Audio popping issue

[FatalCharm]

The problems(which didn't exist before endwalker) are obviously tied to that stupid spatial audio pack that NOBODY asked for. If you can't make it work properly, get rid of it. Don't jerk us around trying to put the blame on people's hardware.

I agree 100%

[Puss_Kat]

Actually encountered someone during Trial Roulette who was suffering from choppy audio to the point they had to mute their end and pausing to do so got them killed...

Mute globally, do not mute the individual channels or if you do, set to 1 on the slider instead of 0 or mute.

having the channels muted in some fights can lead to the audio thread maxing out a cpu core and hanging up the game until the audio processing completes also leading to deaths.

[ClaraKitty]

Nothing you can do but wait for the fix from devs. Well, nothing except upgrading your prehistoric machine. lel

You're right on the former, but the latter, not so much. The devs confirmed (as well as other players) it's on their end, not ours. My PC isn't even 3 years old and having the issues.

[thesm1l3y]

Mute globally, do not mute the individual channels or if you do, set to 1 on the slider instead of 0 or mute.

having the channels muted in some fights can lead to the audio thread maxing out a cpu core and hanging up the game until the audio processing completes also leading to deaths.

With mute globally you mean turn down the master, right?

[Puss_Kat]

With mute globally you mean turn down the master, right?

Yes, i encountered several second lockups on P4 myself since the floor mechanics introduce additional sound sources pushing beyond the limit.

[Ravnus]

I can say that since the Endwalker launch I have this issue and it got worse after the patch.

I do enjoy the game as I can and love it, but for someone that is musician this kind of issue really upsets me!

unlike some fan boys who have already commented here, even though I love this game, I know there are things that can and should be improved and this, mainly, is one of them.
I know they may not know what causes the problem or where exactly it is, but not recognizing that there is a problem having a thread already with so many comments containing good information is simply dishonest, something I didn't expect from Square Enix.

As a customer we all have a right to demand a full working product, that is what we expect when we buy something. I trust they'll find and solve the problem, I hope at least. But for now their behavior about this issue is disappointing.

[Tokavo]

I can say that since the Endwalker launch I have this issue and it got worse after the patch.

I do enjoy the game as I can and love it, but for someone that is musician this kind of issue really upsets me!

unlike some fan boys who have already commented here, even though I love this game, I know there are things that can and should be improved and this, mainly, is one of them.
I know they may not know what causes the problem or where exactly it is, but not recognizing that there is a problem having a thread already with so many comments containing good information is simply dishonest, something I didn't expect from Square Enix.

As a customer we all have a right to demand a full working product, that is what we expect when we buy something. I trust they'll find and solve the problem, I hope at least. But for now their behavior about this issue is disappointing.

Official response of the support service

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.

[XenophineEX]

Back to this subject, I've finally been able to lower my temperatures.
It turns out the problem wasn't my coolers being too old, but, and I am ashamed to say it, but because my radiator was FILTHY
After CLEANING it (and only superficially, for I haven't removed it to clean it), my temperature average dropped about 20ºC
The image below shows how it got after playing the game for about 10-20 minutes, much much better than my previous temperature numbers:

So, when my CPU stays at 4.1GHz, game doesn't stutter (although, I'm not sure if it's 100% good), but the thing is my CPU STILL THROTTLES.
When the Temperature #1 of the image above gets to 58-60ºC, the CPU throttles, and goes down to 1.4GHz, and stutter keeps happening.
(Differently to what I have said before, Temperature #1 seems to be the MB CPU Socket temperature, and not the MB temperature, which is likely to be Temperature #2)

Before cleaning the radiator, it would throttle at 75ºC, but now at 58ºC, which is weird, considering the specifications say my CPU max temperature is 70.5ºC.

Lowering the game graphical settings to the lowest, and even FPS to 30, makes it throttle less, but it still happens.

I still have some things to try the next few days:
- a better cleaning of radiator, by removing it and taking out all of the dust that's still there;
- one of my 3 internal fans (not the CPU ones) is not moving, so replacing it might help;
- trying other suggestions from this thread to relieve stress.

But if someone has any suggestions on how to avoid throttling, I would appreciate it.
Not sure if GPU being around 70ºC makes any difference. I heard this value was ok for GPUs...

Glad that worked out for you. As far as throttling, if it isn't your temperatures you need to check you pc power settings. "Full power", nothing turns off till you turn it off needs to be set. Having a faulty fan that isn't even moving is directing power to a node that isn't spinning, eventually it will get so hot it melts and could potentially start a fire; so you need to fix that. System specifications for "max" temp mean that is the point the product starts to fail. It will start failing long before it gets there as well, that is just the point their testing indicated it happened all the time. And anything past max could permanently damage the equipment.

[XenophineEX]

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.

Should maybe have the developers have a dedicated AMD rig they test all these new patches and fixes on, instead of assuming we all use intel processors.

"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."

Just say it is only affecting AMD processors. *eye roll*

we also have this tidbit: Quote Originally Posted by Nommers View Post
Sorry, but this is the very first thing Square Enix told us to try several weeks ago, and as far as I know it didn't work for anyone.

There was another tweet from Soken yesterday promising that fixes will be included in "the next version." https://twitter.com/sokensquareenix/...792569867?s=21 I sincerely hope he doesn't mean 6.1 because that is months off. The post-6.05 Known Issues post on Lodestone mentioned that they wanted to have the two listed issues fixed by the weekend. One's already been fixed. Maybe there will be another patch today fixing the other one that also attempts to address the audio. I don't exactly have my hopes up but I guess we'll see.

EDIT: There's also been a post by a community rep over on the Japanese forums: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5797104

DeepL translation:


Together with Soken's tweet, this is very good news. The post immediately following this also mentions that FX series CPUs are a rarity in Japan. Given the apparent inconsistency in how the bug affects other hardware configurations I suppose it makes sense that the issue would take a long time to track down. I'm still praying for a Lodestone post so that we don't have to dig through twitter and filter forum posts through the language barrier. Still, here's hoping this is fixed sooner than later.

Says right at the bottom the Japanese culture doesn't use AMD processors. (Something I also said)

I would also like to add over-clocking your amd processor works for the base game and most of the expansions, once you get to the newest one... it is no, something clearly isn't working right no matter what you do. I'm not even going to play anymore into the new expansion until that is fixed... it isn't even grit your teeth and bear it and sometimes it works level. It is always going bad.

[rojimboo]

Just say it is only affecting AMD processors. *eye roll*

I don't think that's true though.