Audio popping issue

[Elliah-Seraheart]

Greetings,

As we continue to investigate the matter, we have confirmed that after the fixes we applied in Patch 6.01 the issue continues to persist for some of our players who may be using CPUs that are older than 10 years. However, due to the fact that there are various types of CPUs available we still have not isolated the cause of the issue.

If you continue to experience in-game audio issues, we ask you to try the following steps below:

1. The system specifications for your PC hardware may be running below the minimum specifications required to play FFXIV. If you have multiple applications running in the background while playing FFXIV or have certain in-game settings to a higher setting, your hardware may be performing below the required minimum specifications. Please try making the following changes to see if the issue resolves:
   • Decrease the number of characters and objects displayed.
     This option is available in the System Configuration > Other Settings > Character and Object Quantity.
   • If you have multiple applications running in the background, try closing those other applications.
   • Make sure your output audio device is set as the Default Device.
     In Windows, open the Control Panel (hit the Windows key and type "Control Panel" and hit the Enter key) > Click on Hardware and Sound > Click on Sound > Under the Playback tab, make sure your audio device is set as the Default Device. If you do not see your audio device as the Default Device, right-click the audio device and select the "Set as Default Device" option.
2. If the above methods do not resolve the issue, we would like for you to submit an in-game bug report with the following information along with your system information.
   • What are your Character and Object Quantity current set to?
   • What other applications do you have running in the background while playing FFXIV?
   • Is your audio device set as the Default Device? (Yes/No)
   • Would the issue persist when playing the game in DirectX 9?
     DirectX 9 option is available when you turn off the DirectX 11 Support option which can be found in your FFXIV Launcher by clicking on the gear icon on the top right (Config).
   • If you use a gamepad, does the issue persist when you unplug the gamepad? (Yes/No)
   • Does the issue persist when you have the in-game Equalizer Mode set to Standard? (Yes/No)
     This setting can be found under the System Configuration > Sound Settings > Equalizer.
   • Does the issue persist when the Listening Position is set closer to the Character? (Yes/No)
     This setting can be found under the System Configuration > Sound Settings > Listening Position.
   • Please copy/paste your system information.
     System information can be found in your FFXIV Launcher by clicking on the gear icon on the top right (Config) and clicking on Display under System Information. Another window with your system information will be displayed so please click on the "Copy to Clipboard" button and past the information with your bug report.

We thank you all for your support as we continue to investigate the matter.

Not gonna lie... I feel kind of insulted.

These questions are so incredibly basic, and have been answered in this thread alone 100 times over. Why are we even making threads if nobody even bothers to read even a fraction of it?
None of these things actually fix anything for anyone. Everyone in this thread, BESIDES the official response, seems to be aware of that.

WAY to point out, that our CPUs are 10 years old, and infer that the issue is on US for running old hardware... AGAIN.

On that note... May I ask how old FF XIV is? How much outdated infrastructure does square rely on? How well has it worked up until now? Why are companies generally hesitant to upgrade hardware and software, just for the sake of it? Wanna remind me what kind of problems you guys ran into recently, when having to upgrade your servers, given the semiconductor shortage and the ludicrous prices for any hardware whatsoever?

Do you think we the consumers do not have good cause to follow the exact same line of reasoning square does when it comes to upgrading hardware and software? Do you think we are immune to those very same problems you guys run into?

Do you see the irony in asking us to play on Dx9 because newly introduced changes by square broke the already broken Dx11 further... while simultaneously being dismissive of our issues due to the fact that our CPUs are "old"?

As we, the consumers, continue to investigate the matter, we have confirmed that after the issues introduced in Patch 6.0 and 6.0.1, the developer persistently relies on 27 year old software released in 1995 as a fallback for users in 2021.

See how infuriatingly disingenuous this is, although factually correct? Complexity and innovation always trades stability for performance. It's perfectly good reasoning to prioritize stability over innovation.

While we are at it, wanna remind me WHAT specific, completely unnecessary, unannounced, cheaply outsourced, payed Audio KEYWORD: "Upgrade" on square enix's side brought about this problem to people who do not even use said service in the first place?
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...Moving on - I understand that square is trying to help. But their attempt at doing so implicitly reveals a complete lack of understanding, and an attitude towards the consumer, that is quite frankly insulting.

I hope the ongoing 3 weeks+ long "investigation" picks up a little and considers catalogueing the specs, attempted fixes and issues encountered in this thread. Actually reading some of the many useful posts and videos made in here may also seem like a very easy and effective thing do. Posts like this one.

It took much time to find simple way of stating this.. maahhh things make so much sense in the mind yet when you attempt putting them to words everything goes fooey.

This audio stuttering issue reminds me of the type of issues experienced during HLE audio emulation on console emulators. It seems Square could be struggling to schedule audio processing requests across multiple cpu cores if any slowdown in the pipeline occurs. This results in the audio engine waiting to process new requests which as you hear causes stuttering effect. This would be especially prominent on FX cpus because of unique nature of core configuration.

Example time! On Bulldozer (FX series) cpu cores do not have dedicated floating point units opting instead to share one across two cores. They are much much of the worse at certain calculations especially ones requiring these floating point units. Vector calculations were and still are quite difficult to work with and as spatial audio requires many of these to be made..

You cannot rely on cpu utilization either. You may see something close to 40% utilization and wonder; but the cpu is not at 100% so I have additional headroom! You may in fact not. If something has stalled thus starving those cpu cores of something to process it will not be processing anything so will read as "not fully saturated". Even worse for FX because if that shared floating point unit is busy doing something then both cpu cores sharing it must also wait.

I may have the number of FP units per core cluster wrong so many apologies again. I hated working with bulldozer and do not do much difficult software development anymore (because it causes insanity..).

Square must increase the audio buffer (this may introduce slight audio delay but is highly preferable to crackling audio) or add option for number of audio channels into the sound options going forward.

For any suffering from this issue who also attempt thousands of erroneous solutions, I would not waste too much time doing this. I.. just.. cannot believe a major developer would make drastic overhaul to their sound engine without seemingly properly testing it across multiple hardware configurations. At the least they should have implemented a legacy fall back should unforeseen problems arise allowing users to temporarily roll back to working solution until problem is resolved. Then I find out they charge for the sound pack that created the issue in first place, seriously? Who does this?

Myself and friends are not encountering the issue yet on older hardware (i7 4790K and Amd Phenom x4).

Edit time! The PS3 cell micro architecture suffered from similar issues when attempting to make those pesky spes do anything because you had to wait for the ppe. It was unholy nightmare for many.