Crash and sound problems: Elden Ring have (almost) no sound and crashes after less than a minute after loading into game.

[Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ]

Had just bought new video card, deciced to play Elden Ring.

Several months before game was running completely normal, with sound and everything.

Now, first of all, after i start the game, there is no sound at all (i had tried to forcefully set audio output on my external audio card for elden ring in windows settings).
After i start the game at some random moment sound appears for about half a second, then disappears again.
After about minute of actual play game freezes completely and crashes.

I had tried reinstalling it, installing it on C: drive, verifying files, forcefully setting graphical adapter in both windows setting and nvidia control panel, nothing helps.

Up until crash game runs 60 fps smoothly with all graphical setting maxed.

Win 10
Intel Core i5-9600KF, 4400 MHz (44 x 100)
Gigabyte Z390 Gaming SLI
32704 MB DDR4
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (8GB)
M-AUDIO AIR 192 6 external usb audio card.

[Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ]

Found the "solution" myself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/y0hnf5/elden_ring_on_pc_crashing_after_10_seconds_into/

Looks like FromSoftware cannot into usb audio interfaces.

[dark-breed]

Originally posted by Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ:

Found the "solution" myself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/y0hnf5/elden_ring_on_pc_crashing_after_10_seconds_into/

Looks like FromSoftware cannot into usb audio interfaces.

it is not really the game it is the usb audio device that use a not microsoft/directx certified driver.

[Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ]

Originally posted by dark-breed:

Originally posted by Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ:

Found the "solution" myself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/y0hnf5/elden_ring_on_pc_crashing_after_10_seconds_into/

Looks like FromSoftware cannot into usb audio interfaces.

it is not really the game it is the usb audio device that use a not microsoft/directx certified driver.

Well, i never had such problem with any other game with this audio interface, so it's definitely developers and game.

[dark-breed]

Originally posted by Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ:

Originally posted by dark-breed:

it is not really the game it is the usb audio device that use a not microsoft/directx certified driver.

Well, i never had such problem with any other game with this audio interface, so it's definitely developers and game.

this game is the only game on this planet using the windows security system, if a driver use not windows security conform technics (or is not microsoft/directx certified) it can cause problems and there is no way that fromsoft can fix this because they only use the windows internal directx 12 connection to audiodrivers.
some USB audio devices use some strange compression stuff that is generally incompatible to the secured directx 12 API, if they are not microsoft certified.

so far there is no other game on this planet at this security level.

[nfinite.recursion]

Isn't this rather the EAC implementation used? I think there were reports way back with people using beta non-WHQL GPU drivers experiencing the same issue.

Also, external USB audio?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2887218062

Use PCIe if you can. Otherwise, use an external optical or digital coax DAC.

[Sleepeat]

Deleting Nvidia HD Audio driver - fixed sound drops for me. Other methods doesn't work.

[Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ]

After all this years i have found someone with a solution, specifically with M-Audio.

Start any audioplayer (Winamp, foobar, even browser with youtube), start playing music/video.
Start Elden Ring.
Close music player.

Actual reasons of this are somewhat unclear, but Elden Ring seems to constantly stop and restart the sound-stream OR constantly change bitrate for some reason, when interacting with external devices. But starting something else somehow stabilizes it during the start of the game.

[dark-breed]

Originally posted by Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ:

After all this years i have found someone with a solution, specifically with M-Audio.

Start any audioplayer (Winamp, foobar, even browser with youtube), start playing music/video.
Start Elden Ring.
Close music player.

Actual reasons of this are somewhat unclear, but Elden Ring seems to constantly stop and restart the sound-stream OR constantly change bitrate for some reason, when interacting with external devices. But starting something else somehow stabilizes it during the start of the game.

i would try to report this to the m-audio manufacturer, this is clearly a driver issue where the driver want a bitrate info from the app/game or it turns into varible bitrate automatically what is not supported by directx.

[Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ]

Originally posted by dark-breed:

i would try to report this to the m-audio manufacturer, this is clearly a driver issue where the driver want a bitrate info from the app/game or it turns into varible bitrate automatically what is not supported by directx.

I'm not quite sure this is the driver as Elder Ring is the only game to with such problems.

[dark-breed]

Originally posted by Ｐｈａｎｔｏｍｉｍｅ:

Originally posted by dark-breed:

i would try to report this to the m-audio manufacturer, this is clearly a driver issue where the driver want a bitrate info from the app/game or it turns into varible bitrate automatically what is not supported by directx.

I'm not quite sure this is the driver as Elder Ring is the only game to with such problems.

there are not many games out there using directx 12 audio functions.

by running a other app first (maybe with a different system connection to the audio drivers) you lock the drivers bitrate over a different path so it does not try to use variable bitrate.

you could also check if the device software offers a fixed bitrate setting.

just to add over the past two years a lot of external audio users encountered similar issues that where solved by force a fixed bitrate for the external audio device.