Persistent Sound Crackle

[Zaythe]

Hiya!

So I had a thread going quite some time ago found here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Sound-Crackle

I quit the game not long after (the issue was never fixed) and have recently returned. I reinstalled the game and... the problem persists.

Things to note:

* Only ffxiv does this. No other game or app or music has the crackle and pop
* I've adjusted the sound quality in windows 10 as low as it can go
* I've reinstalled
* drivers are up to date.
* It persists with using HDMI, AUX and OPT
* I've tried different speaker systems

I just do not know what I can do at this point. Its so frustrating and I cannot seem to find anyone else who has had this problem.

Please, any help would be phenomenal!

[Breakbeat]

Is it possible for you to make a recording of the sound, either a video of it occurring, or even just audio of it occurring? This would serve two purposes.

1) If the recording of your gameplay doesn't have the pop-and-crackle, it's another piece of evidence that can be used to troubleshoot (in this case it would be proof positive of no issues at your audio ports, no cabling issues, no bluetooth interference, etc.); and
2) Hearing the distortion can help quite a bit in diagnosing a problem. Kinda like when you tell the mechanic that your car's going 'clunk, clunk, screech' ... it doesn't help much until the mechanic can actually hear the noise.

Upload info to your choice of video host, audio host, whatever works for you, and put the link here, if possible.

- I know you said you've tried many different physical setups so #1 above may seem redundant, but any evidence is useful.
- Setting sound quality to a low level in Windows isn't likely to have any effect; feel free to return those settings to normal.

Do check this, though:

- Right-click your speaker icon in your system tray, choose Sound Settings.

Then, for each device you are using (under "Choose your output device"):

- Click "Device Properties" -> "Additional Device Properties" (on the right).
- Check the "Enhancement" tab and temporarily choose "Disable all Sound Effects".

(Features listed under "Enhancement" vary by device and driver, but you generally don't want any "volume boosters" active, as those will clip sound and cause pops and crackles. You also don't really want any 'Environments' or 'Virtualization' or 'Virtual Surround' (not for testing purposes, anyway), and if you have an 'Equalizer' enabled, you'll want to make sure your settings there are subtle (no sliders maxed out) as large corrections via an EQ often also cause clipping/popping. Better to just try with EQ and everything else off; you can return sound settings to your preference if the changes have no effect.)

- Under the 'Advanced' tab, anything at or above 16-bit / 48,000Hz will give you great sound quality. Values above 16/48k are argued over widely, but of little audible effect to the average user. Nothing you could choose here would cause "popping" or "crackling", so feel free to set this value where you like, but note that values below 16-bit or 44,100Hz will diminish sound quality.

- Also under the 'Advanced' tab, your 'Exclusive Mode' options should both be checked, though having these options either enabled or disabled wouldn't cause audio cracks and pops.

Good luck!

[Zaythe]

Hi Breakbeat,

Wow thanks so much for your reply, I am so grateful. I tried your trouble shooting but, had no luck. I’ve recorded a bit of audio which I’m more than happy to share. Where about do I upload it? I’m not to tech savvy with audio/visual uploads.

Once again thank you! Hoping I can get it sorted!

[Zaythe]

A bump for some assistance. Endwalker is out and the problem still persists ☹️

[Zaythe]

Another bump for some help. I’ve seen a few threads on sound stuttering pop up but, my issue was well before Endwalker release and it’s not a stutter I hear. More like the noise you get when say, you used wired earphones and the connection became old and worn and starts to pop and crackle. I’d say hardware but, it’s all been replaced ☹️

ANY HELP WOULD BE AMAZING!

[Nastrautum]

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* 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.

[Zaythe]

Thanks for the reply mate, I so greatly appreciate it. I gave it a shot and yeah… it’s not as bad. Still persists but, not as bad. Would be great if a dev could look into it. I’m gonna be bald with all this hair pulling

[Brandter]

There's some kind of connection between sound crackling and DirectX11 crashes. The game crashes when sounds are played, either doing spells or being in a raid. First I thought it was some issue with the graphics overloading something in the game and crashing the game, but after a reboot and starting the game once it doesn't crash, however, the sound starts crackling and it feels like it's about to crash but it seems to stay stable. Playing the game with sounds turned off also seems to increase stability, and they've added new sound settings to the game which might be a reason why more people have issues with the audio even if you don't have the options turned on. I've tested a lot with different audio devices and so on and either using a dedicated soundcard, not the motherboard's soundcard, and not using any USB or wireless headphones have mitigated almost every crash. WITH THAT BEING SAID! I still get audio crackles and the game almost freezes when it happens but it doesn't go far enough to crash the game. The game really need an update for these issues, all the threads on the forum is either being ignored, ghosted by the forum admins. They NEED to take these issues seriously, even if they just say that they need more info from the players to be able to figure out what audio/graphical issues people have but these issues have been coming and going for years! And now they are being reinforced because the servers have no grace period for people who get these crashes and they have to requeue.

Please Square-Enix! If you need more info there are hundreds of people on the forum that can give you all the information you would ever need! Stop with the auto-replies because it's always the same answer and they NEVER work!

[Zaythe]

Hey thanks for the reply, I greatly appreciate that! Is this in relation to the sound “stuttering”? I’ve seen a few posts about it and have heard the sound it makes but, mine is not the same. Mines more of a little pop and crackle (slight distortion) with in game music here and there.

Some zones are worse than others. For example the night time theme of Lakeland is pretty bad even though it’s such a simple little piano tune. I’ve had this since I can remember too. I’ve always thought it has to be the hardware but, I’ve used countless cables and sound devices and it persists.

My game doesn’t seem to freeze or crash either. Nearly ready to throw my hands up and walk away tbh.

Hopefully the 2 are related and when they finally fix it I’ll have some relief. I haven’t tried not using dx11 yet so I’ll try that today and see what happens