Audio popping issue

[AsheNabuddis]

Hi!

Anyone having a very annoying popping audio issue since Endwalker dropped? In the link below you can hear the problem yourself. (WARNING: CONTAINS 5 SECONDS OF FIRST DUNGEON SPOILERS)

https://youtu.be/VkiGv3nhXxM

If you don't wanna see the video, the quick rundown is: Randomly, anywhere or at any time, the audio will "pop" at a very loud volume and rate. As if you were turning your headset on and off 10 times a second, with a loud but fast static pop at the end.

I am 87% certain this a "game issue" since I played up untill yesterday's maintenance and 1.5k hours previous to that without ever meeting a problem like this. Also, this problem does not present itself in any other game.

The even weirder thing is that sometimes the voices in the cutscene will still be clear while the bg music pops, sometimes only the voice pops, or both of them pop at the same time.

Here's a few things I've tried to trouble shoot this:
- Deactivate DirectX 11
- Turn graphical settings all the way down
- Reinstall audio and GPU drivers
- Install the new 3d audio system third party software
- Reinstall the whole game (actually more like checking the game integrity option in the launcher that DID download the whole game again)

Any extra tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I do not believe this is a problem with my pc in itself, altough, due to exaustion of options, am starting to go down that route.

[-BlueGreen-]

I'm having the exact same issue. It happens very, very frequently in combat of any kind, but it can, and has happened anywhere for me, even when waiting in the login queue.

I seemed to observe it more when I tasked out to look at my web browser, and earlier in the day I had several work-related things I was taking care of. I figured I was probably taxing my CPU too much (task manager read >90% for hours on end due to what all I was running at once).

Now that work is done, I shut down all foreground apps except the game (which has been restarted multiple times today), Edge, and discord (without being connected to a voice channel). I even shut down some background processes that I normally don't bother with unless they've decided to hog CPU and cause severe FPS drops just to make certain those weren't it.

None of that made any difference. Figuring it might just be that the latest client is a bit beyond my machine, I turned the graphics settings from the "Maximum" preset (which has been fine for me throughout all of shadowbringers) all the way to "Standard Laptop", to no avail. I took a look at task manager during this experiment, and CPU usage was just ~40% with no single core maxed out. Whatever is going on with the sound isn't caused by a lack of available CPU resources.

I'm attempting one more thing I can do from my end to work around the issue: Forcing windows to run FFXIV with an "above normal" priority just in case the issue is caused by screwy buffering/scheduling of resources. Hopefully I can get past the login queue this evening to test it out. It's a shame I couldn't test it earlier when I was regularly relogging to queues of just 40-100 players that would take 1-2 minutes tops to get through.

[AneiraWind]

Do you guys or anyone might know the issue with as soon as I open the game on dx11, the sound starts cracking. But works just fine in dx9.

[-BlueGreen-]

I've been looking at various posts and it seems different people have been experiencing different issues related to sound. For some, they get music, but no battle sound effects at all. In my case, I hear everything, and sometimes it plays just fine, but then it'll start crackling very badly, both music and sound effects. It happens much more noticeably whenever there's a lot going on in screen in my case, but I've had it happen in the login queue and in the inn room where there aren't other players/effects causing abnormal load on the game client.

In my case, when it does happen, my FPS also tends to drop severely, like down to 10-12 FPS when it normally runs a solid 59-60 (I have it limited to not exceed vsync). Normally an FPS drop occurs when maxing out the CPU or the GPU, though I've seen it happen with the CPU at only about 60%. I haven't checked the GPU load, but my GPU significantly outclasses my CPU and has never been taxed by FFXIV before. FFXIV, when bottlenecked, has always been because of CPU on my system. The CPU/GPU mismatch is due to 1, thinking I would have upgraded the CPU around no (thanks COVID), and 2, another game I play which requires an absurdly high amount of memory on the GFX card. That game tends to more evenly tax both CPU and GPU at the same time, but I have been wanting to update my CPU for more than year now.

[GorthRedsteel]

Damn it. I've been trying to fix the issue as well for the past few hours... I was convinced that it was on my end. Well, it's my hardware that might be outdated but I had no issue with the game before EW patch. I have tried everything: checked hyperx headset dongle and jack, played with windows sound settings and drivers, updated my gpu drivers as well, game settings, gpu clocking. Anything really. Made me very much close to losing my mind, especially with addition of the gigantic queues. The only thing that seems to somewhat work is going back to directx 9. Let me know if anyone of you ends up finding a permanent solution to this issue.

[RetroNutcase]

Having similar issues myself. When I reached the first story dungeon, the audio began to just fail entirely. When it came back, I only had music and no sound effects.

[AsheNabuddis]

Thanks for all your inputs! I am now convinced that with the release of the new third party 3d sound system, bugs were implemented that somehow affect some players specifically (either because we have older audio devices, or just an unlucky combination of pieces we share in common).
I believe we will, or rather hope to, see a hot fix of audio issues in the next days to come.

In the meanwhile, the ONLY thing I've managed to do to get SOME remedy is to close literally every single other application that could consume GPU/CPU cycles. Close everything, play only the game. This has solved MOST of the ambient stuttering and voice stuttering in the overworld and in cutscenes, but you even THINK about doing anything combat related and the popping will begin again.

[KreonTheInsane]

So ive had the same issue but on top of that Framedrops and Freezes accompanying the audio crackle.
Ive tested several settings, from the maximum to the absolute minimum, and the only thing that alleviated the issue was restarting the game and switching to DX9.
I have to see if the issue reappears, but now that everything seems to work perfectly i am certain that the issue is gameside.
Especially since i played up until the patch without EVER experiencing anything similar in ~900 hours of gametime

[Nuki]

same here, the combat sounds exactly like the one in your video.
Cutscenes and overworld sound works fine. Changing to DX9, reinstalling the Game or changing audio devices did nothing.
I guess i have to play Endwalker with combat sounds off....

[twixelstix]

Having the same issue, and it's really bumming me out. I switched to dx9 and it doesn't seem to be as crazy.
It mostly happens with combat when there's more than just myself and another person involved, but every so often I'll notice it stutter randomly if someone runs by. Also been noticing a few little graphical hiccups here or there and just recently had my game crash when trying to teleport.