New Vegas Sound Issue - Ambient Music Skipping/Cutting Out

[Chadwick]

I'm having a sound issue in New Vegas where the game's ambient music constantly skips and makes weird popping/squelching noises. I've been searching online for over an hour now with no fix available, and I've verified my Steam cache repeatedly. I've ran the game both with and without mods, with and without the LAA (Large Address Awareness, forcing the game to recognize more than 2GB of RAM) patch, with a fresh clean install, and I've uninstalled EVERY single codec and codec pack on my computer, used fresh unmodified .ini files, updated every driver on my system, and even forceably disabled every possible codec (even the Windows default ones) with a program called the "Codec Tweak Tool". Absolutely nothing works and I can't for the life of me figure out what's causing this. I even re-installed the game on a seperate hard drive I bought last week to see if I had a failing drive to no avail. Can anyone please offer a fix or suggest what to do?

[Ygolnac]

man, you litterally tried everything already!
i know other people had your same issue and fixed verifing game cache, but you already did it.
my only idea: are you sure you removed every file inside NV folder and documents/my games/fallout new vegas after uninstall?
Sometimes uninstalling leaves files in there, expecially mods and 3rd party stuff.

[Chadwick]

Thanks for the suggestion Ygolnac. I did a complete uninstall of the game and every last trace of not just the game's install files but the mods themselves. After trying all of this, and some conservative tweaks to make the game run better from Tweakguides.com after reinstalling, the game runs better than ever, but I noticed that ratcheting up the 'uGridsToLoad=' value in Fallout.ini has a noticeable effect on how often the ambient music skips, especially if I have mods and/or texture packs running. It seems to me the game engine itself is unable to handle that much data at once, regardless of tweaks or the LAA patch. I decided that since the PipBoy music seems completely unaffected by this skipping (regardless of how many mods or tweaks are made) that having a much further view distance with more detail is preferable to background music. I've convinced myself that having nothing but ambient noises and wind/sounds effects is more realistic, and chancing playing music out loud with the PipBoy means enemies are more likely to hear you, and adds an extra factor of convenience versus survivability/stealth.

[Sugar Lee Hooper]

JOEcomotive, ARE YOU JESUS?

I've looked for over 20 hours to find a fix. And just this little thing helped me out.
Much love for you, I will post this on some sites. Much people are not aware of this fix
<3

[nomad2001]

I know this is an old thread, but before you go poking around your PC's codexes consider going into Fallout_Default.ini and under [Audio[ you will find bMultiThreadAudio=0. When I changed it to 1 the stuttering went away. It could just be a coincidence and if I remember I will update this comment with my results. Hopefully, more people can get this glitch fixed and enjoy this wonderful game without such annoyances

[None ✪ RangFort.ro]

Nomad's fix worked. Not sure if his fix cumulaed with the other but it worked for me. Vsync on both in game and Nvidia. i7 8700k / 1080 Ti. Cheersy.

[Vernholio]

Yep... just want to confirm that nomad2001's suggestion did, indeed work to fix my issue.

[PurpleMerc]

Also wanted to confirm nomad2001's suggestion worked for me as well. 8600K and 1080Ti with Windows 10

[AlchemistMatt]

Wow, I should have Googled this earlier. Nomad's fix to edit G:\SteamApps\steamapps\common\Fallout New Vegas\Fallout_default.ini to change from bMultiThreadAudio=0 to bMultiThreadAudio=1 fixed the stuttering background music problem.
Windows 10, Geforce GTX 1080, Realtek Audio, Gigabyte motherboard

[Jazz_lePhoonks]

I'm gonna test it out and get back to you guys when I have the chance but can anyone confirm whether this will work a Tale of Two Wastelands setup? I've been suffering from this problem for a couple days now, noticed it was also happening in a clean install of fallout 3..one of the reasons why i decided to go through all the trouble of setting up TTW but it's still happening. Hopeful for this ini tweak but since TTW setup involves so many ini changes and additions like stewie tweaks I don't really know where to make the changes lol.

[LittleMan74]

Jazz_Funkster eredeti hozzászólása:

I'm gonna test it out and get back to you guys when I have the chance but can anyone confirm whether this will work a Tale of Two Wastelands setup? I've been suffering from this problem for a couple days now, noticed it was also happening in a clean install of fallout 3..one of the reasons why i decided to go through all the trouble of setting up TTW but it's still happening. Hopeful for this ini tweak but since TTW setup involves so many ini changes and additions like stewie tweaks I don't really know where to make the changes lol.

Yup, so far works like a charm. Just tried on TTW. For me the issue always cropped up after about an hour of gameplay, so I'll reply again if it stops working. But, if not, just assume it works.

[Jazz_lePhoonks]

nomad2001 eredeti hozzászólása:

I know this is an old thread, but before you go poking around your PC's codexes consider going into Fallout_Default.ini and under [Audio[ you will find bMultiThreadAudio=0. When I changed it to 1 the stuttering went away. It could just be a coincidence and if I remember I will update this comment with my results. Hopefully, more people can get this glitch fixed and enjoy this wonderful game without such annoyances [/quote]

I thought this was working for me as I had several hours of clean gameplay but i guess it was a coincidence. The broken audio is back in full force today..I did notice that although it does affect both ambient music and pip boy radio music it does not affect NPC voices or Pres. Eden/Three Dog on the radio...a strange problem for sure.

[LittleMan74]

LittleMan74 eredeti hozzászólása:

Jazz_Funkster eredeti hozzászólása:

I'm gonna test it out and get back to you guys when I have the chance but can anyone confirm whether this will work a Tale of Two Wastelands setup? I've been suffering from this problem for a couple days now, noticed it was also happening in a clean install of fallout 3..one of the reasons why i decided to go through all the trouble of setting up TTW but it's still happening. Hopeful for this ini tweak but since TTW setup involves so many ini changes and additions like stewie tweaks I don't really know where to make the changes lol.

Yup, so far works like a charm. Just tried on TTW. For me the issue always cropped up after about an hour of gameplay, so I'll reply again if it stops working. But, if not, just assume it works.

Hmm, it started up again. To be clear all I've done is the ini tweak, I'll try the file further up.

[Jazz_lePhoonks]

edited my previous commment...It didn't pan out, the audio issue is back in full swing.

[Shredder]

I had the same issue for a month and i tried nearly every solution except reinstalling codecs but i couldn't fix it. Today i discovered that when i open League of Legends then New Vegas and league keeps working backround, New Vegas works fine. After you launch new vegas , you can close league and play peacefully. I don't know why this happens but it just works for me.

Edit : Using discord works too. I am not sure but it seems like using programs in the background works.

[tovergaard]

Shredder eredeti hozzászólása:

I had the same issue for a month and i tried nearly every solution except reinstalling codecs but i couldn't fix it. Today i discovered that when i open League of Legends then New Vegas and league keeps working backround, New Vegas works fine. After you launch new vegas , you can close league and play peacefully. I don't know why this happens but it just works for me.

Edit : Using discord works too. I am not sure but it seems like using programs in the backround works.

Confirmed Shredder...starting LOL is the only fix that worked for me