Audio popping issue

[miragedive]

Has anyone else noticed that FFXIV is really heavy on their GPU? My CPU is fine, however FFXIV seems to eat up 97-100% of my GPU and no other games (heavier ones) do this to my PC. This is all so weird, I have not had any issues until EW. After EW I did not have audio problems - some other minor performance issues. But since 6.08 it's gotten pretty bad with my audio.
I have an Intel i5-4460 and GeForce GTX 750 Ti - maybe not the most high end hardware but it has never had this problem before. I tried playing around with audio settings, turned off all unnecessary things, hell, even turned all graphic settings all the way down. Nothing helps, this is isolated to audio alone. I'm very curious what the hell this patch did.

I actually had the opposite issue before. My GPU usage on XIV wouldn't go over 50% and my CPU usage would absolutely spike. Now, my CPU usage remains balanced (although the audio issue still persists), but in high-pressure areas like housing, the Limsa market board at peak hours, etc., my GPU usage goes up to 80-90%. One thing I'll suggest is possibly switching off Hardware Acceleration for Discord if you have that on, but otherwise I think whether it's your GPU or CPU spiking, it's a direct response to the audio issue.

[veeika]

I actually had the opposite issue before. My GPU usage on XIV wouldn't go over 50% and my CPU usage would absolutely spike. Now, my CPU usage remains balanced (although the audio issue still persists), but in high-pressure areas like housing, the Limsa market board at peak hours, etc., my GPU usage goes up to 80-90%. One thing I'll suggest is possibly switching off Hardware Acceleration for Discord if you have that on, but otherwise I think whether it's your GPU or CPU spiking, it's a direct response to the audio issue.

Thank you, I will give this a shot. However, I've had the same issue with Discord not turned on at all, or anything else on my PC. For a time I thought the game has suddenly become too heavy and tried to alleviate it by not having anything else running. Turns out it doesn't matter at all. Same situation whether I have nothing or several apps on alongside FFXIV. The GPU high usage is constant unfortunately, can't even call it "spiking". But this I can deal with as long as my audio would be fine. I am curious though if there is connection there, or if it's just a coincidence.

[Puss_Kat]

I say this with all the respect in the world for you, but please bear in mind that just because you’re not dealing with an issue doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist with others. The team has already confirmed that this is an issue with how different people’s particular CPUs and PC builds interact with the sound engine and the game’s sound drivers. It’s very likely that your PC is one of the builds that were either compatible from the start or had the issue repaired in 6.08. However, this doesn’t mean that all PCs have had the issue fixed so far. Please don’t invalidate other people’s concerns based on your own experiences, as it can prevent people from realising that this is in fact an ongoing bug in the game and discourage them from filing official bug reports.

If you still have doubts about this, I should also note that my bug report about this persistent issue after 6.08 has been marked as Accepted, as well as two other similar bug reports. This is not someone’s PC overheating or someone’s settings being wrong. It’s a bug in the game that I’m sure will be addressed soon.

No disrespect taken, however I've got the tools at hand to have measurable data and reasoning for my stance at this point in time, also a wide array of machines to test with, both directly at hand and indirectly (remote access, etc).

The issue that was at the root of the lower end cpu's suffering audio issues has been rectified entirely, the game audio engine is no longer using cpu excessively to the point that quality and performance is affected, I have reached out to friends with 8700's and Zen 3 cpu's to test in the specified location and there is no issue, either audibly or indicated in Utilisation logging.

There are other possibilities that need to be investigated at the systemic level which might be causing excess CPU usage prior to the game even being run, which would have a knock on effect to causing issues on machines no matter how new or old they are.

Usually i would request a GPU View Trace, as well as DPC/ISR latency measuring with and without diagnostic startup configurations to identify if the issue is absent when only windows services are loaded.

Has anyone else noticed that FFXIV is really heavy on their GPU? My CPU is fine, however FFXIV seems to eat up 97-100% of my GPU and no other games (heavier ones) do this to my PC. This is all so weird, I have not had any issues until EW. After EW I did not have audio problems - some other minor performance issues. But since 6.08 it's gotten pretty bad with my audio.
I have an Intel i5-4460 and GeForce GTX 750 Ti - maybe not the most high end hardware but it has never had this problem before. I tried playing around with audio settings, turned off all unnecessary things, hell, even turned all graphic settings all the way down. Nothing helps, this is isolated to audio alone. I'm very curious what the hell this patch did.

I would avoid using HBAO+ on such a weak GPU, you need a 970 or 1060 6GB at the minimum to maintain 60fps at 1080p with all settings at max.

[Darkhorse1202]

I just wanted to confirm that after the 6.08 update, I am having the constant audio stuttering as well. I am running on a Macbook Pro M1 Max with 32gb of ram and 32 GPU. I have never had this issue with any of the M1 macs before using this. The problem started the very time I updated to FF14 6.08.

I tried the different suggest processes for troubleshooting the issue and it is not my computer, nor the controller support that SQE suggested, it is the code in the update.

[Scathan]

I just wanted to confirm that after the 6.08 update, I am having the constant audio stuttering as well. I am running on a Macbook Pro M1 Max with 32gb of ram and 32 GPU. I have never had this issue with any of the M1 macs before using this. The problem started the very time I updated to FF14 6.08.

I tried the different suggest processes for troubleshooting the issue and it is not my computer, nor the controller support that SQE suggested, it is the code in the update.

I am on the 14 inch M1 Pro with 16 GPU cores and 16GB RAM on macOS Monterey 12.2. Audio stuttering for me started with FFXIV Patch 6.08. Downloaded and installed the XIVonMac app https://www.xivmac.com and only that app, nothing else. Stuttering issue solved, fps increased, and even the graphics itself has improved without changing any of my settings. The game is far better optimized now for M1 Apple Silicon.

[Starshower]

Even after the patch I still have audio stuttering and popping. I'm using Windows 11 and an Intel processor, so it's not only affecting mac and AMD processors. The issue goes away when I disable ambient sounds, so it's most likely related to that.

[veeika]

I would avoid using HBAO+ on such a weak GPU, you need a 970 or 1060 6GB at the minimum to maintain 60fps at 1080p with all settings at max.

I do not have it on HBAO+, my graphic settings are generally set on medium. I do not care too much about having 60 fps, as long as it doesn't dip below 25 I'm fine. It might sound like heresy to some, but I don't care that much. That being said, I have tested my game on the lowest possible graphic settings which did get me 50+ fps and the audio issues persisted. It is not connected to this at all. This was also not an issue for me before 6.08, it's why I'm surprised all of a sudden I'm having this problem.

Piggybacking off of stuff some others have mentioned, I experimented with disabling ambient, vfx and others and it did not change anything for me.

[Chucklenuts]

Also popping (ha ha ha) in to confirm I'm still having this issue. The only fix that did anything was disabling gamepad features, which mostly fixed it for fairly low player environments like dungeons. Frontlines and alliance raids still sound like hell on Earth.

[Tokavo]

After installing patch 6.08, all sound problems were solved. The sound is crystal clear and harmonious. I thank the development team for their excellent work! (my FX 8320e processor)
Anyone who has not solved the problem yet does not need to worry for sure, I am sure that the new patch will help.

[Larirawiel]

Also popping (ha ha ha) in to confirm I'm still having this issue. The only fix that did anything was disabling gamepad features, which mostly fixed it for fairly low player environments like dungeons. Frontlines and alliance raids still sound like hell on Earth.

If they know, that disabling the gamepad features can fix the sound distortions then it is very likely, that they know the reason for it. Maybe they will fix it with a future patch.


Cheers