your sound device, whether it's onboard audio or a discrete card. Try running a report and select "system summary only", then post the top-half of the report into your next reply.

Cheers

[Kathyf]

THANKS A BUNCH... I'll do this when I get home this afternoon. YOU GUYS ROCK!

[Troy]

[Kathyf]

I hope this is the top half of report you wanted to see.... THANKS again for your help


Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 4
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name KATHY-87KGFDBWY
User Name Administrator

Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1466 MHz (11 x 133) 1700+
Motherboard Name ECS K7VMM (2 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8375 ProSavageDDR KM266
System Memory 256 MB (PC133 SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI (05/23/02)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter Diamond S120 256MB DDR Radeon 9550 (256 MB)
Video Adapter Diamond S120 256MB DDR Radeon 9550 (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon 9550 (RV350)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (16301)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller

Storage:
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD400BB-00CJA1 (37 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive LITEON CD-ROM LTN526 (52x CD-ROM)
Optical Drive LITE-ON LTR-40125S (40x/12x/48x CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 38154 MB (3602 MB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

Network:
Network Adapter Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter (192.168.1.101)
Network Adapter VIA PCI 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet Adapter

Peripherals:
Printer Adobe PDF
Printer Fax
Printer HP Deskjet F300 series
Printer HP PSC 500
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB Device Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 9% on drive C:.

[Troy]

Motherboard Name ECS K7VMM

That's your motherboard, and it looks like you have onboard audio only. The latest drivers are version 3.50b according to this page, download them from there and see if it helps. If not, then you'll have to upgrade your sound card to help.

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 9% on drive C:.

I'm also a bit worried about this, perhaps you can clean a few things up (delete un-necessary files), run CCleaner to delete temporary files and JkDefrag to defragment your hard drive. You can download them from my signature, but I'm not exactly sure if they work with Windows 2000.

[Kathyf]

We installed new sound card and I cleaned up hard drive and did defrag... this is the current report from Everest


Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 4
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name KATHY-87KGFDBWY
User Name Administrator

Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1466 MHz (11 x 133) 1700+
Motherboard Name ECS K7VMM (2 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8375 ProSavageDDR KM266
System Memory 256 MB (PC133 SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI (05/23/02)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter Diamond S120 256MB DDR Radeon 9550 (256 MB)
Video Adapter Diamond S120 256MB DDR Radeon 9550 (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon 9550 (RV350)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (16301)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter C-Media CMI8738/C3DX Audio Device

Storage:
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD400BB-00CJA1 (37 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive LITEON CD-ROM LTN526 (52x CD-ROM)
Optical Drive LITE-ON LTR-40125S (40x/12x/48x CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 38154 MB (15150 MB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse PS/2 Compatible Mouse

Network:
Network Adapter Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter (192.168.1.101)
Network Adapter VIA PCI 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet Adapter

Peripherals:
Printer Adobe PDF
Printer Fax
Printer HP Deskjet F300 series
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB1 Controller VIA VT83C572 PCI-USB Controller
USB Device Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter

[Troy]

So everything's working fine, then?

[Kathyf]

No actually I still can't get the game 'deer hunter' to work on this computer. I get the error message 'sound installation failed' any ideas what can be the problem? I have no trouble on our other computer running this game.

[Troy]

Have you installed the software from the cd that came with the new sound card?

Can you please post the make/model of the new sound card, it should be on the box it came in.

[Kathyf]

yes we used the cd that came with sound card. diamond xtreme sound 5.1. 5.1/16 bit sound card

[Troy]

http://www.dmmdownload.com/current.php

If you go to this link and click on the "Sound Cards" tab, is your driver that version? (1-1)

If it is, then my guess is the sound card (which was a cheapie, right?) is not capable of providing enough resources for the game.

EDIT: Or it could be your DirectX Installation, you can check if it needs updating from here.

Edited by FPVDriF6, 12 September 2007 - 04:26 AM.

[Kathyf]

I updated the sound driver tho I think I had the latest ... directx was the latest and i still get error message. when I click ok on the error message I get a dialog box that has the following in it.

the instruction at "0x00419194" referenced memory at "0x00000038". the memory could not 'read'.
click ok to terminated
click cancel to debug

what does that mean?

[Troy]

Are you having any other problems/errors with this computer?
Have you ever been able to play this game on this computer?

I used to have errors like this all the time. Eventually I stumbled across memtest86, it tested my RAM (computer memory modules) and they were faulty. Give it a go:

Click this for a guide to using Memtest

Click this to download Memtest

Run it overnight if possible