Sound Issues after playing an older game

I recently finished replaying Safecracker, an older game that wouldn't run under Win10 without a lot of backroom tweaking involving DLL management, etc. But I finally got it running and I enjoyed the replay. After that, I uninstalled it.

The next time I tried to play one of my Casual games, I had no sound and the cut scene was jerky. At first, I thought my video card had gone belly up, but decided to explore other options before that one. I dove into my System Folder to troubleshoot the sound output and was able to restore the sound. After that, I went on to play the Casual with no issues at all. I thought that was that.

The very next Casual game I loaded had the same problem: No sound, jerky video. Once again, I visited the System Folder and restored the sound, and the game is running fine.

The repeat is what concerns me. What the heck is going on? I have exhausted my tech background.

Did you shut down and reboot your computer in between? I ask because if there is an issue in your boot file, it will respawn when you boot up again. Can you tell me what you did in your System Folder to restore the sound?

This is one of the reasons it's always chancy when you start doing extensive tweaking to play on a new system. Tweaking DLL management is always risky. Fortunately Steam and GOG have a lot of these games already tweaked to run on new systems. Steam has Safecracker, but they do not recommend running it on anything higher than XP. Fiddling around in a config.sys file is easy to change back. DLLs, not so much.

Yes, have shut down and rebooted between games. The current Casual is playing fine, I just don't know what the next one will do.

To troubleshoot, I opened the System folder, selected "Sound" then "Output" then "Troubleshoot." I followed the prompts. After that was complete, I went to the Task Bar and selected "Music" and opened a sound file I keep there for checking this sort of thing. The sound file played normally. At that point, I went on withy my Casual game.

Yes, I am concerned that something in the DLL department has been wonked. I suppose I could continue this Casual game and then see what the next one does. If there is a repeat of the sound problem (and some video chuddering, too), I will have to take the brains into my guru's shop to fix. It gets beyond me pretty quickly. Lesson Learned re these old games.

You can always right click the sound icon in you task bar on the lower right. That will open up the sound settings. Be sure your output device is selected correctly. I'm using my on-board sound, so mine says RealTek Audio. I have had video issues come up in a game because the audio drivers needed to be updated. So they may be related. I would definitely try another game and see what happens. Reboot too and see what is selected for your sound device in the settings - see if it changes.

Thanks. Yes, I updated the audio drivers when this happened with the first Casual after Safecracker. I retried that option after the second glitch. We'll see. Maybe things will smooth out.

I don't know how far back your System Restore dates go, but if it goes back prior to when you fooled around with the DLLs, then you could try doing a System Restore.

Note: for all except Draclvr and other Computer Whizs , when fooling around with your system it is Always good to "Create a System Restore point" prior to playing around with your system.

Truth, Starcom!!

We set System Restores regularly, so I will go back and look for one that predates loading Safecracker. Thanks!

Testing, testing, 1,2,3, Helloooooo Reenie can you hear me?,, Seriously just checking in to see if your Sound problem is now A OK

I was wondering too, Starcom!

Hi Draclvr, maybe she can't hear us Take care, stay safe.

I must have replied on a different thread a few days ago, but yes, we restored an earlier System Restore and everything is fine now. Thx!

Yippee! Glad to hear it. Some of us call it "DLL Hel*" where angels should fear to tread!

That's good to hear Reenie!

That's great to hear, take care and enjoy your games.

Hm. I am replaying Safecracker on my Windows 7 computer. It is not newly downloaded; it's been downloaded for a long time. No tweaking done at all! Last night my sound went out. I thought I remembered Reenie having some issue so I found this thread. I have not tried the game or anything else yet today so I'll see what happens. Stand by please!

I just got back from voting, so will be here the rest of the day! Of course you know to test something else!

Whew (for now anyway)!

I just played a game of solitaire and it worked fine (did not work last night). I guess shutting down and rebooting helped. You know I am a bit worried about my sound since I had to go from headphones to speakers (different thread I started) and once in a while I still have an issue. I'll see how it goes through the day and especially when I go back to Safecracker. If a reboot is all that's required, I'm good!

Fingers crossed, oldbroad!

Thanks Drac! It did stay on all day today while I played Safecracker and Frankenstein.

The sound was working when I shut down last night but when I booted up today, it was not. I did a restart and now it is. I do hope I can finish these two games at least, but have many games I can only play on this computer so I hope it is not my actual sound and that it will be okay after I complete Safecracker (which I am not too far into yet).