how to fix the annoying audio crackling?

[Cpt. Cockrotzer]

Sometimes the sound is fine, but most of the time the audio crackles like a badly running emulator.

[Lorewalker]

I am getting this as well. It is quite annoying.

[paulLaw]

Hi! We're currently investigating the sound problems that some people are reporting. There might be a workaround which I described in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/1/3833171785686666189/?tscn=1685124356#c3833171785690127684

We've also set up an AudioFX test branch which you might want to give a try and see if it solves the problem.

[djflippy]

@paulLaw This may be a leak issue, because both of the fixes above present as correct, initially, but get progressively worse until both the music and SFX are unintelligible.

I am on a 3090, through a Focusrite audio interface, on default settings (first load setting).

Enjoying the game, though, and bugs get fixed so hang in there. :)

[Cpt. Cockrotzer]

I maybe found the issue, when I boot my PC and run the game everything is fine, but as soon as I start discord, the sound starts to crackle, when I close discord and relaunch the game, everything is fine again.

[metal_x11]

Can confirm, closing discord solved the issue for me too.

[Myrsnipe]

Closing Discord fixed it for me right away

Edit: It started appearing again during gameplay even with discord closed

[Myrsnipe]

Seems to be linked to my audio device operating at 48khz, at 44,1khz its not crackling anymore

[muze]

Originally posted by djflippy:

@paulLaw This may be a leak issue, because both of the fixes above present as correct, initially, but get progressively worse until both the music and SFX are unintelligible.

I am on a 3090, through a Focusrite audio interface, on default settings (first load setting).

Enjoying the game, though, and bugs get fixed so hang in there. :)

Originally posted by Myrsnipe:

Seems to be linked to my audio device operating at 48khz, at 44,1khz its not crackling anymore

Change my FocusRite Sample Rate from 44100 to 48000 and it fixed my issue.

thanks for the tip

[PastaLaVista]

Heya, Focusrite audio interface user here with the same issues.
Switching from 48000 to 44100 does not help, just makes the crackling and distortion sound slightly different. Setting the Scarlett Solo to 192000 samples at 24bit and 1024 buffer seems to help as the crackling is gone in 90% of the occasion. It happens more frequently if i am in a voice chat on discord while i play or if there is a youtube video/music playing in the background along with the game but only the game audio gets distorted.

For context:
AMD 5950X
RTX 3090
64GB DDR4 3200MHz
19TB storage, game is installed on a SSD
Win11 Pro 64bit
Focusrite Scarlett Solo audio interface with 3.10 drivers
All drivers are latest (system, gpu, chipset, biios etc etc)

Had to roll back from 3.11 to 3.10 on the focusrite drivers to test if the issues were less frequent and along with higher sample rate and max buffer size, indeed that's the case, Audio crackling is reduced by a lot but still happens.
What's interesting is that with 3.10 and max sample/buffer the audio stuttering happens 90% less but instead of going progressively worse now it starts much less frequently, then gets worse for a minute and slowly recovers again to not reappear for another 10 minutes or so (as if it was in cycles).
I also tried different sample rates, bitrate settings (16 and 24) and buffer sizes. 44100 and 48000 seems to be where the distortion is the worst. the lower the sample rate and higher the buffer, the higher the round trip latency for the Scarlett audio interface and thus the worse the distortion gets.

I'm speaking with Focusrite support about this issue too and mentioned the bug with Godot 4 so maybe they'll get in touch with Godot's dev team and help release a fix.

I've switched to the beta branch but i see no audio fix option either under the beta branches in the game properties or in the launch options, so maybe that got removed?

Hoping for a audio fix soon

EDIT: slight formatting for readability

EDIT 2:
forgot to mention a couple things
- force GPU: that's a guaranteed audio stuttering that starts immediately with the game and never stops, only gets worse.
- Also running the game in windowed mode as fullscreen completely messes up my desktop (5120x1440 240hz main monitor + 2x 2560x1440 144hz secondary monitors, gsync is disabled as it makes the system unusable with this setup)
- limiting the framerate from 240 to 144 helps with the audio stutter, seems that the higher your framerate, the worse the audio issues are

[wentzelitis]

this seems to be a problem with the godot 4+ engine. many other users report issues with this game and the godot 4 engine with audio crackles. brotato is on godot 3.5 and does not have this issue.

[sunbather]

So funny how the audio workstation that 95% of casual PC users have doesn't work with an entire game engine

[WarNerve]

I am having this issue as well. It is very aggravating. I've had to complete disable the music because of it. The crackling was so bad that it made the game unplayable for me with the music enabled.

[Y.T.]

i restart the game to fix it, as soon is i hear it in the menu. sometimes three to four times. nevertheless it reaccurs far in the run.

[maniac_E]

Any tips? Still can't get rid of the sound crackling.

[CMK]

Same for me, was a lot of sound problems