SOund Problem ~Sound makes clicking/crackling/snapping/popping sound

[Ryd3v]

Distortion, cracking and popping, wierd wind noise, driving a tank amplifies this, happens on 32bit version, and 64 bit version. Tried different sound freq, still happens, this bug has been around for a long time. Anyone experience this, have solutions?

[Game? More like Grift.]

No solutions here but for me the audio is just horrible in general. Things are far too quiet. I know to a degree this is intentional headroom so explosions and such carry the weight they should against spoken word but this isn't that. For example in Windows the audio sounds more up front, however I don't run the game in Windows as it's super broken...cue irony. I run the Linux port which is almost uselessly broken but still functions unlike the Windows builds. However in Linux it sounds like it thinks the audio is 5.1 or 7.1 and the levels are off and separated in a way that alludes to this when I'm actually running a stereo set up on a multi in/out audio interface. Worse is the sounds that should be high in the mix are too high and distort horribly. Thunder in a rain storm crackles and explotions have a horrid crushed and distorted sound. Everything is just all over the place. The the few times I got the game to work in Windows I noticed similar distortions but not as bad, perhaps because they were different sounds that I had heard in previous levels played in Lin. Either way the game is old but still a complete mess like it's early access.

[Ryd3v]

try 44 khz and 24 bit, worked for me

[Game? More like Grift.]

I'll give that a shot. May have to write a script to reduce my sample/bit rate at launch. I hadn't even considered my sample/bit rate might be too high since nothing else has this issue.

**UPDHERT! Well 44.1 seems to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the audio. Super lame though as it's a PITA to change sample rates for ONE thing. Now if someone could help me unferk the brittle snowflake UI...

[Ryd3v]

Yea for some reason Arma 3 doesn't like anything above 44.4KHz xD

[Game? More like Grift.]

It's strange as I'd think it would be the OS's job to resample things rather than the game. More so it's only select sounds so why just those sounds. Maybe they have some crappy 22.05/32khz 8/16bit in there and when it's resampled there just isn't enough data to not break up heh. Just silly speculation though. For me it's all sounds that should have a lot of low end so doing things with lots of low at lower bit/sample rates is a bit backwards as they require the most.

[Ryd3v]

I am still able to use 192KHz and 24 bit, just sometimes there are a few glitches, BI reccomends 44~16

[Game? More like Grift.]

Heh 192 I remember those days. My old interface could do 32bit / 192khz. When I replaced it I noticed a trend where nothing went above 96 anymore. I know the argument used to be years ago 96 was more than you'd need to do DVD etc but I think that was an excuse for manufacturing cheap interfaces. BD and other can go higher and higher has better longevty. Oh well, I'm not recording today's equivialant to the Beatles anyhow so 96 will do.

[Ryd3v]

:-)

[Game? More like Grift.]

Comically I'm trying to play tonight. A different scenario and it's distorting. Double checking I was at 44.1 but still tons of crackle, this time from very low in the mix ambience...Looks like this is hit and miss depending on the audio used for a given scenario...what a PITA.

As a side note it's idiotic ARMA can't do winter. I've played a number of Winter/Arctic scenarios and you can do snow but triggered as rain fall. Nothing like thunder in a snow storm. I bring this up because thunder is one of the main things that distorts for me. The weather is another glaring problem with the game but that's another topic...frankly I don't know why I'm still trying to play this mess.

[glydr]

So where and how do we change these settings?

[Game? More like Grift.]

What things? If you mean the bit rate, sample rate etc that depends on your OS. If you're in Linux Pulse is still pretty garbage for this as there is no UI so you need to get friendly with your configs in /etc. I can't say past that as I haven't had an OSS or Alsa set up in a long time.

If you're in Windows this might have UI or might not depending if you have a real audio device or some crappy integrated processor (which is most). This stuff is normally hidden from the user and Windows tries to manage it...tries...

Mac OS who knows I haven't touched MacOS in years.

All that said if you have a professional card like me these settings should be front and center in your driver panel as this stuff is normally super important for professional Audio.

After writing all that though I don't think you should care one way or another. This problem persists on all platforms no matter what you set your audio to. Arma is just a broken pile but BUY THEIR DLC! ug...gaming these days is like gambling in Vegas only most "gamers" are dumb enough to just hand the contents of their pockets to the pick pocketing hookers, I mean devs outright.

[SycHolic]

heh Ive installed linux like 20 times this year not once did I even have to touch anything. sounds worked always right out of the gate.

This also will help. turn down your input sliders to -3db ARMA gives you zero headroom and a lot of sounds will flat out overdrive the audio stream (very profound when you using multichannel like 5.1 or higher) Im gonna give the 44.1khz deal a shot see what happens. not that I mind unless the audio source is designed and recorded for 48khz a audio stream has no such thing as upscaling. a 44.1 source will have just flat out silence in that region between 44.1 and 48 or even in 96

But more then likely imho the problem is that they arent giving enough buffer size for the audio stream. ( I say this cuz I played arma on linux and the problem doesnt exist there...)