Ingame Sound/Music extrem stuttering in battles

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Originally Posted by twixelstix

The only notable bandaid fix for now for me personally is just simply turning off player effects down to zero. Boss fights and big FATEs might have some music stuttering but nothing nearly as terrible and it seems to go back to normal afterwards.

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Turning down the player sounds made life so much better... in the meantime.

Hi. Just wanted to redirect people to the main thread for this. Feel free to chime in, apply remedies found thus far - and share remedies you found yourself thus far.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-popping-issue

Same here. Everything was fine until 6.0 dropped. I also tried the spatial sound software and it didn't worked. I finished the MSQ yesterday. Loved it, but the sound stuttering toned the experience down a bit for me. In 8-man battles, I'd have to move the camera to not show the bosses (and also show less PCs) just to make it stutter a little less and it also ruined the MSQ trials for me.

Found several people reporting this on reddit. The game now consumes a great more deal of processing and I don't think it would be related to new areas/instances/trials being "more fancy" in graphics, because it happens in old areas and instances too (like alliance raids, which wasn't a problem before).

I know that buying a more powerful processor would solve the issue, but please don't reply something as insensitive as "Just buy a new PC". PC hardware is highly pricy in the country I'm from, due to economic crisis and "dolar ratios" and I'm sure this is the case for several people that struggle just to pay this game subscription. I get the argument that long-time MMOs may upgrade in graphics and so must the console/PC that runs them, but there was no improvements in overall graphics in this case. We are playing with the same graphics we did up to 5.5 and then 6.0 dropped with the same graphics, but they changed something that is directly affecting us.

We too love the game and some of us have been playing it for several years (I'm here since 2.0 open betas). I'm hoping this is something that can be fixed and urge the devs to take a look at it. Please don't leave us out.

Just commenting on here to help this thread get attention! I get the same awful stutters in my audio during combat. It pretty much makes combat unplayable with sound on. It feels odd because it seems like the game should be frame-lagging from how it sounds in the audio but my fps stays pretty consistent during the stutters. Ive tried changing the audio frequency in windows, DX9, camera distance settings. Nothing has worked yet. It's been happening since Endwalker came out for me. Hope the developers can fix it because I really love this game!

Same issue here, 6.01 fixed absolutely nothing for me. Got an email back for my support ticket and they copy + pasted everything I literally said I'd already tried. I just want to play the game I paid for, and enjoy the work the team put into their vision. Straight up disrespectful to do them and us like this.

6.01 provided no resolution on sound issues here either.

So, in the Japanese Forums, they suggested we tried the LatencyMon software to detect latency issues for audio.
My result turned out bad, as seen in the image below.

How is everyone else's result?
To check, open LatencyMon, click the green start button, wait at least 5-10 minutes, and if it gets Green, it means it's good, black means not so good, red means bad.

If you get a green result, try then running the scan while playing FFXIV to see if results change.

https://i.imgur.com/2uWCkGe.png

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Originally Posted by minopoki

So, in the Japanese Forums, they suggested we tried the LatencyMon software to detect latency issues for audio.
My result turned out bad, as seen in the image below.

How is everyone else's result?
To check, open LatencyMon, click the green start button, wait at least 5-10 minutes, and if it gets Green, it means it's good, black means not so good, red means bad.

If you get a green result, try then running the scan while playing FFXIV to see if results change.

https://i.imgur.com/2uWCkGe.png

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My only issue with that is that... for the vast majority, if not all of us, this problem is only in FFXIV.
No other game I play has this issue.
Not Dragon Quest Builders 2, Halo Infinite, Earth Defense Force 5
Heck, even Foxhole, a game that is so unoptimized that it turns high-end PCs into ovens, and will force medium PCs to emergency shut-down due to processor overheatings, has no issues with audio. And that's a war game that can have literally 100 vs 100 on one screen.

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Originally Posted by Grimno

My only issue with that is that... for the vast majority, if not all of us, this problem is only in FFXIV.
No other game I play has this issue.
Not Dragon Quest Builders 2, Halo Infinite, Earth Defense Force 5
Heck, even Foxhole, a game that is so unoptimized that it turns high-end PCs into ovens, and will force medium PCs to emergency shut-down due to processor overheatings, has no issues with audio. And that's a war game that can have literally 100 vs 100 on one screen.

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I completely agree, for me too this problem is only in FFXIV, and only after 6.0 came out (was perfect before that).
But considering SE not taking the adequate measures to fix this, I think it might be interesting for us to try to detect what our computers have in common that might be causing this, and, if possible, even ways to avoid that while SE don't fix this as they should.

6.01 made it worse haha

6.0 I only got the stuttering very rarely but 6.01 has made the stuttering almost constant. I'm glad I finished msq beforehand because now I have to play with my game completely muted...
Hope a fix is on the way soon.

The second most frustrating thing is (the first being that this issue hasn't been fixed yet) that the "solutions" seem to be totally inconsistent. For instance, I installed the immersive sound and it seemed to have improved things... until it didn't earlier today when I found it better to have it off. Then later, I was in town and it was stuttering as badly as it had ever done, but fixed it (for a bit) by turning off and on again Sound Effects. So in summary, the "solution" appears to be to mess with your sound settings almost randomly until it sounds better in that moment, and then do it again when it becomes bad again.

None of the suggested solutions or any fiddling with my sound settings has seemed to fix the problem and I am at a lost at what to do other than 'get a new computer and hope it doesn't occur on it.'

And it seems like the audio issues also vary a bit from person to person. Some are just combat music, but for me it's the BGM and ambient music as well as the voices in cutscenes _sometimes_. It's getting ridiculous and makes me not want to do MSQ at all because every cutscene has the characters sounding drunk and being cut off as the sound stutters with the music.

Has SE said anything about helping out to figure this out?

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Originally Posted by akaiLV

Has SE said anything about helping out to figure this out?

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Soken Tweeted about it a couple of days ago. Realistically, though, we probably can't expect much until the 4th, when most of the teams are going to back from the holidays. We're kind of suffering under the setback of the Christmas/New Years holiday week. This, combined with the fact that the team thought that 6.01 would fix the issues instead of make them worse and break them for people who were fine in 6.0, have conspired to make this a very time indeed.

So, after having a colossal truck ton of dx11 errors yesterday, I decided to try bumping down to dx9 just to get into the game without the immediately crashing.

On the plus side, the sound distortion and engine utterly breaking is alleviated.

On the negative side, it's still there. It's very much still there. And the game runs like crap and looks like it, too. I went back to 11 on my next session because I'd rather deal with broken sound (copium's running low tho) than broken sound and broken fps.

Throwing my two cents in. Also have the stuttering and slowdown while in combat and have had it since the beginning. I've noticed when I zoom the camera in, to where it's in my character's face, the issues go away. Makes me want to say it's an issue with CPUs like others have said in this thread but it seems inconsistent on when it starts and stops. That and no matter of tweaking with my, admittedly already low, graphics settings (Laptop Standard while using a Desktop PC) seems to fix it.

So I've been having the issue of my sound completely cutting out for like every 10 minutes or so sometime every 5 minutes and there will be massive lag spikes epically in raids and dungeons i'm not sure what can be causing this but I honestly hope something is done about this because it can't be my end because this is the only game I play where this kind of anomaly happens and it only started after EW dropped.

Im driving crazy about this sound system of ffXIV, before endwalker was fine, now is cutting everything, I NEED TO TURN OFF the sound so I can play, with my eyes. This is so frustrating. The only game who does that. I did everything on my end. But its not me, is the game.

Sound issues started with Endwalker and have been getting continuously worse. Used to only happen with large battles, but now it's happening with me beating on one creature with no one else in sight. Stuttering also in cutscenes to the point it tends to cut the last couple words completely off. Tried uninstalling/reinstalling the game, no luck or change. Really dims my desire to continue to play.

i have this issue too
i saw a reddit post that mentioned listening position and increasing it from 0 to 100
after i tested on a fate with multiple mobs there was no stuttering noise
but on the final day trial it continued stuttering so its not that

I did that too but it starts yet again when theres something between you and the camera (NPCs or Players) which is really annoying.

I'm glad that worked for you.
Many of us have tried that as well as several other attempts to remedy it and it is still happening.
SE refuses to take responsibility for this. I love this game, but if this isn't addressed soon, I will likely cancel my sub (and all of my extra retainers, paying for the premium app access, and any money I would spend on the mogstation).

for the endsinger trial zenos line in the beginning and those of the boss were hard to hear due to stuttering
only her last 3 lines in the final phase were clear(after the music changes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqD8...erynExcalafell


Problem "solved"

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Originally Posted by ClarkCiccero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqD8...erynExcalafell


Problem "solved"

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Thats exactly how I solved m'y audio stuttering but honestly im not gonna throw 18€ so it fix m'y issue permanently....

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Originally Posted by ClarkCiccero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqD8...erynExcalafell


Problem "solved"

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In that video specifically I can still hear it stuttering a bit for various effects but it's nowhere near as bad as it was when it was off.

I'm experiencing this problem as well. I'm extremely disappointed that Square broke sound for a lot of players with older machines for the sake of making $$ through 3rd party sound software. I played this game since 2.0 on this same PC with no issues until they tried to shoe-horn in the spatial immersive audio. I tried running the program, and after it made me take a super creepy picture of my ear to verify my account (no, literally... no joke there.) it IMPROVED the problem, but didn't even fix it. On top of that the "immersive audio experience" is tinny and cheap sounding, like some intern took normal headphones and tried to simulate surround sound with them. No way would I pay $20 for this crap normally, much less to fix a bug introduced to sell out to this 3rd party.

If this isn't fixed, and/or Square actually does this NFT thing, I think all respect I had for the company will be gone. Along with my sub and future purchases of any SE products.

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Originally Posted by Razzleberries

6.01 made it worse haha

6.0 I only got the stuttering very rarely but 6.01 has made the stuttering almost constant. I'm glad I finished msq beforehand because now I have to play with my game completely muted...
Hope a fix is on the way soon.

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6.05 and still having the same issues :)))
I really miss being able to play with the audio on. The game doesn't feel right without it but even a minute of the stuttering gives me a headache.

I'm having the same problem! Nothing has worked to fix it though some things have mitigated it. Im shocked there hasnt been any official reply from SE on this considering how many people it seems to be happening to.

From the Big Thread (it's about the same issue): https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5797835

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

Greetings,

Thanks again to everyone who submitted detailed information regarding the ongoing sound-related issue. Rest assured, the bug reports that were moved to the Duplicate Bug section have been also passed down and have been helpful in our investigation.

While it has taken some time to narrow down the conditions of the issue, we were able to reproduce it on our end.

We discovered an anomaly in the calculation process within FFXIV's game sound driver where the number of digits is not being adjusted correctly. Due to this, some CPUs with certain characteristics are unable to keep up with the calculation processes and have a high possibility of encountering the issue.

As mentioned previously, we noticed this primarily occurs on older CPU models that are around 10 years old, but have also confirmed cases on some of the latest CPU models.

We are continuing to investigate the matter and are working on a resolution to ensure that CPUs with these characteristics will be able to handle these processes correctly. Our current plans are to conduct pattern tests and release an additional fix in the next patch.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work towards resolving this issue.

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So they've replicated the problem, acknowledged that it's a bug on their end, and confirmed that fixes are coming. A Japanese community rep made an almost identical post in the JP forums a few days ago. A Lodestone post would have been ideal but I suspect they want to avoid that until they can give an ETA on this patch they mentioned. Here's hoping it's not 6.1, as that's at least two months away.

Just chiming in to say I’ve been dealing with this a lot the past week. It was particularly bad during Early Access, but lightened up some afterwards. However, this week, the audio stuttering is terrible. And there are additional effects to it when it happens to me: the audio cuts out (except for the BGM), animations delay/stop entirely, there’s no combat sounds at all from skills or even just character voices, and then mechanic visuals and damage won’t actually proc on my end until the sound resumes. It’s been so distracting and annoying trying to prog Savage as a healer, and have the damage register about 5 seconds after the mechanic has already gone out.

I’ve checked my VPN—there’s no packet loss involved. It doesn’t seem to resolve itself between logins. Sometimes I’ll go several hours without a problem only to have this stuttering flare up without warning in a given instance. Checked my PC, and it doesn’t seem overly heated or have anything in the background that might be causing throttling of any kind.

Whatever is causing this, I sure hope there’s a fix soon. Because it’s terrible.

EDIT: Also acknowledging that my PC is not that old. It’s definitely not using parts that are nearly a decade in age.

Patch 6.08 completely resolved the issue for me - and it was bad before; I couldn't play without getting headaches unless I turned off the sound, which is a terrible thing to have to do to such beautiful work.

Weirdly enough I haven't had sound issues and started to have them now, after the 6.08 patch. Is anybody else having this?

I had audio popping, stuttering, in game sound cutting out since patch 6.0.8 but I did fix my issue temporarily by turning off the sound effects in the game settings; however I have to play with no in game sound effects. I hope its just a patch issue because I would like to play with spell sounds and such again.

6.08 definitely introduced the audio popping to me


why is your 2013 game causing stutters on good-quality CPU's?
>immermsive aumbio

i thought the same but the stutter/crackling/no sound issues came from the loudspeakers
i have to buy new ones and see if this issue is fixed

Can confirm, my spouse's laptop is exhibiting the issues everyone was complaining about pre.6.08. They fixed one thing and broke something else.

likewise or GU on notebook jitters or stutters also , raids i have to turn off the immersive audio toy sound also