Audio popping issue

[Vendi]

So, interesting side note, though I don't know if it'll help anyone else or not.

I run FFXIV's audio output manually redirected onto a pure-software sound device (a "virtual audio cable"); I've done this for ages, mostly so that I can capture the audio in OBS for streaming separately from any Windows system sounds, but it also allows me to swap the audio output around (using the 'Listen' tab of the VAC's device entry to have it output onto my headphones or my normal speakers).

The other day, I accidentally blew away those settings and FFXIV was playing audio directly onto my sound device... and I started having this audio issue. When I restored my VAC settings and forced FFXIV's audio through a virtual cable again, the issues stopped.

The problem is 100% in the game engine, but it seems like maybe it's some sort of timing-dependent thing, and that pure-software solutions like the Virtual Audio Cable stuff are not subject to this particular wonkiness? I haven't dug deeply, regardless, I just know it did fix things for me. I don't know if it'll work the same for anyone else, but it can't hurt to try?

There are multiple virtual audio cable options out there; if anyone else wants to try my specific setup and see if it fixes things for them, the one I used in this case was VB-Audio's. They offer one cable free, and then additional driver packs to add more cables are paid; the freebie cable pack would, I figure, be enough for someone else to test this as well.

If anyone else does try this, I'd be curious to know what the result is. I'm assuming that the virtual cable fixed the issue in my case (because it went away when I swapped back to using the cable), but it could hypothetically be pure coincidence.

So I have tested out the solution to route the audio trough the Virtual audio cable by using the mentioned VB-Audio + Voice Meter (both can be downloaded on their website, you can get one virtual audio cable for free). After installling and restarting your PC, it is important to setup voice meter (or their audio mixer variant) so your main audio output, whatever you have (A1) is routed to the virtual cable (A2).
I have been testing this solution for around 60 min now as I am writing this, it does seem to make it much better (llok update1); if it stops working I will update the post! (look update 2,3)

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

Update 1: like someone else said, its not perfect. Every 10-15 min it still happens (less than usual) for a few seconds. Compared to it happening all the time though, it is a solid improvement, at least the game is playble. I wonder if improvements can be made to this? will see if some option tweaking can be done.

Update 2: after some time it still does deteriorate for me and goes back to the old audio stutter (in fights), sigh. It is still worth trying, cause the issue affects everyone slightly different.

Update 3: attempt at fixing failed, now it does not wanna work anymore, even though it did for a time.
Conclusion: I have no idea what the issue with the game audio is at all anymore; we need a legacy feature to restore the audio before 6.0, from the devs