Petition for Legacy pre-Endwalker Sound Option

[Packetdancer]

So, interesting side note, though I don't know if it'll help anyone else or not.

I run FFXIV's audio output manually redirected onto a pure-software sound device (a "virtual audio cable"); I've done this for ages, mostly so that I can capture the audio in OBS for streaming separately from any Windows system sounds, but it also allows me to swap the audio output around (using the 'Listen' tab of the VAC's device entry to have it output onto my headphones or my normal speakers).

The other day, I accidentally blew away those settings and FFXIV was playing audio directly onto my sound device... and I started having this audio issue. When I restored my VAC settings and forced FFXIV's audio through a virtual cable again, the issues stopped.

The problem is 100% in the game engine, but it seems like maybe it's some sort of timing-dependent thing, and that pure-software solutions like the Virtual Audio Cable stuff are not subject to this particular wonkiness? I haven't dug deeply, regardless, I just know it did fix things for me. I don't know if it'll work the same for anyone else, but it can't hurt to try?

There are multiple virtual audio cable options out there; if anyone else wants to try my specific setup and see if it fixes things for them, the one I used in this case was VB-Audio's. They offer one cable free, and then additional driver packs to add more cables are paid; the freebie cable pack would, I figure, be enough for someone else to test this as well.

If anyone else does try this, I'd be curious to know what the result is. I'm assuming that the virtual cable fixed the issue in my case (because it went away when I swapped back to using the cable), but it could hypothetically be pure coincidence.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

So, interesting side note, though I don't know if it'll help anyone else or not.

I run FFXIV's audio output manually redirected onto a pure-software sound device (a "virtual audio cable"); I've done this for ages, mostly so that I can capture the audio in OBS for streaming separately from any Windows system sounds, but it also allows me to swap the audio output around (using the 'Listen' tab of the VAC's device entry to have it output onto my headphones or my normal speakers).

The other day, I accidentally blew away those settings and FFXIV was playing audio directly onto my sound device... and I started having this audio issue. When I restored my VAC settings and forced FFXIV's audio through a virtual cable again, the issues stopped.

The problem is 100% in the game engine, but it seems like maybe it's some sort of timing-dependent thing, and that pure-software solutions like the Virtual Audio Cable stuff are not subject to this particular wonkiness? I haven't dug deeply, regardless, I just know it did fix things for me. I don't know if it'll work the same for anyone else, but it can't hurt to try?

There are multiple virtual audio cable options out there; if anyone else wants to try my specific setup and see if it fixes things for them, the one I used in this case was VB-Audio's. They offer one cable free, and then additional driver packs to add more cables are paid; the freebie cable pack would, I figure, be enough for someone else to test this as well.

If anyone else does try this, I'd be curious to know what the result is. I'm assuming that the virtual cable fixed the issue in my case (because it went away when I swapped back to using the cable), but it could hypothetically be pure coincidence.

Wouldn't that mean it's a driver level issue? Since you are changing the audio device being used with said virtual device?

[Packetdancer]

Wouldn't that mean it's a driver level issue? Since you are changing the audio device being used with said virtual device?

Unfortunately, no.

Windows audio can be finicky in many various ways; witness how Unreal Engine has or had (I don't know if it got fixed in the more recent 4.x lines, though 5.0's early access edition does seem to fix it) a long-standing issue where trying to change your audio output outside of the game could cause it to crash. (Plug in a headset, watch ARK crash to desktop. Try to swap from headset to speakers, watch Remnant: From the Ashes hork up a DirectX error. Etc.)

This didn't happen with all systems; whether you had those crashes was dependent on your audio setup, but the issue itself was still in Unreal Engine.

So, it's quite possible for driver-specific behavior to expose issues in application-level audio code. The issue can be in an application, in other words, but be exposed (or exacerbated) by driver behavior. Whereas if it were an issue with the audio drivers specifically, chances are you'd see the same audio stuttering in many other games.