Audio popping issue

[MoonstalkerZ]

My dad, a 40-year veteran of the programming industry, had several insights that I'd like to share here.

First, the community team's response of blaming user hardware may not be the opinion of the devs, or even of the individual community team members, but could be a result of orders from on high based on advice from lawyers. If SE delivered a non-functioning product, and the problem IS on their end, they could be liable for damages, depending on how the laws work in Japan. So though yes, the response sucks, we shouldn't be abusive to the community team - it's entirely possible they're just doing what the lawyers told them to, and being nasty isn't going to help them fix anything.

His second insight is about what the devs might have been dealing with when they were writing the new sound engine. If they were basing it around this third party system, they would have had to figure out how to work with an unfamiliar API, and there's a good chance they had to contort their programming around this API. Also, I could be wrong, but it doesn't look like Embody is a Japanese company, so if the documentation was only written in English and they didn't have any programmers fluent enough in English to understand the documentation, they'd need to get someone to translate first. Not only does that require someone who speaks both Japanese and English, but it requires a translator with programming knowledge in both languages. (Trust me, as a former amateur translator, googling stuff will only get you so far if you don't even understand the subject matter.) It's certainly not an excuse for the shoddy mess they pushed out at the last minute with no warning, but that's a programmer's opinion of what the devs' experience might have been.

Finally, he mentioned that their inability to reproduce the problem is a HUGE barrier to fixing it. He said that at this point, their best bet is to find someone who has the bug and flat out buy their computer (and pay for a replacement, of course - $2000 is nothing to SE).

So several takeaways from that.
1) Temper your expectations. They can't even reproduce the bug. It's not going to be fixed in two weeks unless they can immediately reproduce the bug.
2) I realize that means the game's going to be an awful experience for a long time. Go ahead and unsubscribe if you want, if enough people do it it'll put pressure on them to get it fixed quickly, but also don't feel bad if you don't unsubscribe - I plan on playing anyway, I still enjoy it enough that I'm not willing to give it up just to send a message.
3) I really do think they're trying. While the situation is extremely frustrating, even anger-inducing, writing abuse at the devs and the community team on the official forum isn't going to help any.
4) DO keep up the pressure, though. Keep talking about it, keep sending bug reports (DETAILED bug reports), keep tweeting. I understand we're all angry and frustrated, but do TRY not to be a total jerk about it.
5) I keep seeing people posting their hardware in here, bug symptoms and steps they've taken to fix it. Don't just post them in here, post bug reports as well. It's the bug reports that they're going to read.

[Maeklos]

So several takeaways from that.
1) Temper your expectations. They can't even reproduce the bug. It's not going to be fixed in two weeks unless they can immediately reproduce the bug.
2) I realize that means the game's going to be an awful experience for a long time. Go ahead and unsubscribe if you want, if enough people do it it'll put pressure on them to get it fixed quickly, but also don't feel bad if you don't unsubscribe - I plan on playing anyway, I still enjoy it enough that I'm not willing to give it up just to send a message.
3) I really do think they're trying. While the situation is extremely frustrating, even anger-inducing, writing abuse at the devs and the community team on the official forum isn't going to help any.
4) DO keep up the pressure, though. Keep talking about it, keep sending bug reports (DETAILED bug reports), keep tweeting. I understand we're all angry and frustrated, but do TRY not to be a total jerk about it.
5) I keep seeing people posting their hardware in here, bug symptoms and steps they've taken to fix it. Don't just post them in here, post bug reports as well. It's the bug reports that they're going to read.

I really like these takeaways and add my own support to them. The team just made an amazing expansion with Endwalker. And, yes, it sucks that we can't enjoy it -now-, but I think that we can all agree that these folks who have just gotten out of at least a couple months' worth of hard crunch deserve some time off with their families for the holidays. Plus, we've all already gotten 21 days of free game time out of all this. Adding it up for everyone who's subscribed, that means that Yoshi-P's given his players something like $20 million just to try to set things right already.

So, keep it up, don't give up, but temper expectations until after the holidays.

[XenophineEX]

Main take-aways I have seen are with AMD processors and realtek audio drivers.

As far as my mobo from msi (the 970) this is the latest update to my realtek driver.

Realtek High Definition Audio Driver
Version
6.0.1.8010
Release Date
2017-02-07
File Size
357.68 MB

btw downloading from msi means it is already done, as opposed to that other method of 40kb a sec

I will install my mobo driver again, and report here if by some chance of haleion it makes the sound stop stuttering

restarted the pc twice, but now is the true test on if it works (also have siren log in ques)

ehh not too bad only 25, used to be 1900

I will que duty roulette and test the sound.

(only up to Stormblood so my testing will be limited)

so the stuttering is still there, seems wholly attached to combat only. Mainly aoe, but anything involving a 4 combo is also affected. *sigh*

The system seems to be bottlenecking itself with sounds from different sources. Instead of using compression it is just letting every sound fly one on the other overlapping till we get stuttering. Reminds me of when I first started using fruity loops, a sound program for music, I didn't know what compression was then and I just let everything play at the same volume and I got the same results as what is going on in this game. I would hope we didn't inherit some newfound audio mixer that doesn't know how to to use compressors.

(what's a compressor you ask? It is the filter that allows things to be heard despite overbearing harmonics, they are also known as crunchers with heavier music, the idea being when a sound frequency hits a certain range it is "compressed" or lowered to fall in line with the set maximum of the other volumes. It makes it so that you can hear everything, rather than 1 thing.

[XenophineEX]

My dad, a 40-year veteran of the programming industry, had several insights that I'd like to share here.

First, the community team's response of blaming user hardware may not be the opinion of the devs, or even of the individual community team members, but could be a result of orders from on high based on advice from lawyers. If SE delivered a non-functioning product, and the problem IS on their end, they could be liable for damages, depending on how the laws work in Japan. So though yes, the response sucks, we shouldn't be abusive to the community team - it's entirely possible they're just doing what the lawyers told them to, and being nasty isn't going to help them fix anything.

His second insight is about what the devs might have been dealing with when they were writing the new sound engine. If they were basing it around this third party system, they would have had to figure out how to work with an unfamiliar API, and there's a good chance they had to contort their programming around this API. Also, I could be wrong, but it doesn't look like Embody is a Japanese company, so if the documentation was only written in English and they didn't have any programmers fluent enough in English to understand the documentation, they'd need to get someone to translate first. Not only does that require someone who speaks both Japanese and English, but it requires a translator with programming knowledge in both languages. (Trust me, as a former amateur translator, googling stuff will only get you so far if you don't even understand the subject matter.) It's certainly not an excuse for the shoddy mess they pushed out at the last minute with no warning, but that's a programmer's opinion of what the devs' experience might have been.

Finally, he mentioned that their inability to reproduce the problem is a HUGE barrier to fixing it. He said that at this point, their best bet is to find someone who has the bug and flat out buy their computer (and pay for a replacement, of course - $2000 is nothing to SE).

So several takeaways from that.
1) Temper your expectations. They can't even reproduce the bug. It's not going to be fixed in two weeks unless they can immediately reproduce the bug.
2) I realize that means the game's going to be an awful experience for a long time. Go ahead and unsubscribe if you want, if enough people do it it'll put pressure on them to get it fixed quickly, but also don't feel bad if you don't unsubscribe - I plan on playing anyway, I still enjoy it enough that I'm not willing to give it up just to send a message.
3) I really do think they're trying. While the situation is extremely frustrating, even anger-inducing, writing abuse at the devs and the community team on the official forum isn't going to help any.
4) DO keep up the pressure, though. Keep talking about it, keep sending bug reports (DETAILED bug reports), keep tweeting. I understand we're all angry and frustrated, but do TRY not to be a total jerk about it.
5) I keep seeing people posting their hardware in here, bug symptoms and steps they've taken to fix it. Don't just post them in here, post bug reports as well. It's the bug reports that they're going to read.

I posted my specs, they can reproduce it under 600 bucks even with a chip shortage, as everything I have was readily made and still in stock.