Audio popping issue

[OmniusOmnium]

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 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.

[OmniusOmnium]

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.

[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

[minopoki]

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

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...

[AsheStrachan]

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

[Crimson1128]

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.

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.

[OmniusOmnium]

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.

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.

[Annihilism]

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.

[Crimson1128]

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.

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.

[OmniusOmnium]

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.

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.