Audio popping issue

[polyphanes]

My issues are almost exclusively in combat, weather they be in the over world or instances, although I will get minor stuttering anywhere it’s nothing compared to the harsh sounds that happen in combat.

For my part, I get stuttering in residential districts, housing (apts, house, FC room, etc.), instanced rooms (inn rooms, Rising Stones, etc.), cities, overworld, instanced battle areas (dungeons, raids, etc.). I've even been getting stuttering (using the Immerse Gamepack) in overworld-based cutscenes. Granted, stuttering/slowdown is *often* associated with the sound effects from battles (SGE's Dyskrasia is especially useful for testing this, especially piling on other actions and OGCDs to generate more sound effects all at once), but even crafting or ambient sounds also seem to add onto it—and all of that is based on directionality, it'd seem, tied up in spatialization.

[Maeklos]

I just had Tsukuyomi come up on my Trial roulette, and it made me sad because the sound broke even before the fight started, so I had to mute the entire thing. I love that fight, the music, her voice lines, everything. But in addition to losing all of that, I lost my audio cues for stack markers and other mechanics, which made the fight four times harder - especially as a healer, since now my eyes have to do all of the work in the fight.

So, after the fight, I decided to go into Accessibility Settings and found the Visual Alerts option. I turned this on. For those who have never used this (as I hadn't), this basically puts equalizer bars on both sides of your screen that show the sound being played in the game. Unlike nearly every other game I've ever played, FF14 does not actually switch the sound "off" then you mute it or turn it off. You can turn Master Volume down to 0 AND mute it and all of the sound effects will keep playing. You just aren't hearing them. I guess is because it needs those effects, music, etc, for the visual alert system?

Anyway. Getting back to my point. The visual alerts. They show the distorted audio. That means that it's actually conclusive proof that it's Final Fantasy itself that's causing these problems, since if it were feeding "clean" audio out of the game and it was our computers mucking it up, then FF should show "clean" visual cues. Not the distorted ones. That means that FF itself is aware of the issues, which wouldn't be the case if the problem was in the game audio being pumped into our system.

At least, so it seems to me.

EDIT: Interestingly, if I mute master volume, the visual cues still show distorted audio. I can tell because whenever I cast Dyskrasia, if it doesn't distort, I get a clean, single push out on the bottom-most equalizer bar. When it's distorted, that bar will push out and bounce a few times before going down. With the sound muted, I'm still getting the bounce 2 out of 3 casts.

[polyphanes]

I just had Tsukuyomi come up on my Trial roulette, and it made me sad because the sound broke even before the fight started, so I had to mute the entire thing. I love that fight, the music, her voice lines, everything. But in addition to losing all of that, I lost my audio cues for stack markers and other mechanics, which made the fight four times harder - especially as a healer, since now my eyes have to do all of the work in the fight.

So, after the fight, I decided to go into Accessibility Settings and found the Visual Alerts option. I turned this on. For those who have never used this (as I hadn't), this basically puts equalizer bars on both sides of your screen that show the sound being played in the game. Unlike nearly every other game I've ever played, FF14 does not actually switch the sound "off" then you mute it or turn it off. You can turn Master Volume down to 0 AND mute it and all of the sound effects will keep playing. You just aren't hearing them. I guess is because it needs those effects, music, etc, for the visual alert system?

Anyway. Getting back to my point. The visual alerts. They show the distorted audio. That means that it's actually conclusive proof that it's Final Fantasy itself that's causing these problems, since if it were feeding "clean" audio out of the game and it was our computers mucking it up, then FF should show "clean" visual cues. Not the distorted ones. That means that FF itself is aware of the issues, which wouldn't be the case if the problem was in the game audio being pumped into our system.

At least, so it seems to me.

This is an excellent find! I can confirm I have the same thing happening: the visual alert signals also reflect stuttered/slowed-down audio. On the one hand, this is troubling, since I was already hoping to use visual alerts to get by to rely on something resembling audio cues without having to listen to headache-inducing audio, but if that's *also* being affected, then determining patterns and getting used to it may also be affected. On the other hand, it *is* evidence that this is being produced and used by FFXIV within FFXIV, and not something that FFXIV is itself feeding into (like an external sound driver or something).

But also, it's interesting how different things, while getting stuttered, slow down at different rates. Some things just get choppy in order to keep up with all the stuff that happens, but other sounds (like the BGM) just get slowed down for the duration of the stutter without trying to "catch up" with what we'd expect on a system that doesn't have such issues.

[XenophineEX]

I just had Tsukuyomi come up on my Trial roulette, and it made me sad because the sound broke even before the fight started, so I had to mute the entire thing. I love that fight, the music, her voice lines, everything. But in addition to losing all of that, I lost my audio cues for stack markers and other mechanics, which made the fight four times harder - especially as a healer, since now my eyes have to do all of the work in the fight.

So, after the fight, I decided to go into Accessibility Settings and found the Visual Alerts option. I turned this on. For those who have never used this (as I hadn't), this basically puts equalizer bars on both sides of your screen that show the sound being played in the game. Unlike nearly every other game I've ever played, FF14 does not actually switch the sound "off" then you mute it or turn it off. You can turn Master Volume down to 0 AND mute it and all of the sound effects will keep playing. You just aren't hearing them. I guess is because it needs those effects, music, etc, for the visual alert system?

Anyway. Getting back to my point. The visual alerts. They show the distorted audio. That means that it's actually conclusive proof that it's Final Fantasy itself that's causing these problems, since if it were feeding "clean" audio out of the game and it was our computers mucking it up, then FF should show "clean" visual cues. Not the distorted ones. That means that FF itself is aware of the issues, which wouldn't be the case if the problem was in the game audio being pumped into our system.

At least, so it seems to me.

EDIT: Interestingly, if I mute master volume, the visual cues still show distorted audio. I can tell because whenever I cast Dyskrasia, if it doesn't distort, I get a clean, single push out on the bottom-most equalizer bar. When it's distorted, that bar will push out and bounce a few times before going down. With the sound muted, I'm still getting the bounce 2 out of 3 casts.

I've found all the new classes with super aoe seem to trigger sound stuttering. You would be hard pressed to find a tank that only does 3 at a time. 100% of the ones I have encountered even with 2 dragoons with limited aoe, run about gathering half the dungeon only to then have the sound cut out horribly. And then have the fight take 4x longer than it should.

Too many WoW refugee's, they are adopting their old methods in a new game; And it is breaking it.

Don't even try to tell them to slow down either, the tank will proclaim he is the only dps needed. And you will forfeit your commendations. Just stay silent, and deal with the fallout.

[Maeklos]

I've found all the new classes with super aoe seem to trigger sound stuttering. You would be hard pressed to find a tank that only does 3 at a time. 100% of the ones I have encountered even with 2 dragoons with limited aoe, run about gathering half the dungeon only to then have the sound cut out horribly. And then have the fight take 4x longer than it should.

Too many WoW refugee's, they are adopting their old methods in a new game; And it is breaking it.

Don't even try to tell them to slow down either, the tank will proclaim he is the only dps needed. And you will forfeit your commendations. Just stay silent, and deal with the fallout.

This isn't just WoW refugees. You see it on a lot of arrogant tank mains who think that just because they got Sastasha or Copperbell on their roulette that they'll do wall to wall pulls. Like it's the healer's main perogative to keep them alive so that their crappy AoE can take 15 minutes to burn down the 5 groups they pulled, all while their DPS is dropped so low they've only got 1 or 2 single target abilities and no AoE whatsoever. Only times I've ever wiped in a pre-30 dungeon are because of arrogant tank mains.

[XenophineEX]

This isn't just WoW refugees. You see it on a lot of arrogant tank mains who think that just because they got Sastasha or Copperbell on their roulette that they'll do wall to wall pulls. Like it's the healer's main perogative to keep them alive so that their crappy AoE can take 15 minutes to burn down the 5 groups they pulled, all while their DPS is dropped so low they've only got 1 or 2 single target abilities and no AoE whatsoever. Only times I've ever wiped in a pre-30 dungeon are because of arrogant tank mains.

I am seeing a lot of "rush rush rush" blame the dps for not being their favored aoe casters then being total shiats afterwards. I dread end game, if this is the mentality of the tanks running newer players.

Good luck watching any cutscenes with these guys. 15 seconds into it you'll get the message you'll be locked out of the area in 10. They simply don't care.

I'd say that is a bigger problem than the sound stuttering if you ask me. At least I can control it turning my speaker on and off. The dudes running ahead pulling everything expecting you to be a lvl 90 hero on day 1 with no help are not helping the game any. I have nothing that can circumvent them joining and ruining runs.

[Maeklos]

I am seeing a lot of "rush rush rush" blame the dps for not being their favored aoe casters then being total shiats afterwards. I dread end game, if this is the mentality of the tanks running newer players.

Good luck watching any cutscenes with these guys. 15 seconds into it you'll get the message you'll be locked out of the area in 10. They simply don't care.

Don't sweat it. The vast majority of tanks are decent, and will keep an eye on their healer to see what they can conceivably handle. Once you hit Heavensward and onward, DPS will have good AoE, tanks will have plenty of CDs to rotate through, and healers will have most of their fancy heals. As I've been leveling Sage (88 as of right now), I've had the whole gamut of dungeons. I've only had one bad tank (a 63 PLD with that as their only class, so may have been a refugee) out of the few dozen runs I've done as Sage.

Which, getting back to the original point of this thread, has brought up some interesting data points with the sound issues. Crystal Tower raids, by and large, seem to be large unaffected (I think because the raid areas themselves are large and uncluttered, so no echo, etc). Since I'm a healer, I stand outside of the big fights, don't have a lot of positional sound BS going on. No issues.

But earlier dungeons? Copperbell has issues, Brayflox doesn't. Sastasha has issues, most ARR trials don't (I've gotten Ifrit like 5 times in the last week for dungeon roulettes, ugh). So far, I can't find any rhyme or reason to which dungeons might trigger sound issues and which don't.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Don't sweat it. The vast majority of tanks are decent, and will keep an eye on their healer to see what they can conceivably handle. Once you hit Heavensward and onward, DPS will have good AoE, tanks will have plenty of CDs to rotate through, and healers will have most of their fancy heals. As I've been leveling Sage (88 as of right now), I've had the whole gamut of dungeons. I've only had one bad tank (a 63 PLD with that as their only class, so may have been a refugee) out of the few dozen runs I've done as Sage.

Which, getting back to the original point of this thread, has brought up some interesting data points with the sound issues. Crystal Tower raids, by and large, seem to be large unaffected (I think because the raid areas themselves are large and uncluttered, so no echo, etc). Since I'm a healer, I stand outside of the big fights, don't have a lot of positional sound BS going on. No issues.

But earlier dungeons? Copperbell has issues, Brayflox doesn't. Sastasha has issues, most ARR trials don't (I've gotten Ifrit like 5 times in the last week for dungeon roulettes, ugh). So far, I can't find any rhyme or reason to which dungeons might trigger sound issues and which don't.

For me it’s every dungeon/raid I’ve been in since release, and those have spanned all eras of the game.

[XenophineEX]

Everything with snow has sound issues for me. I am up to the second expansion now. Almost everything required in Heavensward stuttered. I only just got to Stormblood. As far as aoe, as a dragoon I got my first aoe combo at 62. The other 2 have cd's 1 is 30 seconds, the other 3 minutes. I see at 90 I have as much aoe as other people, but should I run any dungeon lower than when I get that aoe, well there you go.
Soundwise everything that involves aoe immediately starts skipping, there hasn't been one major pull with over 6 mobs that it hasn't happened. Sounds like the sound effects got thrown into a fan. and it doesn't stop. The healers with the big aoe circles make it worse.

Keep in mind, processor never goes above's 40%; and fps never goes below 60 fps when the stuttering happens. Processor is also a cool 75 degree's while playing. That is in Fahrenheit.

Mayhap the game isn't using all the cores it could be? I can try changing its affinity.

[Teiren]

I'm happy, and confused, to say that I got absolutely zero stuttering in the first duty of the new raid. This was with Listening Position at 62, Party Effects at Limited, Others Effects at None, and Object Quantity at Low. Oh, as for my CPU temperature, from what I recall, it never goes above maybe 72 Celsius, usually around 60 while playing. I was worried the stuttering was ruining my computer, but it probably isn't.