Audio popping issue

[Lagunow]

Ok, so now that queues are more bearable I got up earlier today and did some through testing. I logged in and out more than 20 times testing many different settings. I put the game on the most stress I possibly could, here is what I found:

- Using DX9 and capping FPS to 30 are absolutely the only "sure" things that appear reduce the issue down to a playable level. Anything else was either placebo, ramdom/situational or a very minimal improvement. I will test the CPU power solution after work today.

- Setting graphics to low, changing equalizer to standard, updating drivers, using a "virtual cable" software are all placebo or give minimal temporary relief, if at all.

- The issue is not caused by graphic settings, as it was playable with average settings and even on high, as long as I was using DX9. If I use DX11, however, the glitch occurrs even with low graphics.

- After patch 6.01, activating immersive audio immediatly triggered the glitch. Which is weird since on 6.0 it had the opposite effect of making it more bearable. Edit: Probably has to do with the fact that I have to use DX11 to turn on immersive audio.

- Muting ambient sound like some are suggesting did not solve it, quite the opposite in fact, it made it worse.

- Once the audio glitch is triggered, there is nothing you can do to fix it besides a fresh restart. Logging out to the title screen and back again does not solve it. You have to close the app, and restart back from the launcher. Sometimes it fixes itself if you wait long enough, but it's very random.

- Alt tabbing does seem to ramdonly trigger the audio glitch sometimes. Most of the time it doesn't, though. Possibly depends on what kind of app you're alt tabbing into. Haven't looked into it that deeply, but I suggest closing any apps you're not using and killing any unecessary background processes when you run the game just for precaution.

For reference, I've tested on multiple ingame situations that are known "culprits" of triggering the noise glitch: instanced rooms such as rising stones, cutscenes with lots of npcs on a enclosed space and combat. I have not tested dungeons yet.

[AeroXaia]

Ok, so now that queues are more bearable I got up earlier today and did some through testing. I logged in and out more than 20 times testing many different settings. I put the game on the most stress I possibly could, here is what I found:

- Using DX9 and capping FPS to 30 are absolutely the only "sure" things that appear reduce the issue down to a playable level. Anything else was either placebo, ramdom/situational or a very minimal improvement. I will test the CPU power solution after work today.

- Setting graphics to low, changing equalizer to standard, updating drivers, using a "virtual cable" software are all placebo or give minimal temporary relief, if at all.

- The issue is not caused by graphic settings, as it was playable with average settings and even on high, as long as I was using DX9. If I use DX11, however, the glitch occurrs even with low graphics.

- After patch 6.01, activating immersive audio immediatly triggered the glitch. Which is weird since on 6.0 it had the opposite effect of making it more bearable. Edit: Probably has to do with the fact that I have to use DX11 to turn on immersive audio.

- Muting ambient sound like some are suggesting did not solve it, quite the opposite in fact, it made it worse.

- Once the audio glitch is triggered, there is nothing you can do to fix it besides a fresh restart. Logging out to the title screen and back again does not solve it. You have to close the app, and restart back from the launcher. Sometimes it fixes itself if you wait long enough, but it's very random.

- Alt tabbing does seem to ramdonly trigger the audio glitch sometimes. Most of the time it doesn't, though. Possibly depends on what kind of app you're alt tabbing into. Haven't looked into it that deeply, but I suggest closing any apps you're not using and killing any unecessary background processes when you run the game just for precaution.

For reference, I've tested on multiple ingame situations that are known "culprits" of triggering the noise glitch: instanced rooms such as rising stones, cutscenes with lots of npcs on a enclosed space and combat. I have not tested dungeons yet.

There's definitely different variations of it then. Ambient has a very noticeable effect for me, and limiting FPS does nothing. Once broken it used to stay broken, but unmuting ambient makes it recover like whatever's getting bogged down starts clearing up after the spell spam stops enough. It's like there's a meter that fills up and past a certain point starts distorting, and recovers when there's less going on, but some areas just do it even without any spells at all.

If wonder if different types are based on what CPU people have, but that sounds like a lot of work to gather the info. For reference:

SYSTEM_CPU AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
SYSTEM_CORE_NUM SYSTEM_CORE_LOGIC 8 SYSTEM_CORE_PHYSICS 4
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270x
RAM: 16gb DDR3

Edit: To be clear, when I said CPU power I meant this option: https://i.ibb.co/X5cQJV2/cpu.png (Most people probably have it at 100% already unless they're on power saver or on a laptop.)

[Lagunow]

There's definitely different variations of it then. Ambient has a very noticeable effect for me, and limiting FPS does nothing. Once broken it used to stay broken, but unmuting ambient makes it recover like whatever's getting bogged down starts clearing up after the spell spam stops enough. It's like there's a meter that fills up and past a certain point starts distorting, and recovers when there's less going on, but some areas just do it even without any spells at all.

If wonder if different types are based on what CPU people have, but that sounds like a lot of work to gather the info. For reference:

SYSTEM_CPU AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
SYSTEM_CORE_NUM SYSTEM_CORE_LOGIC 8 SYSTEM_CORE_PHYSICS 4
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270x
RAM: 16gb DDR3

Edit: To be clear, when I said CPU power I meant this option: https://i.ibb.co/X5cQJV2/cpu.png (Most people probably have it at 100% already unless they're on power saver or on a laptop.)

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.

[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.

[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.