Re: No Sims/pet noises (music /background audio is fine)

@silver9899  You already have the newest Realtek driver available from Acer for your laptop, so I was hoping Windows might find a newer one.  But apparently not.  It sounds like sfc did its job though.

I don't know whether updating the graphics driver would help here, but since yours is as old as the sound driver, it's worth updating anyway.  Here again, Acer doesn't offer a newer driver, but Nvidia does:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/197461/en-us/

Run the driver as an admin: right-click on the download and select "Run as administrator."  Select the Custom (not Express) install option and check the box to perform a clean insatll of the driver.  If you see an option to install the Nvidia driver as well, make sure it's selected.  Restart your computer after installing and before trying to play.

@silver9899  When you tried a different sound output device, did you specifically try headphones or earbuds that plug directly into the computer?  If not, please do so now.

@silver9899  Please post a new dxdiag, so I can see if anything relevant has changed since the last one.

Thank you! Attached latest dxdiag.

@silver9899  Sorry for the late reply.  Please right-click the speaker icon, on the right side of the Taskbar, and let me know what options you see.  You can post a screenshot if it's easier.  If you see a menu that you can expand when hovering over it, for example it might say Spatial sound, hover over that and let me know what it says too, or include it in the screenshot.

Not at all! Thank you so much for being able to take the time with your suggestions. I'd be stumped otherwise!

So attached is 3 pictures. First is the options when I right click on the sound task bar menu. The second is when I select the sound "settings" and then I saw it had a reference to "spatial audio" and clicked on this, which gives two options "off" and "Windows Sonic for Headphones." It is currently "off". Perhaps this is the source of the problems?