Surviving Mars - No Sound / Audio

[deeks]

Description
No Sound / Audio

What is your game version?
227,923

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
There's literally no audio in the game. No music, no UI sound effects, no ambient noise, no unit/building noise.

Running the game on Windows 10.

Can you replicate the issue?
Yes, I've tried restarting the game, restarting my computer, as well as uninstalling and reinstalling the game. There's just no audio. I've tried with my headphones, external speakers and built in monitor speakers, and there's no audio.

I am able to hear sound on my computer (other games,the browser, Windows sounds tool, etc.), but not in-game.

I've triple checked the Audio Settings in the game as well. I changed the master volume, as well as the other volume sliders, and there's no effect.

Attachments

 

[Honethite]

I noticed this too. I turned off the game music earlier on so I could hear the sound effects and I was shocked that there were no sounds coming from anything. No ambience of being on Mars, no sounds from my rovers or drones, no sounds from any of the buildings etc, it's just silence apart from the UI sounds when you click on things. I really hope it's a bug...

 

[deeks]

I've seen that issue reported as well on the Steam threads, so that does seem to be a problem. But to be clear, my issue is that there is no Audio whatsoever, even when the Music is on.

 

[Honethite]

I'm using a few haemimont games mods, cemetery, shadowed solar panels, cactus crop and physicist commander. Someone reported on the steam forum that they had no sound until they removed the time capsule mod. So I removed all 4 mods and now I have sound. I've spent the past 2 hours playing the game in total silence (only the music and UI sounds worked) trying to figure out why there was no sounds from anything and it did worry me the devs maybe skipped on the sound department.

So, seems the official mods are causing sound issues. Try disabling any mods to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[psuhammer14]

I am having the same exact issue. no sound whatsoever when loading the game, UI, menu's no music, no game sound effects. I have not installed any mods, updated my GPU drivers, uninstalled steam, surviving mars, and nothing has helped.

did you by chance get an error when launching the game from the EXE that said X3daudio1_7.dll was not found? i got that first when the game would not launch at all. i downloaded it and installed it, and now the game launches, but no sound.

 

[psuhammer14]

downloading and installing directX solved my issue. i got the link from microsoft at the below link

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=35

 

[deeks]

I've already verified that I'm running the latest version of the DirectX drivers (DirectX 12). So it's not a problem with missing drivers.

 

[AndrewT]

In the Windows task bar right click on the speaker symbol and open Volume Mixer.

In there scroll to the right and check that both Steam and this game are not muted or set to a really low level.

 

[deeks]

Unfortunately, it's not the volume on my PC. As I said in the ticket, I've tested that by playing several other games without issue, as well as running Spotify and playing videos in my browser. I've even played music in Spotify while simultaneously starting the game to test whether something strange is happening when the game starts up - but the result is that I get music from Spotify, but no sound/music from the game.

 

[AndrewT]

Unfortunately, it's not the volume on my PC. As I said in the ticket, I've tested that by playing several other games without issue, as well as running Spotify and playing videos in my browser.

The procedure I described is specific to this game's .exe, that volume mixer works that way. The fact that other apps produce sound is neither here nor there.

The only other issue I've seen like this is use of any mods causes no sound, could that be the issue?

 

[AndyCooper66]

Had exactly the same problem. All diags indicated things okay. However, ProcMon indicated the system files were being blocked. Turned off ALL security , it allowed it to confirm the installation and now the sound is back. Hope this helps.

 

[AndrewT]

Had exactly the same problem. All diags indicated things okay. However, ProcMon indicated the system files were being blocked. Turned off ALL security , it allowed it to confirm the installation and now the sound is back. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the update! What AV app(s) do you have please?

 

[AndyCooper66]

I only have a light-touch AV (Avast). I found it was heuristic apps that were the problem. In my case it was IOBit Anti-Malware 5 with both engines on and Acronis Protect. Turned these off and it allowed the game to run nicely.

Forgot to say turned all software back on straight away , so no need to keep them off.

 

[Wolvyreen]

So the moment you use any mod that has a CODE item in it, the audio breaks. I have tested this with numerous mods that have no CODE item and the audio still works. as soon as I use a CODE item, no sound. Definitely a bug.

 

[deeks]

I apologize for not providing an update on this thread, but I've been on vacation for the past week and so haven't had access to my computer.

The procedure I described is specific to this game's .exe, that volume mixer works that way. The fact that other apps produce sound is neither here nor there.

The only other issue I've seen like this is use of any mods causes no sound, could that be the issue?

I've double checked with the Sound Mixer and the sound is on, but there's clearly no audio coming through (no green level spikes in the Mixer from Surviving Mars).

I've done some additional testing and I've discovered that if I switch my "Playback Device" to Speakers (by default they're using Headphones), I do actually get sound from the game. If I try to then switch the "Playback Device" to Headphones, the sound remains with the Speakers (this is common to almost all games, I'm assuming it's a result of grabbing "Playback Device" on start and not updating based on changes while the game is running). However, if I close the game, switch to Headphones, and then restart the game (without changing anything else), I don't get any sound.

I've tried other applications (and checked the Sound Mixer levels) and they're able to function on both Speakers and Headphones, so this appears to be unique to Surviving Mars.

 

[deeks]

Bump... Is there any additional support that can be provided? Or am I just out of luck?

 

[AndrewT]

It seems to be specific to your computer or headset. Do you have a different set of headphones you can borrow, as a test?

 

[deeks]

It seems to be specific to your computer or headset. Do you have a different set of headphones you can borrow, as a test?

Not to be difficult, but I would point out that it is also specific to this product, since it is the only product that has this issue. Since it's not a common issue, I would agree it's likely a very narrow issue, specific to the combination of my computer, headset, and this product, but none the less this is the only product I have this issue with.

I've retested with a pair of 3.5mm headphones, and it works correctly (I have sound) when using those. I also retested with my USB headphones testing all of my USB ports, and it remains a problem regardless of the USB port used.

Just for reference - in case someone else has this issue and stumbles into this thread - the headset I'm using is a Razer Kraken 7.1 V2.

 

[deeks]

I performed some additional tests, and I think I've located the issue. There appears to be a conflict/issue with the configuration manager app for the Kraken (Razer Synapse 2.0), and Surviving Mars. If I uninstall Synapse (not the Kraken driver, but Synapse), then I get audio for the game. However, once I reinstall Synapse and restart my machine, I no longer get audio (on the Kraken headset).

 

[AndrewT]

Excellent work, well done! As soon as I read Razer in your post I knew it would be a driver or utility from them, I've seen such issues on several games over the years.

Obviously check for an updated version of their software, failing that report it to them as a bug.

Good luck!