Sound card problem with PC game F.E.A.R.

[Dark Fact]

Hey guys.  I was wondering if you can help me with a little problem I have regarding the PC game F.E.A.R. if anyone here has played it.

Basically, the problem I'm getting is that I keep getting a message saying "failed to initialize snddrv.dll" followed by the game not playing any sound at all.  Now, I have the latest DirectX installed on my PC and all sound and music tests I made had passed with flying colors.  I believe the problem might be with the make of my sound card or the age of my sound driver.  My sound driver is a SoundMAX Digital Audio card.  My OS is Windows XP.  Anyone got any idea as to how I can fix this?

[Kitsunexus]

I Googled and it looks like a lot of people are having this issue, apparently people with Asus motherboards have it.

I wonder how people with Realtek AC97 chips are doing with F.E.A.R.?

Try turning off Skype, according to one site.

Hey if this doesn't work, there's always the 360 version, right? 

[Turbo D]

I had illegally downloaded this and beat it a few months back. I had no problem with sound. I have that agere systems ac'97 crap.

[Dark Fact]

Where is Skype located at?

By the way, there is another problem that I'm having with the game.  Turns out that whenever I try to start the first area, my guy magically gets pulled into the dumpster and can't get out.  Is this a video driver problem?

[Turbo D]

skype is a voip program. I'm guessing you don't have it installed, so don't worry about it. I never had that dumpster problem. Is your copy official? What kind of grafx card are you running? Stock grafx cards can cause glitches in high tech 3-d games.

[Dark Fact]

My grafx card is an ATI Radeon 9200 with 64 MB and the game I have is definitely official.

[Turbo D]

hmmmm... you shouldn't be having this problem  Make sure your card has the latest driver and you have the latest fear patch/update. Thats all I can think of at the moment.

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp
http://www.sierra.com/publish/sierra/en/home/games/game_info.tab-downloadtab.prod-L2NvbnRlbnQvc2llcnJhL2VuL3Byb2R1Y3RzL2ZfZV9hX3JfX3JlZ3VsYXJfZWRpdGlvbg%3d%3d.platform-pc.html

[Dark Fact]

Okay, now I see what the problem is with my video card driver.  After looking more closely at my Supported Chipsets, it turns out only ATI Radeon 9000, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X600, X700, X800, X850, X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950, 2600, 2900 series are supported, not 9200 that my driver has.

No patch is going to solve this problem I'm afraid.  it looks like I'll have to get a new system in the near future.