Audio popping issue

[Yin]

It is interesting to see, that in DE there are not so many complaints, posts and threads about this issue, but here in EN forums. I was so "glad" somehow to see this thread, because I (and my husband) seemed to be the only ones with THIS issue.

Since Day One of Endwalker I cannot play anymore, because I do not want to ruin my Game Experience and I do not want to mute everything.

I have not even started the Main Story, I do not know how all the content is, I only took Sage and Reaper and am leveling them a bit.

I noticed the issue with the very first (Reaper Job) Quests, and because the sound is so annoying and disturbing I never continued any Quest at all.

I tried everything suggested here and really nothing helped

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Bumping this so it doesn't get lost and also adding what's been happening to me.

Noticed a couple things;

All audio (and only in this game as everything outside of the game functions normally); music, SFX, system sounds, ambient sounds, voices and performance, stutters depending on the camera angle, or my character's location in relation to what I'm attacking or whoever else is doing something.

Sometimes the audio stutters depending on where my character is physically located. Example; friend's striking dummy in the goblet. He has a striking dummy directly facing a wall and I'm keeping the camera position facing the wall. When I attack the dummy from behind the sounds stutter. When I attack from its left flank the sounds stutter. When I attack the dummy from its right flank the sounds never stutter. When I attack from the front the sounds never stutter. This also occurs in dungeons and I have to physically move to certain areas around my party's targets to not have the audio stutter.

I will have all audio but music muted and in certain zones and during certain boss encounters in dungeons, all Haukke Manor bosses and all Stone Vigil bosses for example, the music will stutter within 10 seconds of loading in the zone or within 10 seconds of the fight occuring. Unmuting SFX seems to make the music stop stuttering but as soon as I mute SFX the music will start stuttering again. The stuttering also stops occurring when I move my character to certain places around the target. Strange thing is if I have everything but SFX muted the SFX never stutters as often as music does in certain places.

The stuttering is drastically exacerbated if my Listening Position is any less than 100.

[Tessmarin]

Bumping this so it doesn't get lost and also adding what's been happening to me.

Noticed a couple things;

All audio (and only in this game as everything outside of the game functions normally); music, SFX, system sounds, ambient sounds, voices and performance, stutters depending on the camera angle, or my character's location in relation to what I'm attacking or whoever else is doing something.

Sometimes the audio stutters depending on where my character is physically located. Example; friend's striking dummy in the goblet. He has a striking dummy directly facing a wall and I'm keeping the camera position facing the wall. When I attack the dummy from behind the sounds stutter. When I attack from its left flank the sounds stutter. When I attack the dummy from its right flank the sounds never stutter. When I attack from the front the sounds never stutter. This also occurs in dungeons and I have to physically move to certain areas around my party's targets to not have the audio stutter.

I will have all audio but music muted and in certain zones and during certain boss encounters in dungeons, all Haukke Manor bosses and all Stone Vigil bosses for example, the music will stutter within 10 seconds of loading in the zone or within 10 seconds of the fight occuring. Unmuting SFX seems to make the music stop stuttering but as soon as I mute SFX the music will start stuttering again. The stuttering also stops occurring when I move my character to certain places around the target. Strange thing is if I have everything but SFX muted the SFX never stutters as often as music does in certain places.

The stuttering is drastically exacerbated if my Listening Position is any less than 100.

Yeah someone a while back did a video on how it seems to be positional and bounces more off of objects. If I position my camera above it seems to reduce as well.

One interesting thing happened a few days ago for me - the sound issues in game became extremely bad but when I tabbed out they migrated into my entire machine even when just clicking the sound volume tester on the task bar. The static was so bad I had to reboot my entire machine and go back to the queue. This happens occasionally but if it helps with troubleshooting I thought it would be good to make sure I dropped that info here. This issue is super intermittent some dungeons I am fine others are borderline unbearable but there is always some level of static, stuttering and distortion occurring. Mt Gulg so far has been the absolute worst of them all.

[GorthRedsteel]

I have just finished the patch content of base game and I feel great regret. I have forced myself to play as I had already wasted a week waiting for the fix. Sadly, still no word from SE. It was such a disaster watching those great cutscenes with stutter, constant static noise, and slowed down voice acting that would cut before the end of each dialog. It pains me that such crucial experience and part of the story got destroyed by the issue. I really don't know what to do now. I badly wanna continue with HW but if it's gonna be fucked by the same crap then what's the point. Hard to immerse yourself if audio keeps trying to damage your eardrums lol.
Pity. :/

[Aylin]

I have been having this issue since Early Access opened. Any time I am in battle (and thankfully, only in battle) the sounds cracks, stutters, pops, and is generally painful to even listen to at this point.
I have found that by moving my mouse around and changing my angle, it will improve from some angles, but usually it's an angle that makes it impossible to play effectively (can't do a trial if you have to have your camera pointed away from the fight so the sound doesn't make me want to scream anymore).
I have a sneaky suspicion it's something to do with new the sound settings, but I'm no professional so don't quote me on that- kind of ironic though that this fancy new setting is added, and all of a sudden, all these people- myself included- are having sound problems when there were none before.
Please please fix this soon. I *want* to listen to this game, not feel like I have to turn the sound off completely to even try to be a productive member of a group.

[PinkBismuth]

Just posting a reply here since I'm having the same issue as well and none of the fixes mentioned by others has worked so far. The only thing I have been able to do so far to help has been to mute the Master Volume in the settings so that when I enter combat or heavily populated areas I don't start stuttering. I even tried to mute everything except for the system sounds so that I would still be able to hear the alarms for timed gathering nodes and eventually if I was in a dungeon when the alarm pinged it would suddenly begin stuttering again.

The most annoying part is seeing everyone talk about how good and great and wonderful and amazing the music is in all the new zones and I can't even have the audio for an alarm timer enabled because it'll start making things wonky. It's not like we can realistically stay out of combat either, unless you're someone who spends hours on end doing emotes to other people in town. Even though I'm not some kind of audiophile who is necessarily missing out on a lot from not hearing the BGM, having to experience combat with no sound really has made me realize how much the combat audio helps my gameplay. I have a new found respect for any deaf gamers out there. Although, it is nice being able to do a hunt train without hearing that 1 annoying squealing female mi'qote that always seems to end up right behind me no matter what server I'm on.

[minopoki]

I still think that if they just gave us an option to enable the old sound driver from pre 6.0, this problem would be solved.
Sure it requires a client update, but I don't see why it would have to wait until Jan. 21st.

[AluneTempest]

my fear is they will not fix this problem in the next patch, because i have not seen them specify the problem that we are having.

[Denji]

My audio's just been... wonky.

Occasionally certain sounds won't play (like when a critical engagement ends in Bozja/Zadnor) or they'll be weirdly muffled like I have 5.1 surround sound going through headphones. Certain dungeons are worse than others with The Dusk Vigil being the worst where I probably couldn't hear half the sounds play.

[OmniusOmnium]

So I have discovered that if I have my second screen on, particularly if it is playing a video or taxing the GPU/CPU the stuttering will be much worse. With my 2nd screen completely disabled in my graphics driver settings I have seen enough of an improvement that the game is now playable. There is no longer any stuttering in cutscenes or dungeons. There is still some stuttering and all around bad quality audio in 8-man and 24-man content, with alliance raids being the worst by a significant margin. As some others have said, rapidly twisting the camera in the opposite direction of the boss seems to "reset" the sound and alleviate the problems, although only temporarily.

Another thing which has made it more bearable is to turn the master volume almost all the way down, I think I settled on 49 in the end. This won't actually solve the problem, but it does make it much less noticeable. Once I turned the master down I fiddled with the other volumes as well until I settled on the most comfortable audio experience. Obviously this will differ depending on personal taste and hardware. But my settings are:

Listening Position: 100
Master: 49
BGM: 100
Sound Effects: 40
Voice: 100
System Sounds: 32
Ambient Sounds: 32 (this one seems to be of particular importance and needs to be low or OFF).
Performance: 100 (though it makes no difference unless you're listening to a bard).

Self: 100
Party: 50
Other PCs: 26

Wireless Controller Settings: Muted and "none" selected.

Equalizer Mode: Standard (Playing around with this can have a significant effect)

Spatial Audio: OFF (I tried with it on and it sounds absolutely terrible).

It should also be known that I am playing my sound via my GPU HDMI cable to my TV (NOT via a headset or headphones AUX connector).

My windows sound settings are as follows:
All enhancements DISABLED.
Default Format: 24bit 48000hz (Studio Quality)
ALL other audio input and output devices DISABLED (not just unplugged) in windows sound settings.
Windows Spatial Surround: OFF
Any other software/hardware based enhancements or apps like realtek DISABLED.

Windows Master Volume: Maximum of 80%
All other audio outputs in the windows volume mixer MUTED, this includes "system sounds" and absolutely any other app or program showing up in there, the only thing that should be unmuted and set at less than 80% volume is Final Fantasy XIV and the Master Output itself.

Any other audio crap that may interfere with the signal at any point DISABLED (In my case this was audio settings within the TV itself such as loudness equalization or surround sound etc.

As I say, none of these things will eliminate the problem, but they may make it slightly more bearable for you. And I know "turning down the volume" isn't a great solution, but it makes a difference in my opinion and is plenty loud enough with the settings set to cautious levels. And if you can do without it, muting other players spells completely and muting the ambient sound setting will make a significant difference in my opinion. Finally, the sound effects are heavily impacted in comparison to the BGM so for me turning the BGM up to max and the effects as low as I can while still enjoying the game made some difference as the music seems mostly unaffected so can distract from the bad effects.

Anyway, hope this helps someone else.