Audio popping issue

I get the audio issues even on the log in screen.

I have the same issue, whether with headphones, speakers, or monitor speakers. But a user on Reddit found a partial solution for me.

Esc -> System Config -> Sound Settings -> Listening Position. I changed this from 10 to 100 as the user recommended, and the distortion drastically reduced. While it still pops and stutters for a couple seconds every few minutes, it is no longer near constant.

With a maxed out Listening Position, when it does stutter I can stop the (now short) stutter by moving the camera around. Then if I move the camera back to where it was the stutter comes back. So it seems to be something with the sound's position logic.

I occasionally get the popping or truncation [bad mp3 encoding] sound and have had it happen 3 times. It is random for me but only in EW areas that are packed.

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Originally Posted by Kiaren33

I have the same issue, whether with headphones, speakers, or monitor speakers. But a user on Reddit found a partial solution for me.

Esc -> System Config -> Sound Settings -> Listening Position. I changed this from 10 to 100 as the user recommended, and the distortion drastically reduced. While it still pops and stutters for a couple seconds every few minutes, it is no longer near constant.

With a maxed out Listening Position, when it does stutter I can stop the (now short) stutter by moving the camera around. Then if I move the camera back to where it was the stutter comes back. So it seems to be something with the sound's position logic.

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Thanks for the information. I will try that tonight.

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Originally Posted by Kiaren33

I have the same issue, whether with headphones, speakers, or monitor speakers. But a user on Reddit found a partial solution for me.

Esc -> System Config -> Sound Settings -> Listening Position. I changed this from 10 to 100 as the user recommended, and the distortion drastically reduced. While it still pops and stutters for a couple seconds every few minutes, it is no longer near constant.

With a maxed out Listening Position, when it does stutter I can stop the (now short) stutter by moving the camera around. Then if I move the camera back to where it was the stutter comes back. So it seems to be something with the sound's position logic.

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it stutters in cutszenes, where the camera movement is bound by code. so the "hold still" aspect of the cam wont work for me.
The change in options didnt do anything either.

I've been saying the same thing in other threads. Audio is still unbearable no matter what I do or try.

I just did an important story beat, and the audio during the fight ruined the entire experience. I was so distracted by how awful it was that I didn't even absorb the mechanics or the dialog or anything. I was seeing red. If you're in the same boat, which you probably are if you're reading this thread, I suggest holding off on the first trial. Go craft or gather or something... spare yourself this bs.

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Originally Posted by Fyxation

I've been saying the same thing in other threads. Audio is still unbearable no matter what I do or try.

I just did an important story beat, and the audio during the fight ruined the entire experience. I was so distracted by how awful it was that I didn't even absorb the mechanics or the dialog or anything. I was seeing red. If you're in the same boat, which you probably are if you're reading this thread, I suggest holding off on the first trial. Go craft or gather or something... spare yourself this bs.

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That's what I'm doing. I did the two lines and I'm up to the first dungeon and working on DoH and DoL. Got my BTN and MIN to 86 already just gathering what I need for the first basic crafted items.

I have the audio issues bad since Endwalker. Have tried every fix mentioned here and elsewhere I have found and nothing eliminates it completely, particularly in raids or dungeons when there are a lot of effects going off. But setting listening position to 100, equalizer on standard, other players sound effects turned off, and that new spatial surround setting turned on (using free trial currently), all of those things seem to make it slightly better and somewhat tolerable. But this bug has definitely ruined for me what I thought would be an awesome mostly bug free release (given they had the extra 2 weeks to find and sort bugs like this).

I am very disappointed we are almost 4 days in and I am yet to see anything official from SE about it, they could at least acknowledge the issue. It seems fairly common to at least some degree for most people I've talked to in game and online. Surely they knew about something like this before release?? I am almost certain it has to do with the new spatial surround they have added, everything was fine before EW then they add this and the sound quality drops through the floor... And they expect us to pay for this thing?? And it bugs me that activating it helps with the issue because it just makes me think that the solution is just going to be "buy the gamepack or suffer low quality audio", seems like a bit of a scheme to me.

SE NEEDS TO ADDRESS THIS! I understand there are many things going on at SE with the launch and keeping servers up and all that, BUT for those of us that are suffering this issue it is enough to bring tears to the eyes. Yoshi had a cry about the game not being up to 'his standards' a couple of weeks ago, and promised us that the 2 week delay would be worth it... Well sorry to say it Yoshi, but you'd still be crying if you had to put up with this!

IF ANYONE from SE is reading this, please I beg you, call your supervisor, hell, call Yoshi himself and bring this issue to the attention of someone who has authority to acknowledge and then do something about it. We can deal with server congestion, we can deal with wait times and error 2002s... But we cannot deal with the game audio popping, fizzing, cutting out and/or sounding like it's coming out of a 1980s telephone.... I'd rather they take the servers down for a few hours to patch this than have to wait until 6.01 (or beyond), I think it is effecting enough people that it deserves a hotfix no matter the cost in downtime.

And as other's have suggested, if you are just starting out and discovered you have this issue, I'm sorry to say it, but you might as well hold off on playing because it will really tarnish the entire experience and you'll just get more and more disappointed the more you tolerate and put up with it, and those first time moments like MSQ cutscenes, dungeons and trials, you can never get back... Having those moments ruined by this audio bug is actually heart wrenching, don't do it to yourself, it's not worth it.

I guess that's my rant over.

At this point, what would make me the happiest is just acknowledgement from SE that is is a known issue, because from there I can at least be certain that it'll get fixed sooner than later. Right now we're just blind-trouble shooting and it feels like we're left to our own devices for the time being, which is just frustrating.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

At this point, what would make me the happiest is just acknowledgement from SE that is is a known issue, because from there I can at least be certain that it'll get fixed sooner than later. Right now we're just blind-trouble shooting and it feels like we're left to our own devices for the time being, which is just frustrating.

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so far this might help.

https://twitter.com/SOKENsquareenix/...20178749845504

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Soken some players are having audio issues since the sound engine update. People have posted on the forums and not gotten a response yet

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If you have any questions that we can answer immediately, we will try to fix them before release.
Current reported issues will take time to investigate. Please wait until we are fixed.
We've already started working on it.

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Originally Posted by KnottySloth

so far this might help.

https://discord.com/channels/6758372...62199938641980

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The link doesn't work, but if the quotes are anything to go by, then that does help me feel better. Thx for the share!

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

The link doesn't work, but if the quotes are anything to go by, then that does help me feel better. Thx for the share!

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Sorry i put the discord link to twitter in. i edited it.
Its late here

IT CAME BACK!!!
NOTHING IS RIGHT IN THIS WORLD!!
Honestly this is kinda very infuriating.

I'm sorry to hear that bro. Try your best for it to not ruin your day. It's not worth. They have to fix it on their end. I'm still baffled they haven't publicly addressed it... 1 (ONE) TWEET from the sound dev isn't really giving me hopes that it's gonna be resolved anytime soon. I guess we gotta play other games in the meantime.

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Originally Posted by GorthRedsteel

I'm sorry to hear that bro. Try your best for it to not ruin your day. It's not worth. They have to fix it on their end. I'm still baffled they haven't publicly addressed it... 1 (ONE) TWEET from the sound dev isn't really giving me hopes that it's gonna be resolved anytime soon. I guess we gotta play other games in the meantime.

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Yeah, now that I have stopped playing and have decided to just wait for a fix rather than try to tolerate it I am not letting ruin my day. Just trying to avoid spoilers now and be patient until a fix is in place. I'm glad Soken as at least made some kind of aknowledgement, better than some SE "no name", if it has reached Soken's desk we can be sure it must be one of the top issues they are working on and it's not just thrown on the backburner.

My only concern is that it will take a while or we will just have to compromise on quality because of the paid 3rd party integration they have with the audio engine now. And I hate to think the agreements SE have entered into with this other company that could really complicate the process of finding a fix that works for everyone. It was poorly tested and poorly implemented in my opinion, I guess that's the risk when they outsource parts of the game engine.

Anyway, Godspeed Soken, you have never let us down before, I believe in you! lol

Bump for visibility. Been having the same issues since launch and I've never had an issue in years. I've been waiting to progress through MSQ until this is resolved. I hope a fix is on the way.

So - using Square's Audio Enhancement thing fixed all the issues I had.... For the idk 20 minutes of time I got to play.
When I logged on today, it was not only BACK. Whether I used the spatial audio thing or not. I dont think the spatial audio fixed anything to begin with. Just seemed like a lucky streak.
It IS noticably better with Spatial Audio, but it still completely ruins the experience.

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Originally Posted by Potchoko

I see I'm not the only one with this problem
Well I've already tried running the game on dx9 but clearly this is a problem with the game and not my machine.
I hope it gets resolved, the experience I had is very frustrating, unfortunately the way is to wait for a patch to solve the problem

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Updating:

yesterday I tested another video card on my pc and got an improvement

I use an RX560, yesterday I put a GTX 660 in place and to my surprise the game ran very fluid, I rarely had the audio problem, I managed to go a whole DG, but it still wasn't solved.

strange because technically an RX560 is more powerful than a GTX 660.

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Originally Posted by Potchoko

Updating:

yesterday I tested another video card on my pc and got an improvement

I use an RX560, yesterday I put a GTX 660 in place and to my surprise the game ran very fluid, I rarely had the audio problem, I managed to go a whole DG, but it still wasn't solved.

strange because technically an RX560 is more powerful than a GTX 660.

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Interesting. I did wonder if graphics card could have something to do with it because I noticed my framerate drop slightly when the audio starts to freak out. I'm running a gtx 1060 6gb, should have no issues running the game on high settings at 1080p@60. Unfortunately I do not have access to a spare card to test this out for myself. But then again if it were an issue with gpu then I would have expected the issue to be more isolated to a specific gpu or set of drivers, but you have an AMD card and I have an Nvidia an we are both suffering the same problems. But indeed the more I ponder it, the more possible issues I can think of that may be causing it. Still hoping it's an issue with the game engine rather than a hardware issue. Fingers crossed for some kind of update on it soon.

EDIT: Oh my I am an , I just realised your card is also Nvidia haha well then, you maybe on to something. Maybe it's an Nvidia issue, interested to see if anyone else is running Nvidia? I might try roll back my driver just for the hell of it to see if it makes a difference, since I'm out of other ideas anyway, who knows.

Personally, I've been wondering if using a separate sound card might help as well, if not simply a different motherboard entirely, as I'm noticing a fairly common factor seems to be realtek onboard audio/asus motherboards... trouble is, I don't really have any extra sound cards laying around to test that theory, and if it *is* the motherboard to blame instead... well, that's not really something you can easily swap out without having to reinstall the operating system :/

I use an Nvidia 1660 as well and have the same stuttering issue. But I have a friend who uses Nvidia as well and is fine. The only difference is that he uses Intel parts, and I have AMD parts. I have some parts on the way (PC was overdue for an upgrade anyway), so I’ll keep y’all updated if there’s a difference.

I found a possible fix for myself. Not sure if it’s long term or if the issues will start up again or not. Will keep you posted as I continue to test.

I switched to DX9, as others have suggested and that helped A LITTLE. Another thing I’ve seen suggested either here or on Reddit, can’t remember, is go into System Configuration -> Sound Settings and set “Listening Position” to 100. I did this BEFORE logging into the game and did it on the title screen. I am in game now and set it back to 10 and haven’t experienced anything buggy or skipping.

Like I said, I don’t know if it’s a solution or even if it will be a long lasting one. Will post here as I continue to play.

No Nvidia here. I use Radeon R9 280, and I'm still being affected with the audio issue. Also, no Intel here.

CPU: AMD FX-8370E Eight-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASUS M5A78L-M PLUS/USB3
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 280

I use Realtek for audio, though.

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Originally Posted by LobsterFusion

I found a possible fix for myself. Not sure if it’s long term or if the issues will start up again or not. Will keep you posted as I continue to test.

I switched to DX9, as others have suggested and that helped A LITTLE. Another thing I’ve seen suggested either here or on Reddit, can’t remember, is go into System Configuration -> Sound Settings and set “Listening Position” to 100. I did this BEFORE logging into the game and did it on the title screen. I am in game now and set it back to 10 and haven’t experienced anything buggy or skipping.

Like I said, I don’t know if it’s a solution or even if it will be a long lasting one. Will post here as I continue to play.

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I rembember testing that while in open world, and no good for me...

I get you. The more things we all try and suggest is one step closer to finding a solution. Hopefully SE gets it patched soon so we don’t have to continue this and can get back to playing and MSQing. :)

Looks like they recently updated the "known issues" to include something regarding the audio;

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Sound related issues (Added: Dec. 7 5:15 a.m. PST)

We have been receiving reports of sound related problems and feedback. We are planning to fix the sound driver in the next patch for some bugs that cause sound to be lost under certain setups, such as no audio playback during cutscenes. We will check the factors that cause these problems and address them individually, so we would appreciate your patience. We will also check for feedback such as "it's getting harder to hear" or "the sound doesn't feel right" individually, and if any adjustments are needed, we will fix them in the patch as well.

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there's a light at the end of the tunnel \o/

Idk if this will work for you but it worked for me.

went to system config, sound settings,

Volume Settings: MV-100,BGM-10,SE-10,Voice-10,SS-10,AS-10,Perfomance-10.
Player effects volume: all 60
Equalizer: Standard
Spatial Audio *this one seems to be optional from what I tested*: ON

changing it all to that seemed to mostly *though not completely it still pops in from time to time* get rid of the static for me and I just adjusted the sound on my headset to be able to hear better in game, hope it helps I messed with my head set for ages but adjusting in game volumes seem to be the only thing that worked. I
never seemed to have any fps drops or freezing during static issues however

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Originally Posted by Crimson1128

Looks like they recently updated the "known issues" to include something regarding the audio;

there's a light at the end of the tunnel \o/

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Nice, but is that patch 6.01 on the 21st...? We'll have to wait 2 weeks...?

Seriously, 2 weeks for this fix? are you kidding me?

If they give us 2 weeks of free sub then its all fine. if not, then we have a problem

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Originally Posted by minopoki

Nice, but is that patch 6.01 on the 21st...? We'll have to wait 2 weeks...?

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Yes the "next patch" comment worries me. There are a lot of us who can't do MSQ because of this.

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Originally Posted by Crimson1128

Personally, I've been wondering if using a separate sound card might help as well, if not simply a different motherboard entirely, as I'm noticing a fairly common factor seems to be realtek onboard audio/asus motherboards... trouble is, I don't really have any extra sound cards laying around to test that theory, and if it *is* the motherboard to blame instead... well, that's not really something you can easily swap out without having to reinstall the operating system :/

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I have tried running audio out via my GPU HDMI and also via my motherboards on board realtek ALC892 AUX ports and the issue persists either way.

Well they just released this:

"In the early morning of Wednesday, December 8, we will be conducting maintenance across all Worlds to address server errors aside from those mentioned above, as well as a few issues that can be resolved on the server side. This requires all servers to go offline and is estimated to take about four hours to complete. Details on maintenance timing will be announced in the future. I’d like to ask for your understanding and cooperation regarding this matter as well."

Although they didn't mention the sound issue specifically so I fear we will be waiting til 6.01 for any real progress on it. But I live in hope.

seriously, we have to wait till 6.01 for the fixes? i can't even continue msq because of this issue, the audio issue is really distracting me, especially for the cutscene and battle

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Originally Posted by Sekigawa321

seriously, we have to wait till 6.01 for the fixes? i can't even continue msq because of this issue, the audio issue is really distracting me, especially for the cutscene and battle

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I started this game when Shadowbringers was already out, and I passed the last 2 years completing old content so that I could catch up when the next expansion was out, and I was so excited to finally be on time when 6.0 was to come out, and that I would be able to do the new content when it was still new, that it would be a nice challenge to try the dungeons and trials when most players would still not know the fight and all.

But now, it seems I'll have to wait until next patch is out together with Pandaemonium, when people will be already at level 90, doing raids and extremes, and I'll just be behind as always, joining parties where all players already know the content, except for me, and all of that because of a stupid audio bug.

I mean, it's not like I have not been enjoying the game while being "late" for the contents, but I just think a new expansion release is a very special ocurrence, and that it would be a special experience, at least for me, being able to enjoy it when sharing with the whole community the feeling of playing new content.

All I can say is that this situation makes me sad...

I can't even do anything without the audio being choppy,literally have to keep the game muted

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Originally Posted by OmniusOmnium

I have tried running audio out via my GPU HDMI and also via my motherboards on board realtek ALC892 AUX ports and the issue persists either way.

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while I'm unsure if a gpu would act as a sound card itself (google isn't really giving me a clear answer), that does indeed make me think it's a thing with asus motherboards themselves, as realtek is an asus thing, and I've yet to see anyone with this same issue that *hasn't* had an asus MB... definitely seems to be the common factor.

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Originally Posted by Crimson1128

while I'm unsure if a gpu would act as a sound card itself (google isn't really giving me a clear answer), that does indeed make me think it's a thing with asus motherboards themselves, as realtek is an asus thing, and I've yet to see anyone with this same issue that *hasn't* had an asus MB... definitely seems to be the common factor.

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As far as I understand it the GPU and the Motherboard "Sound Cards" are completely independent. The HDMI out runs on Nvidia drivers and can be used even when the onboard soundcard, which runs on realtek drivers, has been completely disabled. I think most modern GPUs have on board sound cards for HDMI and DVI outputs.

Edit: I just did a bit of research, the GPU doesn't actually do any sound processing as such because it just parses a digital audio stream to whatever external DAC you have it plugged into. In my case a TV screen, so it's actually the TVs internal sound card that is doing all the sound processing and conversion in that instance. But still has the issue so leads me to believe that this is a software issue not a hardware one.

Update on previous post I made here, make sure you set your display to border less window when you turn off DX11 otherwise you will crash with DX errors. So far turning off all sound enhancements, setting listening position to 100 has fixed the issue for my partner but her game still freezes from time to time being around too many players. Maybe turning down objects displayed and graphics settings to standard might help certain people, it's helped her so far.

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Originally Posted by OmniusOmnium

As far as I understand it the GPU and the Motherboard "Sound Cards" are completely independent. The HDMI out runs on Nvidia drivers and can be used even when the onboard soundcard, which runs on realtek drivers, has been completely disabled. I think most modern GPUs have on board sound cards for HDMI and DVI outputs.

Edit: I just did a bit of research, the GPU doesn't actually do any sound processing as such because it just parses a digital audio stream to whatever external DAC you have it plugged into. In my case a TV screen, so it's actually the TVs internal sound card that is doing all the sound processing and conversion in that instance. But still has the issue so leads me to believe that this is a software issue not a hardware one.

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in that case, i suppose the next step in troubleshooting, before moving on to the software aspect, would be to rule out the motherboard as a possibility, by installing a non-asus motherboard in a pc that's been having these issues, and seeing if that fixes the issue... that being said, either result isn't really optimal. If it does fix the issue, then while a fix would have been found, it's not exactly simple by any means, nor cheap... and I can't say many people would be willing to swap out a motherboard because of a single game suddenly having issues with it. On the other hand, if it doesn't fix the issue... then we're left with no leads on what else is causing it, and basically just have to hope that SE manages to fix whatever's triggering these issues in certain systems.

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Originally Posted by Crimson1128

in that case, i suppose the next step in troubleshooting, before moving on to the software aspect, would be to rule out the motherboard as a possibility, by installing a non-asus motherboard in a pc that's been having these issues, and seeing if that fixes the issue... that being said, either result isn't really optimal. If it does fix the issue, then while a fix would have been found, it's not exactly simple by any means, nor cheap... and I can't say many people would be willing to swap out a motherboard because of a single game suddenly having issues with it. On the other hand, if it doesn't fix the issue... then we're left with no leads on what else is causing it, and basically just have to hope that SE manages to fix whatever's triggering these issues in certain systems.

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Well my motherboard is gigabyte so there's your non asus motherboard lol. I think next step is looking into drivers, particularly anything tied into directx 11. Because I'm fairly sure before 6.0 the games audio engine ran on DX9 and it seems highly likely to me that switching it over to DX11 is what has caused the issue, whether or not it is related to the spatial surround pack I wouldn't know. But DX11 is tied into a lot of stuff these days, not just GPU, so the list of potential issues with it is long and technical. At this point all we can really do is leave it in the hands of SE, they have the technical know how to troubleshoot it. All I have is google lol.