Audio popping issue

[Nommers]

As opposed to now where you have to pay to hear sound or what?

They're implying that you have to buy Immerse Spatial Audio to get sound to work, but it doesn't fix the stutter for everyone who tries it (or switches it from combat to cutscenes or some ridiculous BS like that) and most users report it drastically reducing overall sound quality anyway. Like all the "fixes" for this problem, it's not 100%, and I for one don't want to see Embody make a cent off the mess they helped make here.

[Tessmarin]

They're implying that you have to buy Immerse Spatial Audio to get sound to work, but it doesn't fix the stutter for everyone who tries it (or switches it from combat to cutscenes or some ridiculous BS like that) and most users report it drastically reducing overall sound quality anyway. Like all the "fixes" for this problem, it's not 100%, and I for one don't want to see Embody make a cent off the mess they helped make here.

I am not buying this product no matter what. An ear print is an unique as a fingerprint. And at a time when everyone is wearing masks...masks can break facial recognition but ears are still visible. Who is Embody selling that data to? Who owns them? Who really owns them? Is it using binaural beats - which are known to modify peoples brain waves and used to alter moods? Did folks have to sign a waiver with this program? What's in those terms? Happy to read those if someone wants to post them. So not a chance. I'd rather stop playing if they cannot fix it. The whole thing was sketchy, last minute and odd. The only thing I can think of was some trade off maybe for servers, funding or something. The silence on this may be a contractual one - but its concerning and odd with this many people clearly having issue. To be clear I don't think the FF team meant any harm, but I don't know Embody and I have no reason to trust them - or the timing of this. That's just my reasoning. Folks can do what they want.

[XenophineEX]

I am not buying this product no matter what. An ear print is an unique as a fingerprint. And at a time when everyone is wearing masks...masks can break facial recognition but ears are still visible. Who is Embody selling that data to? Who owns them? Who really owns them? Is it using binaural beats - which are known to modify peoples brain waves and used to alter moods? Did folks have to sign a waiver with this program? What's in those terms? Happy to read those if someone wants to post them. So not a chance. I'd rather stop playing if they cannot fix it. The whole thing was sketchy, last minute and odd. The only thing I can think of was some trade off maybe for servers, funding or something. The silence on this may be a contractual one - but its concerning and odd with this many people clearly having issue. To be clear I don't think the FF team meant any harm, but I don't know Embody and I have no reason to trust them - or the timing of this. That's just my reasoning. Folks can do what they want.

You want to talk head gear? play as a bunny girl, nothing works.

[Larirawiel]

There is another thing you could try: use the Vulkan API instead of DirectX 11. The Vulkan API is less CPU consuming than DirectX 11.



1. Download DXVK, the dxvk-1.9.2.tar.gz from https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v1.9.2

2. Open it with 7-zip or another tool which can open tar.gz-files.

3. Navigate into the x64-folder.

4. Copy the files: d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll into the FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game directory of your FF14 installation

5. Restart the client

Maybe it helps, maybe not. If you want to uninstall DXVK then delete both files.


Cheers

[XenophineEX]

Gonna go on a limb here, and say thanks,... but no thanks.

Might be useful info for those that feel bold.

If you are using a modern version of windows you are using dx12, not 11. Despite the program looking for said product it is dx12 providing it.

Modifying ones graphics for the sake of sparing minimal cpu load to make sounds not stutter is... not needed and not even relevant to the fix.

This type of fix would only work on a pc built in 2002.

If you have an amd processor the game is not using all your cores, and is bottlenecking itself. Easy fix is too overclock your cpu till the official fix comes through. Luckily for AMD even if something is only using 2 cores, if you over clock enough you can get as much throughput as using all of them. To test this, try setting affinity to 2 cores in the game. Watch magic happen and stutters fade away... (till the credits... the credits always stutter... apparently a black screen and a woman singing is too much) (the flashy fight that rings of god of war not so much... smooth sailing... its the credits... the true killer of enjoyment.)

And I hope this helps.

p.s. : to set your processor affinity press ctrl +alt + del, and within task manager goto ffxiv, right click and goto services, in services right click and set processor affinity, play around with that to you liking. Generally dual core seems to work the best, just make it a console and poof it works. f-n japanese and consoles. (its like they are just now picking up what we had in the 80's... like 40 years ago...)

[minopoki]

There is another thing you could try: use the Vulkan API instead of DirectX 11. The Vulkan API is less CPU consuming than DirectX 11.

Tried, made no difference.
(video looks different though)

If you have an amd processor the game is not using all your cores, and is bottlenecking itself. Easy fix is too overclock your cpu till the official fix comes through. Luckily for AMD even if something is only using 2 cores, if you over clock enough you can get as much throughput as using all of them. To test this, try setting affinity to 2 cores in the game. Watch magic happen and stutters fade away... (till the credits... the credits always stutter... apparently a black screen and a woman singing is too much) (the flashy fight that rings of god of war not so much... smooth sailing... its the credits... the true killer of enjoyment.)

Tried, setting to 2 cores made video heavily lag, can barely control character. Setting to anything between 3-8 made no difference to stuttering at all.

Don't know why I even try anymore.


======================

For those theorizing about CPU stuff, an information I don't know you're considering is related to CPU temperature. Someone posted an explanation before here I think, they called it CPU throttling or something.
For me, when CPU temperature gets to 75ºC or above, it's most guaranteed to stuttering to occur, then after a few seconds (I think the system makes CPU reduce speed or something to reduce temperature), stuttering stops and temperature lowers to 70-72ºC.
That's a situation where, for me, stuttering is guaranteed to happen, but it can happen at pretty much anytime too, even in lower temperatures.

[Larirawiel]

Sadge that it does not work.

For those theorizing about CPU stuff, an information I don't know you're considering is related to CPU temperature. Someone posted an explanation before here I think, they called it CPU throttling or something.
For me, when CPU temperature gets to 75ºC or above, it's most guaranteed to stuttering to occur, then after a few seconds (I think the system makes CPU reduce speed or something to reduce temperature), stuttering stops and temperature lowers to 70-72ºC.
That's a situation where, for me, stuttering is guaranteed to happen, but it can happen at pretty much anytime too, even in lower temperatures.

75°C is high for a CPU. It should be around 50 - 60°C. And yes, at 75°C it can be that the throttling mechanism will kick in and slow down the clock rate. But then the entire game will slow down and not only sound stutters.



Cheers

[AeroXaia]

There is another thing you could try: use the Vulkan API instead of DirectX 11. The Vulkan API is less CPU consuming than DirectX 11.

I tried it out, in short it seemed maybe slightly better, but it didn't fix it and had other issues. Loading things for the first time caused delays, like when first starting the game, using spells for the first time, loading character for the first time, etc.

The sound issue still happened, although it was a little more weird, being a little less consistent. Hard to explain, but still happening from the same sorts of things, but it felt like it was varying more in how bad it was, even from the same triggers. I didn't look deeply into it though, since it was having the other weirdness and wasn't better.

Really interesting that you can just slot that in like that though, Linux gaming must really be coming along.

Edit: Also, playing with the core affinity stuff only made things extremely worse, where I could barely move. Turning it to realtime softlocked me, where the music was still playing but I couldn't do anything past the ctrl alt del screen, I was just stuck there and couldn't even reboot without turning the power off entirely. (I tried to open task manager, and left to go eat, when I came back it was still on that screen and just pressing the power button normally was unresponsive.)

[FatalCharm]

I am not buying this product no matter what. An ear print is an unique as a fingerprint. And at a time when everyone is wearing masks...masks can break facial recognition but ears are still visible. Who is Embody selling that data to? Who owns them? Who really owns them? Is it using binaural beats - which are known to modify peoples brain waves and used to alter moods? Did folks have to sign a waiver with this program? What's in those terms? Happy to read those if someone wants to post them. So not a chance. I'd rather stop playing if they cannot fix it. The whole thing was sketchy, last minute and odd. The only thing I can think of was some trade off maybe for servers, funding or something. The silence on this may be a contractual one - but its concerning and odd with this many people clearly having issue. To be clear I don't think the FF team meant any harm, but I don't know Embody and I have no reason to trust them - or the timing of this. That's just my reasoning. Folks can do what they want.

THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE should be the most important thing you read on this thread. The whole picture of your ear thing is mind blowing. And they seem pretty confident they can get away with it.

[Nommers]

I've been pursuing a refund for the three remaining month on my sub. After some short back-and-forth with support linking them this thread and showing them that, no, their suggested fixes do NOT work, and that this is a case of false advertising due to the benchmark, I received this (most interesting point in bold):

We do apologize for the inconvenience you have been experiencing. With regards to the current audio issue, as your report provided has indicated that you have exhausted our current available troubleshooting suggestions as well as other suggestions provided by other players on the forums and none of the suggestions have provided a fix for the issue at this time, we are unable to provide any other suggestions at this time. We would like to confirm that it is still a known issue and is still being investigated further by the appropriate teams. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA on when a definite fix will be made but it is being worked on.

With regards to the refund request: We are unable to refund subscription fees under any circumstances. Once the subscription charge has processed, we are unable to reverse it, as stated in the User Agreement (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1).

If you do not wish to be billed again in the future, we recommend canceling the subscription ahead of the billing date. To cancel the subscription, log into the Mog Station (sqex.to/Msp) and choose “Your Account”. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page to find the button to cancel the subscription. Please note that after canceling the subscription, you will still be able to play the remaining game time on the account.

I wasn't expecting to get the money back, all I wanted was some kind of acknowledgment. If anything I'm shocked at how quickly they seem to have changed their tune here considering I sent them all of two emails - I'm hoping the EN community team coming back has helped raise some awareness inside the company of a) the severity of the issue and b) how pissed we are. I'm still furious that this didn't make the patch notes, but I'm taking this as progress.