Big audio stutter issue

[acetrip6]

Long story short, the game runs great for me, but somehow I get audio stutters/crackling in traversal (always at the same spots) and in cutscenes in between shots etc.

I recorded a video of such a traversal line causing the audio scuff every time I cross it, however for some odd reason, the audio stutter is not present in the recording. What is present however is some clear dropped frames every time I cross the line, but only on vlc, on media player or youtube it's all smooth. Yeah idk either it's a real headache.

It makes the game unplayable for me, and I've tried all I can think of. Changing audio device : issue persists, tried the cpu mods, tried disabling E cores, running in administrator, removed programs etc. nothing worked.

My rig is an alienware r15, i7 13700kf, 32gb ram, rtx 4080 with iirc a 1350w psu, would definitely appreciate some help on this.

[acetrip6]

Been trying a lot of different things as I continue to search for a fix, tried messing with nvidia settings, windows settings of all kinds, unninstalled and reinstalled on another SSD, opened the game with no other program running etc. nothing works.

Surely I can't be the only one facing this issue D:

[cieleux]

Can't say this has conclusively fixed it for me. If you have nvidia profile inspector and enabled rBar on the global profile, disabling this setting has removed the crackling in the audio for me. I'm continuing to test this to see if this has completely fixed the issue for me. Also seeing that you have an intel CPU, I have seen other people suggest turning off the efficiency cores for your processor to help with the audio issues you may be experiencing either somehow in Windows or using process lasso.

[acetrip6]

thanks for the ideas, sadly I don't have nvidia profile inspector, and I did try to turn off my cpu's e cores with process lasso (as well as trying a bunch of different things on the software) and it didn't have any effect.

My guess is that for some reason, whenever I reach something in the game that causes loadings of some kind in the background, even though visually I'm not seeing any noticeable stutter, my audio is catching the frame pacing discrepancy (which is likely very small as the crackling is very quick, about a milisecond or 2 of audio loss every time it happens)

It's all especially confusing as I just finished playing wu kong before 16 released and that game was riddled with traversal stutters, none of which caused any audio issue.

[acetrip6]

I've now uninstalled all alienware software and processes, changed the pc's power outlet, deleted the documents folder, disabled every audio source outside of the one I'm using, changed headphones again, and I'm probably missing some. Still no luck.

One thing to note, I've been on a discord call at some point while doing tests and the audio stutter/crackle would also happen on the voice of the person I was talking to, as if it's causing a system wide issue rather than it being confined in the game. Same thing if I got a video in the background.

I'm using an area in the intro to test it out, a set of stairs that always trigger the audio pop/crackle/stutter. No matter what I do, the audio scuffs. It's very fast mind you, so one such pop could be overlooked, but since it's happening all the time while going through the game normally, it makes it extremely distracting.

So I'm once again asking for ideas about things I could've missed, thanks.

[Jtmzac]

This game is super CPU intensive while loading, that's why it loads so fast. With that in mind, it sounds like what might be happening is something in the driver/software chain isn't prioritising audio processing over the game, so when the CPU gets too busy the audio gets messed up.
That would also be why it doesn't show up in recordings. The audio data is still all there, its just being inconsistently delayed by the CPU being busy with other things.
You could test this by using a synthetic benchmark to fully load the cpu while you have some audio playing.

The other possibility depends on the type of headphones you have. If you're using something analogue plugged into either the back of the motherboard or the case front IO then it could be interference from the power systems of the motherboard due to the higher CPU load. If this is the case then a USB DAC will isolate the circuits and get rid of noise.

[acetrip6]

Thanks a lot for taking the time, based on your recommendations I did a few tests. I tried both a cpu benchmark and a cpu stress test while having audio running in the background, neither of which caused any kind of audio issue. (I really thought that'd be it tbh, I was surprised it was smooth as butter). Ingame the cpu doesn't go above 50%, and my 4080 is used at max in the zone I'm testing this at.

As for my headphones, I'm using a razer blackshark v2 (which has its own soundcard on the cable) on the front of the pc, I tried plugging it in the back, nothing changed either. (as mentionned I did try other headphones, same issues, worse in fact for the pulse 3d as anytime an audio loss happens the headphones audio dims out and back up in a really distracting way)

I also tried to play the game with my ethernet cable plugged out just in case, didn't do anything.

And while monitoring my hardware on task manager as I test it out ingame I can see nothing wrong, no spikes of any kind.

I've recorded a video of the test I'm doing ingame, you won't hear the audio scuff as I talked about, but I've put some text for whenever I hear it on my end : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzH5T7PCFMU

[Jtmzac]

hmm, that really is a weird one.
I just ran through the first bit of the prologue to get to the same point and there really isn't anything going on there. I can't see any notable CPU/RAM or SSD activity going on at all.

I tried limiting it to less cores as well since that causes problems elsewhere in the game but that didn't seem to do anything either.

My only other idea is maybe there's some very very slight hardware instability. With how complex voltage/frequency curves are these days its possible for something to be unstable only at a partial load.
Easiest way to test that would be to turn down the max cpu multipliers in the bios, as well as lowering the ram frequency. Leave all the voltages and everything the same though.
Then underclock the GPU core and memory in or something similar.
Being a 13700K you could also have the voltage degradation issues that's been hitting the high end intel chips.

[acetrip6]

I've just tried to do the test ingame while doing a cpu stress test at the same time (we like living dangerously), and ofc I got mad visual stutters, but no audio issues to accompany them, outside of the usual pop on those stairs.

I also tried to restart the game just in case and I got the same extremely distracting audio stutters littering cutscenes and gameplay as I had the first time.

I'm honestly so confused, if it was a voltage degradation issue surely I'd notice it on other things? I'm playing tons of games (wukong recently, very unstable game, no audio stutter whatsoever) and none of them have this issue.

One extra bit of info I forgot to mention, when I was testing it at some point, I was streaming my pov to a friend via discord, and not only could they hear the pop, they could also hear way more audio crackle than me. Which I can't really make sense of. (As if for them it was not only happening on those stairs, but even when I was in the menu etc.)

[Jtmzac]

Some games do cause hardware to react differently. Its like how some games are notorious for being extra sensitive to GPU overclocks compared to others.

I remembered the other main thing that can really screw with audio is having it on the wrong format in the windows settings. Just because the format is in the menu, doesn't mean it will work right. I had issues until I made sure everything was set to 16 bit, 48000Hz.

[acetrip6]

I was at 24 bit, 48000Hz but going to 16 didn't change anything. I will say though, I'm testing it rn while having another game running (ff14), and I'm noticing an audio crackle when I load in the game now (after clicking on continue). So I'm guessing it is very much looking like a CPU thing...

I was going to wait for them to patch it out but do you think they can make it more stable somehow or am I doomed to have to figure this out?

[Jtmzac]

Its very hard to know. If enough people report the problem and replicate it then they can fix it. But if its very specific to only a few systems its very unlikely it will ever be fixed on their end.

Its really up to you how much effort you're willing to put into trying stuff. I am very familiar with how draining it is trying to fix stuff like this and it gets very annoying fast.

Your options are basically trying various hardware tweaks to eliminate potential causes, or trying a clean windows install to eliminate potential software issues.

I would try disabling rebar like the other poster suggested if you haven't yet. You can either turn it off globally in the BIOS or download nvidiaprofileinspector from orbmu2k's github and turn it off just for ff16. I'd try properly turning off e-cores in the BIOS too. It's not the same as process lasso and could have very different results.

[acetrip6]

I'm in too deep to stop now tbh^^ so I downloaded nvidia profile inspector and checked Rebar was off, and also turned off e cores in the bios, issue persists. This is the strangest pc issue I've ever had, it makes no sense.

I guess I could try disabling speedstep in the bios as well or something. Everything seems to indicate it's cpu related but I can't shake the feeling something else is at play here.

[acetrip6]

Quick update to say that I have significantly reduced the issue by doing this : https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comments/1fsy6zd/psa_disabling_core_0_for_ff16_pc_eliminated_my/?share_id=2X-w-lUQ-TjN8nOSO8JgI&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&utm_source=share&utm_term=22

It's not perfect, still some occasional audio stutters, but far less often and less intrusive. I haven't tested it out of the intro yet though so it might get worse later on.

[S7even]

I have the same problem with you, even sittin on starting menu giving me a crackling sound. Then i start playin without care about it too much till i reached 10 hours plus ingame time and the crackling sound become less and less as the story progress. I do believe there is something wrong within the data itself either it's corrupted while we download it or it just a bug from the game. I already tried with 3 audio devices and all of em giving the same result (headset, speaker and dualsense controller speaker) so i assume it's not a hardware problem. This is the only game that have this issue. I don't ever have this issue before even when watching movies, youtube, listen to music and playin another games. Already tried to clean install audio driver and gpu driver as well but still same result. Some say i need to clean install the windows but i'm to lazy to do that cause i don't think it's worth the time only for 1 game

[acetrip6]

Quick update, despite my audio issues having decreased since the last patch, I can still hear some audio pop/stutter quite often. I just wanted to share as a bit of extra info a video clip recorded through the new steam post game recording feature. It showcases a horrendous amount of audio pops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do3LVL-Iv5w

To be clear, I don't hear that many while playing, nowhere close to it in fact, but it largely seems part of the same issue as they sound very similar. It's as if the game was very unstable. (Once again, this is the ONLY game I have that issue with)

Maybe this can help someone figure out what this is about.