Audio popping issue

[MiaShino]

You know, if they tore apart their testing servers in order to bolster the login servers to help combat the 2002 errors, that would explain why they weren't able to do as thorough of testing on 6.01 as might have otherwise been the case. Especially since they thought that 6.01 would fix the problems introduced in 6.0, only to have them cascade tenfold.

You would never perform these types of tests upon server hardware though, that is for the dedicated Q&A team. Said team should have dedicated client machines comprised of some range of hardware configurations. The best way to set this up is to gather metrics from your users in same way Steam regularly does via hardware surveys. Some of their programming decisions doth boggle the mind.. like the fifteen minute disconnect that was recently patched.

[Nonoliri]

Note: If someone else want to try this, would be appreciated. More people would give a better overwiev.

I tried this out too, using the Virtual Audio Cable and Voicemeeter. It seemed to help initially, but once I got into a dungeon it came back. Thankfully it seemed to kind of 'fix' itself once I got out of combat again, which it didn't used to do without the VAC, but it's still definitely a temporary band-aid that required installing two different drivers/programs and restarting my system and learning how to set it up just to mitigate some of the problem. The echo did seem to go away during some cutscenes, but really only the ones I watched in The Unending Journey. I didn't want to try and see a new one because, you know, it kind of ruins the story and atmosphere to have to listen to that choppy, echo-y audio. I might suck it up and sacrifice another cutscene to the Noise to test it tomorrow though.

I'm also going to try turning down my graphical settings I guess? Though I never had them super high to begin with. And unplugging my gamepad (which I can't play without, since playing NIN on m+kb destroyed my wrists and made me swap to a gamepad in the first place,) but I really hope that information will be used to determine what needs to be fixed on SE's end, not given as a solution if it manages to solve the problem for some people. My biggest fear right now is just that SE did something with Endwalker that ultimately is out of my control without me having to spend plenty of money to fix, and that the problem's going to be marked as "resolved" and I essentially won't be able to play. Nothing in the benchmark made me think there would be this kind of issues, while my computer is a bit older it's still above minimum settings, and the fact that this issue is happening to so many people including people on consoles and on much better machines than me really makes me think it's not an issue I'm able to fix on my end.

If lowering my graphics settings and unplugging my controller and swapping to DX9 and lowering my sound bitrate and Hz and changing my camera listening position all somehow solve the issue... that isn't actually a fix. If that information is sent to the development team and used to make an actual fix that gets patched in, that's great and I'm all for it. But if the solution SE has is to tell people to try things and see what works, and presents that as the entire solution then it's no solution at all.

[AluneTempest]

I wonder how long they will take to fix this problem.
I've already canceled my sub and i'm already prepared to just move on and go play something else, even though this game has been a blessing in my life for having greatly improved my mental health in this terrible last year that i had.

My last hope is this problem be fixed in the patch in January.

[Teiren]

I realize now the most likely scenario: Perhaps Endwalker-specific content was designed only for this new, poor sound engine, and so some stuff can't work on the old, better sound engine for whatever reasons, thus they actually can't go back to 5.5 sound engine even as a personal option. What an utter nightmare. Still, they could at LEAST just revert back to 6.0, seeing how 6.0.1 only made it worse.

[Moxie16]

I am also having this issue. I am not tech savvy. I have tried minimal things to fix it; none have worked. The sound lags, especially in combat. Sometimes it catches up but most of the time I have to mute my speakers so I don't lose my mind. I can't hear music on my mount without that stuttering, lately. Seems like a waste to buy the expansion when I cant even play it with 100% functionality.

[ValStryder]

Changed to DX9 and it resolved SOME of the problems, but now I'm getting all the instability related to DX9.

This is definitely a problem related to whatever new sound stuff is with the game, hopefully they either fix it or remove it soon.

I'm not losing any FPS at all when it happens, oddly enough. I also know my GPU is not even close to maxed out. The only -possible- thing on my end might be my CPU but that's highly unlikely as prior to the expansion there wasn't even the slightest hint of problems and other games are just fine.

[jolarini]

This is definitely due to the new sound system, and I hope we don't have to wait another 2 weeks or longer for the fix. Please continue trying to get the devs attention on this issue (pray emoji)

[Ifrinne]

I do use an old computer that when playing 14 usually runs 80% cpu and like 60% gpu but until the last day of shadowbringers i had no sound issues not even in large scale battles that had so much players that not everyone displayed and i had only 25fps. This is not in any way related to settings on the game. I wonder has anyone here tried reinstalling the game and deleting the configs of the game?

[Nommers]

I've been having occasional audio stutters when players or NPCs near me use combat skills ever since 6.0 dropped into early access. It wasn't all the time but some of the dungeons and trials in Endwalker were nearly unbearable for me. 6.01 seems to have dramatically exacerbated the issue and now it's every time a skill is used by anyone nearby, even when people are just crafting or extracting materia from their gear. It also happens to the music in zone transitions for some reason, and it's bad enough that I have to take off my headphones while the new area loads. The game is effectively unplayable for me at the moment.

I do have an FX 8350 but it seems that not all reports are from fellow old-and-busted AMD CPU users. I've tried some of the "fixes" suggested by the devs and other users but frankly as a long-suffering Bethesda fan I've wasted more than my fair share of time on wild goose chases trying to fix issues in games that are clearly on the devs' end. This only affects FFXIV, never happened before Endwalker, and was made worse by the patch. It's not on us, Squeenix.

I sincerely hope a hotfix is forthcoming, hopefully long before 6.05. Watching Square Enix ignore this issue for three weeks, only to then make it worse to the point that the game is unplayable, has been disheartening to say the least, especially when the sound and music in this expansion is otherwise so spectacular. A legacy audio system would be a fantastic temporary measure assuming it's technically possible. Fingers crossed for a Christmas miracle.

[Teiren]

I feel like just posting every day in which duties I get stuttering or don't as I randomly do them. Note this is only ever when fighting, and I got absolutely zero stuttering before 6.0.1.
Today:
Titan Hard: None at all.
Second dungeon of Endwalker: None all the way until the area immediately before second boss (the "centipedes"). Then, again at second boss but only once bombs explode and for a little bit after. Still again all throughout last area. However, none at all through the last boss.
Syrcus Tower: None until after first boss, then always can crop up in varying degrees of severity.
Alexander - The Arm of the Father: All through the first area. However, none at boss.
Smileton: All the way through with considerably varying degrees of severity. Sometimes, it seemed to really depend on where in the background I was looking at.
The Stigma Dreamscape: Present in the very first area, then only in the last area before last boss.

Another issue that I didn't realize until doing old duties for the first time since 6.0: The sound balance is messed up, let alone the bass and other players' volume. It's particularly noticeable with Ambient Sounds in Arm of the Father for the electrified water. What's funny is that my computer is very old, yet actually suffering far less than people with much newer computers, so just getting a new computer isn't really an answer. For reference, my GPU is GeForce GTX 970 and CPU is i7 920 2.67 GHz, and I'm on a hard drive. Yeah, that's how old, yet still doing a lot better than people with modern computers and had zero problems before Endwalker.

Just why. Why ruin your game for...what, a silly collaboration with Embody, the entity that pushed this utterly ruinous Spatial Audio on us? It was all perfect before. It didn't need any "improvement" to make Endwalker as good as it was. I'm just so lucky I was able to finish just before the patch.