Audio popping issue

[EnkiduAwakened]

I'm just going to say this about the AMD CPU issue: even if the issue is traced to older AMD CPUs, I am currently using an AMD CPU that is explicitly stated to be compatible to the game according to Square Enix's website (and was prior to the expansion's release). Therefore, if there is a problem with the game running on this specific hardware item that they are refusing to fix, Square Enix needs to give me my money back for the expansion as well as the monthly subscription fees they have charged me since Endwalker launched, which is when the issue started occuring for me.

That or fix the issue for AMD users. Point being that it shouldn't matter if AMDs are inferior. They advertised that the game works with this hardware component. The product they sold to us does not.

[LegolasLover2003]

I'm not an AMD user and it happens for me. I seem to only notice it when doing AOEs or in FATES or Dungeons where a lot of firepower is going off. Then it starts to stutter/echo and I have to turn the sound off. Happens in PVP too. Only place in game I've noticed it aside from those is at the Great Work inside the building with the steam.
It's still happening though cause it happened yesterday in the Blashphemies dungeon.

[Nommers]

Last official thing I heard was Soken confirming on Twitter that the fix is already 'in place' and will probably release before 6.1, but is currently still being tested on different configurations... Hopefully that means it won't be too long now


https://twitter.com/SOKENsquareenix/...31647407362049

This is great news, but this tweet is five days old. NOT EVERYONE CHECKS TWITTER AND THE FORUMS, SQUARE ENIX. At this point it's been over a month and a half since the bug was introduced, a month since it was made worse and introduced for people who didn't get it in the first round, almost two weeks since a community manager said anything, and there's still not been a single acknowledgement on Lodestone. If it doesn't make it into the Oceania DC update next week (and I'm not getting my hopes up), it will likely have taken AT LEAST two months to fix it. And not a peep on Lodestone, while fancy Panasonic head(neck?)phones and that Immerse crap gets advertised at us instead.

I'm just baffled. I expect better from these devs. The only reason I'm not a furious ball of incandescent rage is that I've been playing other games. If they can't refund my wasted sub time, the least they can do is apologize.

EDIT: I just want to clarify - I'm not angry about how long it's taking to fix the problem. I appreciate the logistical nightmare of trying to test this for all possible hardware configurations (although it really should have been taken care of BEFORE the launch of a major expansion). I'm mad about the total absence of official communication. There's just no excuse for the silence. And no, forum posts and tweets do not count.

[ClaraKitty]

I mean....if you don't actively check places where news is posted regularly, that's on you, imho. Twitter and Forums has always been their main communication. They don't use the launcher for little updates. Launcher is for events, patch notes, emergency maintenance, store updates, etc. I've always made a point to check ALL areas of communication. Even Blizzard doesn't post every little thing on BNet. No company does, so this isn't some unique thing to Square. You need to take it upon yourself to check more than one location (especially considering their support has always been twitter). You can't be mad at them because you didn't check the places they post support stuff more regularly.

[Ziero1986]

I've been plagued by this issue since Endwalker Launch.
AMD FX-8350
16 GB DDR3
1050ti 4GB

Game used to run fine (60 fps+) before endwalker, still runs fine fps wise, but this odd audio stutter that changing every setting I could think of doesn't fix at all.

[Nommers]

You can't be mad at them because you didn't check the places they post support stuff more regularly.

I can absolutely be angry, especially when the various lines of communication seem to actively conflict. For example, when 6.05 launched, the audio stutter wasn't listed as a known issue in the patch notes. After some back and forth with Support trying to get a refund for my sub time, I received an email which you can read here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-audio-stutter specifically saying that it was still a "known issue" and was being investigated.

THE VERY NEXT DAY, Square Enix posted a roundup of known issues after the launch of 6.05 on Lodestone: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...057d6c601c769b

No mention of it at all.

That just doesn't make sense.

Not everyone uses social media (I purposely avoid it - and honestly I can't even figure out how to find some of Soken's tweets without a direct link). Not everyone has time to trawl through a 100-page-long forum thread looking for scraps of info left by community managers weeks ago (in fact I'd argue NOBODY has time for that). EVERYONE sees Lodestone. But what gets posted there? Immerse. Panasonic speakers. F@&!ing polygonal grapes. Not "we're sorry the game you're paying a sub for has been unplayable for over a month, we're working on it." If anyone from Square sees this, please just copy-paste that into a Lodestone post. That's ALL I've wanted to see this entire time.

EDIT: As someone in the thread I made on the response I got from Support mentioned, Square made frequent Lodestone posts on the queue issues and have apologized profusely to the many people affected by that problem. The fact that they haven't said anything similar about the audio stutter makes me feel like we simply don't matter to them. Or more likely, corporate doesn't want them to say anything because of their deals with Embody and Panasonic. Would it be embarrassing to admit, as loudly and publicly as possible, that there are gamebreaking audio problems while also hawking a bunch of pricey audio equipment? Probably. But that's the kind of support I've come to expect from YoshiP and the team.

[Baekho]

I agree with you Nommers, I think it's ridiculous that they regularly post about 'known issues' on the Lodestone but can't be bothered to speak up about this one despite the fact that this thread has now amassed close to 150,000 views (!) so it can't be as niche of a problem as some people claim it to be.

'You can't be mad because you didn't check Twitter' is a baffling stance to take and quite frankly disrespectful as hell and I'm saying this as someone who DOES check social media regularly.

They are a giant company, they are charging us for our subs despite the fact that depending on the person the game is basically unplayable (going through the MSQ without audio is not an option) and they already have a system in place to officially confirm issues. They should have done it. That's not asking for a lot.

[ClaraKitty]

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.

I'll just redirect you two to this, on the forum. They can't make posts about something (likely legally) unless they can reproduce it or some such. So my stance remains the same cause they did address it (right here in this thread) once they could reproduce it on their end and have said they're investigating the issue and plan to fix it. When 6.05 was coming around, they had nothing to say or couldn't say anything. Should they communicate more? Absolutely, but it's not disrespectful to point out they likely couldn't nor is it disrespectful to say a little googling for official support areas would be a wise course to take. I did a lot of it since EW's release since the audio issues are rather annoying (was able to do the msq at least since it didn't mess with msq audio, just fates and dungeons and trials).

[Nommers]

I'm aware of that post. I'm also aware of the tweets. I mentioned both of those in the post you're responding to. I've also done a ton of googling since this all started and I've tested every suggested fix I've found. And I think it's downright unreasonable to expect anyone to do (or to HAVE to do) anywhere near as much digging as I have.

If a legal issue prevented the company from making a statement on the stutter then how did the forum community managers get the okay to say anything? Why is Soken allowed to talk about it on twitter? Why did I get a support email directly acknowledging it right before a Lodestone post ignored it?

This is a subscription game and it's Square's responsibility to inform everyone about the problems the game is facing. It's not on us to hit every corner of the internet scrounging for information. "It's your fault for not jumping through enough hoops" is never a good response to a customer who's been sold a defective product, whether it comes from the company itself or a fellow customer. All it takes is one sentence in one Lodestone post, and I refuse to accept that that's too much to ask.

[Kazemon15]

I would also like to add, by not making an official post on the lodestone about it, those who want answers and can't find them on the forum go to the social media for them and get ridiculed by other players who don't have the issue, saying it's "oh it's you, stop complaining/wanting answers. Get a better computer". When the issues are so obviously buried in the dark, no one believes forum posts or twitter posts because they aren't "official" enough. Only lodestone posts.

Is it really that hard to make an official lodestone post telling about the known issue and it's being fixed? Stop defending bad practices, especially when Yoshi-P's team has done so well in the past with communicating known issues.