No sound on PC

@ElrondHubbard

Right click the game in Origin and then Repair Game.

Run System File Checker to ensure the integrity of your Windows System files: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

Let us know here if these steps are helpful please.

@EA_Barry

>Right click the game in Origin and then Repair Game.

Already did that, as I indicated in my original message. I have since uninstalled and re-installed the game. To be thorough, I have repaired the game again. No sound.

>Run System File Checker to ensure the integrity of your Windows System files

Here are the results, run from an Admin-level command prompt:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

Still no sound. Hoping for another suggestion?

@ElrondHubbard

Have you reinstalled the game at this point?

• If your CPU and/or your GPU are overclocked can you try running those at stock clock speeds
• For testing purposes, reduce your in-game quality settings
• Try a clean boot before starting the game: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Again, let us know if these steps have an effect, thanks.

@EA_Barry

Yes, I have reinstalled the game (said that already) and performed another repair.

Not doing any overclocking.

I followed the instructions for a clean boot. Main accomplishment there was to make it impossible to launch the game, because all networking was disabled and Origin wouldn't authenticate/activate the executable without a network connection to the EA servers. Do you guys test these procedures before recommending them?

Leaving the cold boot aside, I started having an intermittent symptom where the game will start, hang on a black screen until I press ESC, then display a sort of ambience image of leaves/particles and smoke animating against a sky background. The game hangs in this condition, not responding to any keypresses or closing when I press Alt+F4. I have to open the Windows Task Manager and kill the process.

However, I *have* now managed to get sound through headphones only, by reactivating the Realtek High Definition Audio device built in to my motherboard and making it the default audio device. If I plug headphones into the rear audio jack, sound works perfectly through them. Where it doesn't work is if I am trying to get sound through the HDMI connection to my home theater receiver. I previously put 75+ hours into the game that way with no issues, so it looks like I'll have to try the headphone workaround and hope for either a game patch or a driver update to undo whatever went wrong. Wish me luck.

@EA_Barry

It worked! (GeForce Experience wouldn't let me do it, I had to download the driver package manually to do the clean reinstall.)

Many thanks for the assist. Cheers!

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@EA_Barry wrote:

@ElrondHubbard

Audio via HDMI is provided by the audio component of the nvidia drivers package. You could try running the nvidia installer again and choose custom install and then clean install making sure the audio component is selected. Let us know how you get on.

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@ElrondHubbard

That's great, thanks for coming back to let us know you got this fixed.

Well, sadly I have to say it didn't work for me. At all.

I reinstalled the drivers (cleanly), but the issue persists. Sound sometimes is OK throughout, but usually the game just launches muted, sometimes there is sound in the initial screens and menus, sometimes sound disappears during the game (this usually happens when I have to reload a save).

Of course system sound is not a problem, since it works perfectly in all other games and programs I have installed, even other games from EA like FIFA.

Is there any other trick I could try before I give up and go play something else?

Thanks for any advice.

I have an identical issue...

If you have speakers (including headphones) that are NOT connected to your PC via an HDMI cable (like monitor ones), then the nVidia audio drivers may be the problem.

I constantly have to re-set my system using the Windows Control Panel to use my on-board sound card's native drivers instead  of the nVidia ones every time I update my video driver.  (Could nVidia puh-leeze make that a check-box option?!?)