Please PROPERLY address audio stuttering issue

Adding my voice to the chorus here. I have had the audio stuttering issue since launch, but by turning the listening position to 100, it was made manageable; With the launch of 6.01, it's become even worse. It's made the fourth fight of the new raid almost unbearable. Previously, it only happened in fights, but now I get it when loading into certain populated areas as well.

Bumping for awareness. I've had this issue since EW Early Access and it only got worse with the patch. I'm on the verge of unsubbing till this is fixed. I haven't continued the story since EW dropped and I'm still in SB, stuck for weeks now.
Fix this asap, it's absolutely unplayable like this!

I've also had the same experience, I had some minor sound issues in fights with 8 or more people in them before 6.01 but 6.01 has made the sound effects and music in even light parties totally garbled.

People kept going on about how good the music is for the 4th Boss of the new raid is and all I could hear is stupid stuttering and can't engage in any input for the music because there is none! Only stuttering. Do not disrespect Soken like this and keep ignoring the problem. All his hard work from the hospital bed for nothing... I feel sorry for all his hard work.

Been having issues since early access. Cutscenes were unbearable to listen to.
At some point during the first week the audio bugged and locked up my entire game, then subsequently crashed my computer. I'm not sure if these issues sped up the process, but my hard drive began to fail hard after this. It was rather old, however I had no issues and no hint of issues prior to the audio and fps lag of Endwalker.

Since replacing the HDD and also getting an SSD, I completely reinstalled the game and this time did not install the new paid spatial audio feature. The stuttering still continues, as well as the fps drops. It's not *as bad* as it was on my old hard drive, but it's still a bit disorienting. I've tried everything except switching to DX9, and the reason I haven't is because I've seen too many people say that switching did not help or they were unable to even open the game after a while even if they swapped back to DX11. I don't want to risk that happening to me, since at the moment I can still play the game, it's just highly inconvenient.

I hoped the patch would fix things and while I had no stutters the first three floors of Pandaemonium, the 4th floor was a disaster. Everything from the BGM to the combat sounds were stuttered entirely. At that point I tried the suggestion of lowering the hz/bitrate, and that removed all sound from my game. It stopped the fps drops that accompanied the audio lag for the fourth floor at least.

Since relogging I've had audio stutters happening again, whether it be in dungeons or even me progressing the MSQ on my alt and fighting small mobs at destination points.
I'm currently running an AMD FX-4300 and while I know that's old and will soon be replaced, I have no problems with any other games and I never had problems with FFXIV until 6.0. I wondered if it was an AMD problem but I've been seeing people with Intel describing these issues as well.

Welp. Before I started the game today, I read the patch notes and turned down my audio settings to a lower quality as suggested (this is something I had already tried to no avail). After waiting in queue for 2 hours, I did a FATE and the audio is still awful if not worse. After weeks of dealing with this, I'm somewhere between disappointed and disgusted.

I'm testing it in non Endwalker areas, so far no problems there. Since Endwalker is unplayable without completely disabling all sound, I will have to resort to leveling my manbun alt lol.

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Originally Posted by MStowastiqVahlshdeh

I'm testing it in non Endwalker areas, so far no problems there. Since Endwalker is unplayable without completely disabling all sound, I will have to resort to leveling my manbun alt lol.

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I'm still doing the post-ShB patch content (on 5.4 now). After logging back in (and waiting through the 1000+ queue) my sound is fine... so far. But I've had zero combat. For me, from my experimenting earlier today, it seemed as if my sound would be fine until the engine "broke". The first time, it was doing a dungeon roulette (The Twinning). I exited and came back in, which is when I started experimenting by running circles in the Crystarium and using Dyskrasia. After the 3rd or 4th cast, my sound broke and it was choppy forever after, distorting to pure audio garbage in actual combat. I logged again and came back, and went into the Rising Stones (thinking the audio issues had something to do with LOD processes), but after the 3rd cast of Dyskrasia, the sound broke again, even to the point that ambient sound and background music was chopped and distorted.

I logged out and then back in, loaded up my brand new man bun and wandered around Gridania, doing quests. Everything was fine until I cleaned up and only had my kill quests left, then went out into the wilderness. In the very first fight with only True Thrust and Vorpal Thrust, the sound broke and stayed broken; even upon going back to Gridania the BGM and ambient sound was broken, choppy, and distorted. I wound up muting everything and turning in all my quests, then logging.

tl;dr: Sound is fine for me until combat. Then the sound engine breaks entirely and can't be fixed except on relogging. And with 1000+ queues still... bunk that. Heck no.

Has anyone tried a full reinstall of the game? I'm considering it as an option, but I'd rather not go through that if it's gonna be for naught.

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Originally Posted by FatalCharm

Not true. My problem with stuttering audio (which is coming and going) just started today after the 6.01 patch. So I guess it changed something. Gee, thanks.

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Fair. I made a quick edit to the original post stating that information, so that can see that the problem is even worse than we first imagined.

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Originally Posted by Helbereth

Has anyone tried a full reinstall of the game? I'm considering it as an option, but I'd rather not go through that if it's gonna be for naught.

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I went one step further tonight and completely re-installed my windows haha. So complete fresh install the works, only thing re-installed is my grapics drivers - and sadly the sound issue still stutters and persists. Only game it seems to do this on.

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Originally Posted by EldricBloodflower

I went one step further tonight and completely re-installed my windows haha. So complete fresh install the works, only thing re-installed is my grapics drivers - and sadly the sound issue still stutters and persists. Only game it seems to do this on.

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Argh this thing seems really unavoidable, it's so annoying.

I have btw tried to reinstall the game, uninstalling it from an HD and installing it to SSD, which made no difference at all.

The issue seems to lie with AMD FX-series cpu's. And possibly a few other AMD chips.

Experiencing this as well, no suggested fixes have worked and this makes content with audio cues and the like almost impossible to beat. AMD FX as well on my computer.

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Originally Posted by Maeklos

The issue seems to lie with AMD FX-series cpu's. And possibly a few other AMD chips.

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It's not just AMD. There are people in the links with Intel and Nvidia components with this issue as well.

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Originally Posted by Vyncet

It's not just AMD. There are people in the links with Intel and Nvidia components with this issue as well.

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Oof. Considering that the AMD FX series chips were on a broad range of PCs for a number of years, I'm surprised that they slipped through testing. But throw in Intel and Nvidia, too? Ouch. That's a whole bunch of balls dropped. Here's hoping that they offer an option to revert to the previous sound engine while they fix the bugs in this one. Because if they don't...

Sorry, Yoshi-P and everyone else. I'm sure Endwalker is brilliant, but you won't be getting my re-up money if the sound is literally headache-inducing audio garbage.

It's funny, back when Halo: The Master Chief Collection came out and had only Halo: Reach available, folks were having audio issues there as well.
Very similar too, with crackling and popping and distorted effects. If you search for "Halo Reach Audio Issues" on YouTube, there's a ton of videos of it.
343 had to eventually patch it but they took so long to do so. If I remember correctly, it was because trying to convert audio from an older game to newer systems messed with the compatibility.

Bumping this up too. Never have I ever had this problem with any of the expansions. What helped me a little bit was changing the audio quality on my PC, along with going to dx9, putting listening position to character and lowerin the volume of sound effects. But it is still there. The audio is SHIT now, and I hate playing on dx9.

This isn't just ''lol it's your fault''. I have new games on my older game PC (Like Baldur's Gate 3, and that's graphically MORE challenging on my PC than FFXIV which plays at nice 50 ish FPS), and that NEVER happened there.

I may be fortuonate that I did not start at the launch of the expansion, but if this is still there, after almost 20 days and the fix did NOTHING then that's not us. I feel sorry for the players who have had this problem since the beggining of the expansion. This might seem drastic, but I canceled my subscription and if it is not fixed I won't be ressubing. I can just play other games with no problems that won't say that it is our PC's fault. Absolutely unacceptable.

I feel like maybe it's been a little less for me since patch 6.01 launched, but I still have audio stutter issues when entering combat and the "fix" mentioned in the patch notes (to lower the audio quality to each device) really doesn't help.

I'm hoping this can be continued to be looked into, because it's a mark on an otherwise stellar expansion IMO.

Adding my voice to this issue.

The only audio issues I had since 6.0 and before 6.0.1 were as follows:
- Something a little weird with the bass, I think, but not terrible.
- Absolutely no combo sound (not low volume, actually no sound).
- Other people's action volume low, although still audible.
- Combat voices of both PCs and NPCs much louder than they should be. Even the unvoiced sound effect volumes of some NPCs' auto-attack (such as Midgardsormr) or getting hit (such as The Griffin) are strangely high.
- Money sound when buying/selling items considerably loud.

I had no audio stuttering problem of any kind at any time before 6.0.1. Now, after 6.0.1, I'm having the same stuttering problem as countless others during combat with normal settings. I also always get it for a few seconds upon logging into an inn room, oddly enough. Changing bit rate and/or hz does nothing at all, nor muting & unmuting Master Volume or muting Ambient Sounds. I never get an FPS drop during it.

The only thing that seems to affect it is setting Listening Position to 100 (not even 95, but 100), and even then it's not a 100% fix; stuttering can still crop up sometimes but much less often then. However, such a setting is naturally uncomfortable and not a solution. Moving camera around so you don't see as many things also seems to affect it. With 6.0.1, I do hear the weaponskill combo sound again, but it's a little quieter than it should be, which implies the intrinsic root cause of the issue is not dealt with.

It seems what someone said in a Reddit thread is the key: It has to do with how many objects are between you and your target or the source. ALL signs point to the awful Spatial Audio as the cause, or more specifically, the engine being changed to support it. It all feels at least a tiny bit weird and just off, honestly, even when it is working.

Please, for the love of god, get rid of Spatial Audio so you can go back to 5.5 sound engine. The game is ruined at its BEST time. To say this is not good is the biggest understatement one could make about FFXIV. If nothing else, please undo whatever was done in 6.0.1 because that only made it worse, or in my case, actually added the stuttering when I had none anywhere before. I'm begging you.

So after 6.0.1 I also have issues with the sound, before that it worked perfectly fine.

Its not as bad as others but I do have slight crackling every so often which doesn't make the game unplayable for me but still lowers the enjoyment.

I have a Ryzen 7 5600x and a RTX 2080, FPS always over 100.

To follow up, I'm happy to say that two times now, I've not gotten any audio stuttering whatsoever in the final dungeon of Endwalker. However, I did get it in the second-to-last dungeon of Endwalker, The Weeping City of Mhach, The Final Steps of Faith, and Alphascape 2.0. I really can't explain it. I originally assumed I got no stuttering in the final dungeon because the environment there may have slightly less simultaenous objects than other dungeons, but Final Steps of Faith and Alphascape 2.0 are just as relatively sparse. I really don't get it.

Please. Just go back to 5.5's sound engine. Please.

Bump. I'm also continuing to have the issue.

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

Fx-8350 user here. Changing bitrate from 24bit48k to 16bit44.1k (lowest possible) was not even noticeably impactful on the amount of stuttering. Changing from DX11 to DX9 helps audio but it hurts graphics and at the end of the day the audio issue is still there.

I don't think LatencyMon results really mean anything....I am getting spikes over 2k µs range even without any applications running, yet I've never experienced audio anomalies while using any other applications. With FFXIV open it did spike up to 4.6k µs however, but the audio stuttering was happening even when it was consistently showing measurements <1k µs.

Want to bump this thread as well due to the comprehensive list of links on the main page. Fix the issue already!

Make legacy sound settings option for us so we can use SHB sound engine. This new sound engine is problematic.

I'm 99.99% certain that the issue is the implementation of the "Immersive Spatial Audio" as turning it on fixes it for me, but the audio sounds awful. Like its underwater or something.

My audio issues come from like some sort of stutter issue where it tries to load crowd audio but can't.

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Originally Posted by KinDranex

I'm 99.99% certain that the issue is the implementation of the "Immersive Spatial Audio" as turning it on fixes it for me, but the audio sounds awful. Like its underwater or something.

My audio issues come from like some sort of stutter issue where it tries to load crowd audio but can't.

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Turning "Immersive Spatial Audio" also seems to fix it, though if I change equalizer to anything but Normal, it causes stuttering.
I'm now sort of at a cross-roads.
I could leave the spatial audio on. No more crackling. But everything sounds weird.
I could turn the spatial audio off. Crackling is back. But everything sounds normal.

And it's kind of a hard decision.
Constant discomfort from hearing the underwater variants of combat sounds like that is leaving me with a permanent >:\ face when it's on...
OR...
Physical pain to my ears from the crackling and static filled audio...

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Originally Posted by Grimno

Turning "Immersive Spatial Audio" also seems to fix it, though if I change equalizer to anything but Normal, it causes stuttering.
I'm now sort of at a cross-roads.
I could leave the spatial audio on. No more crackling. But everything sounds weird.
I could turn the spatial audio off. Crackling is back. But everything sounds normal.

And it's kind of a hard decision.
Constant discomfort from hearing the underwater variants of combat sounds like that is leaving me with a permanent >:\ face when it's on...
OR...
Physical pain to my ears from the crackling and static filled audio...

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It worked for me, though I feel kinda sick about it. I tried the ISA because I saw reports that it helped resolve this issue, instantly. Well : https://youtu.be/aqD8JIBqcxE Judge for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Caderyn

It worked for me, though I feel kinda sick about it. I tried the ISA because I saw reports that it helped resolve this issue, instantly. Well : https://youtu.be/aqD8JIBqcxE Judge for yourself.

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At the end after swapping back to Spatial, there's still audio issues it seems in that video.

thats when I alt tab to turn off the recording. Which also was absolutely no problem before 6.0 xD

Very unlikely that we are getting this fixed anytime soon, given the holiday season.
My estimate - 10th January at best.
Realistically, given squeezix's public stance on the issue - somewhere around February.

It's actually insane how horrible this is.

I played since EA- I stayed up late through MSQ...heard it during the first dungeon. No problem, right? Just a one-time thing...I mean, after all my PC is pretty trash. Oh, how wrong I was.

Completed the entirety of Endwalker in 3 days and the problem NEVER stopped during combat. You know all the amazing music through the dungeons and trials? Yup, 100% fucked up because of the audio bug. I couldn't even hear the final trial music. Nor the first trial...or the second. And it sucks because it completely ruined my experience-- I'm sure that I would've had a better time had the audio been fine. And now they're blaming the users and saying it's all of our faults the audio's fucked? This is a AAA, billion dollar company. This type of behavior is unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by Muew19

Make legacy sound settings option for us so we can use SHB sound engine. This new sound engine is problematic.

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I second this. If SE really can't implement spatial audio without it causing problems, at least give us the option to un-implement it. I hate to say it since I'm a big fan of the game, but it feels like SE is really ruining a lot of players' experiences just for the sake of a market deal with some third-party company. This should not be happening at the launch of an expansion.

It doesn't seem like they are even acknowledging this issue. I'm close to unsubbing and refunding the FF7 Remake (since it is also suffering from this problem). It is making them both completely unplayable.

I'm dealing with a pinched nerve in my neck, so I was trying to switch from my heavy Corsair Void gaming headset to a much more light weight pair of bluetooth exercise headphones (from Letscom.) These same headphones output sound crystal clear from my phone, but when I tried to boot the game today, I finally got hit with the garbled audio bug.

My regular sound bar speaker (from Reddragon) and my Corsair Void headset do not have this issue.

So there's something specific being lost in translation from the game sound to the bluetooth sound driver on my computer.

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Originally Posted by ShadowedStranger

Realistically, given squeezix's public stance on the issue - somewhere around May.

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FTFY.

Considering they won community support you'd think they'd do a little more about this with all the posts and bug reports. Blaming "10 year old chips" or "amd" or "intel" when it's happening on all setups (I was told "maybe your ram is too low" when I run 128gb and the primary use of my system is mixing producing and mastering sound for a studio that does both stereo and dolby surround tech....)

Yeah, update didn't fix anything for me. It feels worse and more frequent now if anything.

bummed after reading all this cause I rely so much on the sound to play and the stuttering has made it so I can't follow the flow of the fights. Went searching cause was hoping it would be something simple as "turn of this setting" and viola fixed, but knowing that isn't the case, gunna be really hard to look forward to playing for the few hours I'm able to every few days u_u)

thanks for compiling everything and really hope there is a patch for it soon.