Drakensang [solved] Audio subsystem error

I can't get Drakensang (US version) to run, when I try to launch it crashes to desktop after the first couple of logo screens saying that the audio subsystem could not load perhaps due to a software modem in control panel / modems. I don't have a software modem there. I tried uninstalling, rebooting, and re-installing but it still won't load. The official forums are apparently down (no response when I try to go to the official site, probably due to traffic) so I can't check for the fix there.

Does anyone know a fix for this? Thank you in advance.

Google tells me this problem is mentioned in the patch 1.01 notes. An example of such a software modem is an "IBM Thinkpad Modem" on such a notebook.

You should post this in the official forum ASAP when it's back online. dtp needs to feel the pressure on this.

Gorath said:

Google tells me this problem is mentioned in the patch 1.01 notes. An example of such a software modem is an "IBM Thinkpad Modem" on such a notebook.

You should post this in the official forum ASAP when it's back online. dtp needs to feel the pressure on this.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the message mentions IBM Thinkpad Modem but I don't have that or any other software modem. Google told me that someone posted this thread on a forum (gamespot) and was directed to a thread on the dtp forum but I haven't been able to get to the dtp forum for the 4 hours I've been trying.

I guess that'll teach me to pay for next day shipping....

NFLed said:

Yeah, the message mentions IBM Thinkpad Modem but I don't have that or any other software modem. Google told me that someone posted this thread on a forum (gamespot) and was directed to a thread on the dtp forum but I haven't been able to get to the dtp forum for the 4 hours I've been trying.

I guess that'll teach me to pay for next day shipping....

Click to expand...

Search for that thread on Google. They probably have it cached.

Enter DXDiag or what it's called and create a report as text file. Open it in an editor an search for the word "emul" as in "emulate". Maybe some other virtual device is blocking the sound card. An example would be an AVM Bluetooth Stereo driver.

Update: You can see the emulated sound / music devices directly in DxDiag.

I fixed it (by trial and error), thank you for the advice. I went into Device Manager and disabled "Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device" and then suddenly Drakensang started working. The opening cinematic has vertical colored streaks covering most of the screen but the main menu and character creation screens look good (I haven't gone into the actual game yet).

And welcome to the other forum.

This is one of the most common issues posted at the official forum - expect more people to post this question here !

Met that too. After fiddling and rebooting for a bit found a culprit. I have an old wavetable emulator called WinGroove installed for midi playback as a driver, disabling it solved the issue.

The narrowing of DX backward compatibility scares me. What else the MS libraries will force me to uninstall when a next RPG comes out?