Audio popping issue

[AbysmalDuck]

I've noticed a lot of people experience this with AMD processors, but wanted to add my system is an i7-8650. My issues didn't seem to arise, or at least exasperate, until 6.01. I got through all of the MSQ fine, but now HoH, the new normal raids, and many of the current MSQ/post-MSQ dungeons stutter constantly while casting/fighting.

It doesn't really happen to me outside in cities and such though. I also occasionally have no audio at all, or at least just background music. A restart fixes this, but not sure if it is tied to the other audio issues.

I never had any of these issues before 6.0 and had the no audio once before 6.01, I believe.

[Vendi]

I'm also strongly suspecting that, while the problem is the same, there are several variants, since there is no shortage of fixes that only works for a few. Even then, I'm yet to hear a success case of a 100% fix. Most of them only fixes it partially or the glitch returns later on.

Curiously enough, though, I'm also using the the very same CPU as you(AMD FX-8350). It got me thinking if it might have nothing to do with AMD-FX after all, but rather with the possibly dated motherboards that support it.

Well some people can run the game no problem with an AMD Phemon X4 or 2, which probably also run on old motherboards (sometimes even the same ones). Considering that I also can play sometimes an hour or 2 before it breaks seems to show that is indeed a bug, which is specific to certain chip architectures. Now the questions what excatly causes it, I have no idea.

[Cornet]

Gosh, I was so baffled last night, after an isp issues induced break, logging in to find nothing I did stopped my audio from stuttering, particularly in combat. This was my first time back on since the patch.

I actually have encountered audio stuttering before Endwalker, but I run this game on a toaster, so I was never surprised. (I recall encountering it in a ShB dungeon where there was a waterfall/a lot of sounds at once... and I'd forgotten to close some things, was streaming and had Discord voice chat on. Hopping out of voice chat fixed it.)

Once in Endwalker, I noticed couple times audio struggling a bit with voice chat+game if I'd had to close and reopen the launcher a billion of times to beat the 2002, but that stopped being an issue.

Then last night, after downloading the patch, streaming (OBS), voice chat... went into a dungeon and OH the stuttering. Good lord. The fps seemed fine, from what I could see. The animations looked smooth to my eye, but it was like the audio slowed down and lagged/stuttered. I hopped outta voice chat, thinking that'd fix it, and it improved it a little, but not nearly enough. Did full reboot, the usual way to fix anything. Nope. Nothing else I've tried has done squat. Any time there's a bunch of sounds all at once, it's just ALL the stuttering. Frustrating when it was nothing like this before the patch.

My toaster is an AMD Athlon II quadcore with a GTX 670, still running Win 7. (The fact it runs the game as well as it does, even when streaming, is pretty miraculous, I know. lol) I'm so heavily in unsupported-ville, I rather doubt a bug report from me would taken with a grain of salt, but boy, I'm so glad to know I'm not going crazy and there is something up.

[Resheph]

I have had my first play session without audio popping and stuttering since installing the game last week and I'm sharing what I did in hopes it helps someone else. What I was experiencing was only present after fully logging in but otherwise CONSTANT popping and stuttering which sounded just like the example in the first post of this thread, (but without end) and it would get worse even if I just targeted the door in my inn room.

The suggestion by SE to reduce sample rates and such on sound devices did NOT work, but it got me into googling for ideas on how to optimize my PC's sound. The below is cobbled from a few different guides on audio optimization. I hope it helps some others out and that the fix wasn't temporary on my end.

1. I'm currently playing in DX9 mode. Not sure if that matters but I wasn't about to log out and wait in the queue to test once I got it working tonight. I will test DX11 mode tomorrow. (It also works in DX9 so this is probably unnecessary)

2. Set processor scheduling to "Background services"

• In Control Panel select "System"
• Go to "Advanced system settings" and then the "Advanced" tab
• Click on "Settings.." under Performance to bring up the "Performance Options" window.
• Go to the "Advanced" tab and set processor scheduling as "Background Services"
• Click "Apply" then "OK"

3. High-Performance CUSTOM Power Plan (I was in Power Save settings prior to this)

• Open Control Panel and search for ‘Power Options'
• In the menu on the left, select ‘Create a power plan’.
• Select ‘High Performance’
• Give your plan a name: For example, ‘Audio Workstation’.
• Select ‘Never’ for both ‘Turn off the display’ and ‘Put the computer to sleep’
• Select ‘Create’
• You will now be on the Power Options page where your NEW custom power plan will be selected.
• Select 'Change Plan Settings' for your NEW custom power plan
• Open ‘Advanced power settings
• Expand ‘USB settings’
• Disable ‘USB Selective suspend’

4. While running FFXIV, change priority to high in Task Manager.

• Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to start Task Manager.
• Go to the Details tab, right-click the desired process, and choose Set priority and select any value that you want.
• When the confirmation dialog appears, select Change priority.

This also came with the added bonus of fixing what my FC homies were referring to as "taco bell drive through mic" on my end. Go figure.

FWIW I am running a nearly 12 year old Gateway FX 6860 with Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU, 8gb RAM, and upgraded to SDD + Refurbished: MSI Radeon RX 570. (So I should be able to run DX11).

Good luck folks. SE needs to put out some better guidance on fixing this issue than what they have provided so far. Reducing sample rates does nothing.

Had a full play session in DX11 without issues last night. I think the most important things here were steps 2 and 3, which prioritize audio processes and allow for more power draw respectively.

I also have Graphics on High Desktop and the Equalizer set to Standard. I don't have the fancy AI sound thing installed and certainly don't intend to even try it after all this.

[Jizu]

Had a full play session in DX11 without issues last night. I think the most important things here were steps 2 and 3, which prioritize audio processes and allow for more power draw respectively.

I also have Graphics on High Desktop and the Equalizer set to Standard. I don't have the fancy AI sound thing installed and certainly don't intend to even try it after all this.

As these steps were new to me I decided to test it.

I was about to respond with it not working, when I realized I forgot to set the priority in the Task manager. Even though I was sure I've tried that before (it might have reset itself somehow), I set it from Normal to Realtime.

I logged back in with my priority set as high as possible, and so far I have yet to have the issue turn up.
So far I've been testing it by doing FATEs in highly populated areas. Since 6.0 it would start up as soon as 1 or 2 players were fighting with me.

I was not going to attend my FCs raidnight, but I might as well use it as an extreme stress test before I get my hopes up, as it was absolutely horrendous last Saturday before the 6.01 patch. Could only play it muted.
I'll report back once it does happen, or if it helped.

Yea, na. Jumped into a un-synched fight with friends and it immediately started again. Was only 4 ppl, 8 ppl is going to suck ass.

[Maeklos]

As these steps were new to me I decided to test it.

I was about to respond with it not working, when I realized I forgot to set the priority in the Task manager. Even though I was sure I've tried that before (it might have reset itself somehow), I set it from Normal to Realtime.

I logged back in with my priority set as high as possible, and so far I have yet to have the issue turn up.
So far I've been testing it by doing FATEs in highly populated areas. Since 6.0 it would start up as soon as 1 or 2 players were fighting with me.

I was not going to attend my FCs raidnight, but I might as well use it as an extreme stress test before I get my hopes up, as it was absolutely horrendous last Saturday before the 6.01 patch. Could only play it muted.
I'll report back once it does happen, or if it helped.

Yea, na. Jumped into a un-synched fight with friends and it immediately started again. Was only 4 ppl, 8 ppl is going to suck ass.

Did all this, went to Rising Stones and cast Dyskrasia. Took 5 casts to break the sound engine instead of 3. Possibly an improvement or just random.

[Jizu]

Did all this, went to Rising Stones and cast Dyskrasia. Took 5 casts to break the sound engine instead of 3. Possibly an improvement or just random.

Yes, it definitely took a little longer than before but nonetheless, once it started it's here to stay.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Just wanted to come and add my voice to this list. I too have been experiencing these sound issues since the release of endwalker, and had previously experienced no issues before then. Its absolutely ridiculous that this has went on this long, and that their solution in the patch notes was to lower sound quality (which did not work). Has anyone used the 3rd party sound app they are trying to sell you to see if that fixes things? It wouldn't surprise me that the pay option fixes it... These sound issues have pretty much removed all joy from playing the game.

[EvilKiwi]

GPU AMD Radeon(TM) RX 560
AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor 3.50 GHz
8BG RAM
64 bit
I somewhat fixed this issue before, with lowering sound to 16bit 41Hz, going dx9, putting sound to character 100 and lowering ambience. There still was stuttering, but only very very rarely. For example I did lvl 83 trial, and I think the sound stuttered only twice. However, this means the audio in game is VERY POOR. This is not a fix in my eyes.

Let me preface that I restarted my sound setting to normal (so 24bit, 48hz) and my sound setting for FFXIV is the same as the main sound settings (so the input and output for my speakers are the same), and I'm playing on DX11, with nothing in background being on. I am trying to see if the advice Square put up works.

I logged in, and the first thing was stutter sound in the INN ROOM while doing nothing. I switched to dancer, did a few aoes and it got bad. Switched to whm and spammed a few holies and heals - that did nothing.
I went outside the inn room in Sharlyan and was met with more stuttering. That's fine, its loading, whatever. I tried the first fix. Putting the settings to standard desktop. Stuff seems ok, nothing major, ran around the market board and nothing happened.

Dungeons I did with these settings:
1. Battle of the Bridge as a WHM. Stutter a few times, but solid. My sound effects are around 50 and still there are the boss sound effects that just overpower everything.
2. Alexander 4 - absolutely nothing, again sound effects from bosses are loud for some reason. I am not sure if it's because the position of listening is on character 100.
3. Went to an area in Endwalker, and just stood next to a quest. I hear some crackling, but nothing major. I attack a mob as a bard and immediately it starts. Switched to WHM and its not as bad. Attack again as a dancer a mob and its back again. I put the game on High priority, but nothing majorly changed. Weird. Staying in one place doing nothing also gives audio stutters.
4. I get The Aery and try something. I lower the audio listening to camera to about 30%. Immediate audio stutter on mobs. Put it back up to 100 and its fine. After the first boss the audio stutter starts again and its on and off. Not too often. One example: During Niddhog fight, when the attack Sable Price was finished, the sound effect was really loud, more than any other audio and it stuttered. At this point I try to reduce the number of characters and objects being shown, but you can guess it does nothing.
5. In Paglth'an I get stutters on first two major pulls as an astrologian, first boss is alright, the big pulls after first boss nothing happens and same with second boss. Moment the tank gets the mobs after second boss it starts to stutter. I move my camera as that helps sometimes, and notice if I keep my camera on the background and not on the mobs it completely stops. The rest of the dungeons is without problems.

I am utterly baffled as what is happening. I know my PC is old, but never have I had these problems in any of the expansions.

went to dx9, high priority, lowered to 16bit41hz. - still stutter while standing and killing mobs but severely reduced
WOD - small stutter when joining ,small sutters around the sound effects, but bgm is good, atomos - small sutter with bgm too, small audio stutter while standing before the last boss doing NOTHING.

I know I went to too much detail, but I have really really no idea what to do other than having the audio be utterly bad, which is not a fix SE. I am tired. So I hope this at least helps.

[Maeklos]

Has anyone used the 3rd party sound app they are trying to sell you to see if that fixes things? It wouldn't surprise me that the pay option fixes it... These sound issues have pretty much removed all joy from playing the game.

From what I've gathered, using the fancy new spatial audio plugin lowers the quality even more, even for people who aren't experience general sound issues because of 6.01.